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Patriarchy and Pop Culture — Will Smith Is Being A Man
Patriarchy: slapping someone in the face on live TV in the name of defending your family’s honour.
In what has to be the slap heard round the world, Will Smith strolled up on the Oscar stage, unbuttoned his suit jacket, hit Chris Rock in the face so hard we heard it on TV, then calmly turned and walked back to his seat.
The show continued uninterrupted while Twitter erupted. At first there was confusion — was this staged? some kind of bit? Then once everyone had time to recap the footage and hear Will say, “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth,” with a stare so grim there was no mistaking he was serious, we knew this wasn’t acting.
Yes, that happened. But what happened next was much more interesting to me. People defended the slap. More than that, some people praised Will Smith for standing up for his wife.
For some context, Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett, Will’s wife, saying that he’s excited for GI Jane part 2, which is a reference to Jada’s hair being pretty close to bald. It’s supposedly well known that Jada has a condition called alopecia, which contributes to hair loss.
