Will Smith and Chris Rock – Ethics

by: Marceline Donaldson

There is and has been a great upheaval about the punch to the face Will Smith delivered to Chris Rock.

Most of the opinions, expressed very publicly, show how deeply entrenched sexism is in this society.

The wrong starts with Will Smith with calls tp “lock him up” from the police; take him down, in one way or another, from everyone else.

What is missing is a clear statement of the wrong that happened. Mostly, that “wrong” violent action is blamed on Will Smith. Let us be clear and truthful without our history of bigotry intervening. This was started not by Will Smith, but by Chris Rock. He is an example of that in which comedians trade – the insults slung at women on a constant basis. The insult is followed by laughter, which re-enforces the sentiment and makes an ugly joke out of most women. Once upon a time this was very prevalent amongst comedians who traded on vicious “jokes” and what were supposed to be “funny” characterizations of African Americans. It is still true whenever there is a group some insecure person wants to take down – like Chris Rock and his attack on Jada Pinkett.

The violence on stage was started by Chris Rock with his vicious joke aimed at Jada Pinkett. The fact that she was sitting in front of him amongst an audience of her peers and could be hurt and diminished and oppressed by this public and ugly joke about her hair is something that the audience reacted to with great hilarity. Will Smith, after a moment spent enjoying this boost to his male ego came to his senses and went to defend his wife.

Chris Rock’s joke was far more deleterious than Will Smith’s punch. Rock will recover quickly and go on to accolades about how “elegantly” he acted in spite of Smith’s crudeness. The real story is that we live in a sexist society in which it is just fine to make crude jokes about women. We have been trained by generations of vicious, oppressive jokes denigrating women that this is “fun”, he meant no harm, don’t you have a sense of humor? The women at whom the jokes are aimed walk away more oppressed, more put down, more discouraged than they were before the joke.

The violence done to women by Chris Rock needs to be held up and dealt with. He is, after all, the one who started this violence. His violence was against women. Will Smith limited his violence to Chris Rock. The comedians who make money and gain fame by doing such are too numerous to mention, but you hear them all the time. The audience’s reaction is always one of hilarious laughter and the woman has been diminished in the sight of her friends and former admirers. She has been “tamed” and now knows a little better, her place.

If punishment is going to come it needs to start with Chris Rock before it moves on to Will Smith. Men are outraged at what happened and have engaged in much talk about Will Smith’s violence – which even his close friends refuse to condone. None of those close friends have commented at all on the violence done to Jada Pinkett by Chris Rock. The rush to punish Will Smith, while raising up Chris Rock because he reacted “like a man” – he was a “mensch” – “how could he keep his composure under such circumstances. All of this belies the extreme bigotry with which we live.

When are we going to see clearly the horribleness of bigotry in this society and how deeply entrenched it is and continues to be? It is time for those who perform on the backs of others to be called to task and with this I am calling Chris Rock to be a better person and apologize for what he did to Will Smith; to call for Will Smith’s punishment to be put on him also because he deserves it; and to make amends to Jada Pinkett for the sexism he sprayed all over her and over women in general, especially over those who suffer from alopecia in a society which judges a woman by her hair.