JONATHAN JANSEN | Where there’s a Will there’s another way: that slap was just plain wrong

What does that almighty slap say about us? For those of you who have been detached from the world in a bunker without wifi, this is what happened. At the 2022 Academy Awards in Hollywood last Sunday night (early Monday in SA), and in front of 16.6-million people, the slap happened. Comedian Chris Rock was on stage doing what comedians do: make fun of everything, including other people. Then, in a tasteless joke, he picked on Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

Jada shaves her head because of a condition called alopecia, which causes someone to lose patches of hair at a time. Whether Chris knew this or not he took aim: “Jada, I love ya. GI Jane 2 — can’t wait to see it.” In this 1997 movie, the main character, Demi Moore, has a shaved head.

Will laughed but Jada did not, rolling her eyes. And then the unthinkable happened. Smith walked onto the stage and in front of everyone gave Rock that almighty slap. The comedian absorbed the force, made light of it and continued the show. But not before Smith, now back in his seat, shouted angrily at a visibly shaken Rock: “Keep my wife’s name out of your f*****g mouth!”

I am less interested in the violence of American theatre than the response to violence right here in Mzansi. I read with shock and disappointment how the incident was received by many (not all) South Africans on social media. There were those who outright condoned this sickening display of masculine violence. In other words, we would do exactly the same thing if a man insulted our wives.

First of all, how 19th-century of you, chivalrous man? Has it occurred to you that women can defend themselves? What Smith did was actually an insult to women, not a defence of them. It belittles the other half of humanity as if they have no power of response and, as in the movies, need the hardy man on a white horse to save the damsel in distress from the threatening hoodlums.

There were so many options available to Will and indeed to Jada. Don’t laugh. Walk out. Confront with words. Object in writing. But, no, physically assaulting a man in front of your family and your children is not the way to do it.

Then there were those who argued that the prior violence came in the joke itself. This was the sort of violence that through words, rather than muscle, inflicts deep and invisible wounds on the target. Making fun of a woman’s appearance is the sort of misogyny that often passes for laughs in men’s bars. I take the point. But is the appropriate response to a trashy comedic act physical violence? Absolutely not. “I have three words for Will Smith,” said Sara Sidner, a black female journalist: “Use your words.”

There were so many options available to Will and indeed to Jada. Don’t laugh. Walk out. Confront with words. Object in writing. Shout from your seat if necessary: “That is unacceptable.” But, no, physically assaulting a man in front of your family and your children is not the way to do it.

For a country the history of which is soaked in violence and the democracy of which has been disfigured by violence from the state (remember Marikana?) and from its men (remember the mantra gender-based violence?) to just about everyone else, this action by a favourite movie star is not something to be celebrated; it must be condemned out of hand.

Here is the devastating irony in what the famous actor did. His new book Will (aided in the writing by Mark Manson) is a story of self-discovery in which the violence of his father towards his mother looms large. In his own words:

“When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am.”

Let’s be clear, what we saw at the Oscars was inherited violence. After the slap, his son said this: “And that’s how we do it.” Yes, into the third generation. What a horrible, horrible legacy to leave your children.

In the end, this was also a selfish act. Smith took the shine off the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for recognition for the actors and actresses who won later in the evening; the tennis-playing Williams sisters honoured in the movie for which he was nominated, and present in the audience; and himself, for later in the evening he actually won the Oscar for best actor.

In the end, Smith (eventually) apologised to Rock, saying he was out of line. Fine. But the damage was done, for the witnesses to violence will forever remember not the slap but the broadcasted lesson about how violent men behave when they bear a grievance, whether in Los Angeles or Ukraine ... or SA.