Seeing assault and battery happening live on nationally broadcast television is a rare occurrence. Especially since Live PD got canceled.
I love watching people doing stupid things on TV, so you can imagine my excitement when I heard something happened at the Oscars on Sunday night. Of course, I had no intention of watching it live. The idea of a bunch of old stiffs picking long, boring, artsy films made by and starring insufferable douche bags doesn’t quite do it for me. I find movie snobs, which the Academy Awards is the yearly convention for, quite annoying. Their shunning of popular movies just because they’re popular has a hipster vibe.
But the films and musical performances were just a warm up act for the real show this year.
Obviously, you know what happened. Will Smith, who later won best actor for his performance in King Richard, was offended by a very unfunny joke targeted at his wife. Not only was he offended, he walked up and slapped Chris Rock who delivered the joke, then proceeded to swear at him. Don’t let me tell you about it, watch it here:
Now I saw a lot of people saying that this was a staged event. Which was my original thought as well. This had publicity stunt written all over it. But after the 300th time watching this (including after posting the video here), I still don’t know. Smith should have been stopped immediately after standing up and heading towards the stage. And he should’ve been removed right after it all happened. Why nothing happened shows the ridiculous privilege movie stars have. If I did this, I’d be in jail for quite some time.
But as per usual these days, the reaction to this has been more ridiculous than the actual incident. First things first, I saw someone tweet that this was the ultimate example of “white privilege.” This was such a reach it is hilarious. I suggest you find people that said things like this, the comments are fantastic.
That nonsense aside, what I have a problem with is all of the people responding like this is the end of the world. According to a Daily Caller Tweet, “Academy Signals Will Smith Could Lose Oscar Over Slapping Incident.” Also, on my way to work on Monday morning, I heard someone call into Magic 106.7 in Boston saying they would never “watch Will Smith again,” and that “he should never be allowed to be in movies again.” The Academy has also announced that they are going to be holding a meeting of the “Board of Governors” (the douchiest name possible for a bunch of people that watch too many shitty movies) to discuss the incident.
If they end up taking away Smith’s award, I really don’t care. It’s a hardo thing anyway and doesn’t really matter. My real issue is with the people saying that this was bad for the Oscars. It was most certainly not. This is probably the best thing that could have happened for them.
For years, the ratings for these award shows have been tanking. Several things are to blame. First, is that people aren’t that interested in the movies. Another reason is that people aren’t watching TV anymore. It’s not the cash cow it used to be. The biggest reason is that people don’t need to watch things live anymore. All you need to do is look up the results in the morning and watch the interesting clips on YouTube.
What an incident like this does is brings those live viewers back. I know people will be locked in next year to see what might happen. Nothing will, because they’ll have things on absolute LOCKDOWN. That will be entertaining in itself. They’ll do everything possible for something like this not to happen. There won’t be any good jokes and it’ll be comically boring. Not to mention the fact that this incident will not be referred to. Which is a swing and a miss. I may even check in to see the opening monologue.
Regardless, the Academy will be their boring, stuffy selves and not have fun with this. They’re ratings will spike, and then absolutely plummet back to where they belong. Eventually, it’ll turn into what it is, just a bunch of rich jerks worshiping each other. Nobody will watch and the Oscars will be relegated to movie snob chats. And for that, I’m happy.
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