TheOrator.Press (TO.P) Is A Long-Form, High Photo & Video Content, Broadsheet Style Magazine, Which Offers Readers A Literary Buffet Within Articles. Look At The List (Directly Underneath Here) And Take Your Pick, With A Click:

Between A Rock & A Hard Face

Where There’s A Will There’s A Way. But That Was The Wrong Way This Time!

They’ve Got History

The Real Reason?

As Steady As A Rock

Hollywood Hipocrisy?

The Will Smith Slap: Between A Rock & A Hard Face!

Will Smith & Jada Pinkett Smith Are One of Hollywood’s Longest Lasting Marriages

Will Smith And Wife Jada Pinkett Smith On The Red Carpet At The Academy Awards Ceremony March 27, 2022. They Were To Go Down In History After Their Response To A Joke Made By The Host Chris Rock About Jada’s Hairsytle. She Was Scowling And After Initially Laughing Will Went Up To Him During The Live Broadcast And Slapped Him Following What Appeared To Be A Controversial Delayed Reaction

A Pretty Big Problematic Self-Inflicted Drama Unravelled At The Oscars (Oscars.Org) For This Dedicated Hollywood Couple. (12 Second GIF) @JadaPinkettSmith Dress By @Jean Paul Gaultier. Shocking Slap To @Chris Rock By @Will Smith. Such A Shame. Really Heartbreaking. Before The World Loved Him Dearly. Deep Down They Still Do, Probably. There’s Nothing Like A Good Redeemption Story… So We Really Hope That He Makes Good!

The Irony Is Demi Moore As GI Jane Was Stunning! Jade Looks As Stunning As Ever Before And After Alopecia. It Was A ‘Genuine’ Typical Chris Rock Style Joke! The Couple Have Known Him For Years. And Mr Smith Himself Is A Fellow King of Comedy! It’s Hard To Fathom Why Such An Ill-Timed Sense of Humour Failure In Such A Manner.

Before Will Smith’s Utterly Wrong, Wholly Unneccesary, And Self-Destructive Slap of Chris Rock, In Front of The Whole Wide World At The Oscars 2022, The On Screen Hollywood Slap Across The Face Was Ubiquitous, An Accepted Moment of Televisual or Cinematic High Drama, And Often An Ingredient That Helped Make A TV Show or Movie Drama A Very Likely Award Winner.

Indeed So Much So That It Helped Spawn The Rather Ugly Phrase Now Present In Common Phraseology Which Refers To Someone Not Just Being Slapped But “B^^^h Slapped” After Receiving A “B^^^h Slap”. A Particular Stinging, Sharp And Strong Slap Across The Face, With An Assumed Right To Do It. And Usually Retold With Gossippie Glee About Someone’s Else’s Facial Misfortune, With A Notable Touch of Schadenfreude.

But Now, In Terms of Slapping People Across The Face, Suddenly, Unexpectedly, And Momentuously, Here Comes A Very Public Reality Check. International Outrage And Indignation In Response To The Incident Has Provided An Historical Moment For Reflection, Introspection And Hollywood Rejection In The Face of A Fast-Changing Progressive 21st Century.

Alexis Carrington & Dominique Deveraux In A Dramatic Dynasty Slap Scene, Encassed Within The Hollywood Glamour Machine

Producer Esther Shapiro Said “We Wanted A Part Where A Black Person Could Be On The Same Social & Economic Level As The White Characters. The One Thing We Wouldn’t Do Is Put A Black Woman As A Victim.”

Dynasty Loved A Bit of ‘Slap n’ Tickle’ As Highlighted By The Dynamic Dialogue & Dynamic Action In This Clip

Diahann Carroll, Noticing 80s Dynasty Had Challenged Pressing Issues Such As Age, Rape And Homosexuality But Not Racial Integration Said: “I Want To Be The First Black B^^^ch On Televison.”

Joan Collins Said, “I Think It Is Wonderful To Have Another Fabulous ‘Over 40’ In Prime Time. We Have Had A Couple Of B^^^h-To-B^^^h Scenes Which Have Been Very Good. And Of Course, No One Knows Better Than I That In Playing A Bitch You Don’t Have To Be One”

It’s Time For Will To Repent At Leisure, Chris To Contemplate A Very Bright Future And Hollywood To Re-Think The Mixed Messaging In The TV Shows & Movies It Makes For A Changed Society’s Viewing Pleasure.

And Jada? Well, Given The Remonstration of Rock By Her Husband, There Appears To Be A Widely Interpreted Direction To The World At Large Not To Talk About Her. Even Though She Talks About Her (Self). Alot. When It Suits. With Her Own Dose of Mixed Messaging In The Form of A World Famous Hashtag #OscarsSowhite, A Red Table Talk Show (RedTableTalk.Com), A Self-Monikered (Extramarital) “Entanglement”, A World Witnessed Side Eye, And Subsequent Selective Silence.

Now It All Rather Seems Like A Very Hot Mess Featuring One of The Most Formerly Successful Power Couples In Hollywood!

Where There’s A Will There’s A Way. But On This Ocassion It Wasn’t The Right Way. And It’s A Crying Shame, Because He Was One of The Greats!

To Use A Well Worn And Particularly Appropriate Judicial Phrase In This Case @Will Smith Has Become “The Author of His Own Misfortune.” Which Is Horribly Ironic Because Just Month’s Ago As The Author of His New Autobiography “Will” He Was Riding’ High At The Savoy Theatre Where He Had The Audience In The Palm of His Hands (Including Us), During The London Leg of His Book Tour. Various Other Book Events Preceeded This London Visit, Includin’ Back In America In His Hometown of Philadelphia, Hosted By @Queen Latifah.

At One Point Before Then, There Was Even Talk of Him Becomin’ President Because He Was One of The Most Popular Men On The Planet. And If Any Black Man Beyond Obama Had The Requisite Amount of Charisma, Intelligence And Appeal – It Was Him. And If Not, He Had The Star Quality And Physicality To Star In Obama’s Biopic At The Very Least. Especially After His Oscar Nominated Portrayal of Boxer Muhammed Ali.

In His Aforementioned Book, He Explains How He Was Traumatized As A Child On Seeing His Autocratic Father Knock His Mum Out With A Single Punch. It Traumatized Him, Made Him Feel Powerless, Like He Was A Coward, And Like He Had to Become A People Pleaser In Order To Survive It. And It Was That People Pleaser Who Made It Big.

And He Explains Why He’s Been So Liberal With His Own Kids. But Headin’ For His Fifties He Felt The Need To Live As A More Authentic Version Himself, When He Finally Faced The Fact That He Had Not Been Doing That. And So He Worked Hard On Some Serious Self-Improvement, Self-Growth & Self-Development. It Seemed To Work And He Said He Was The Best He’d Ever Been. (So Much So That He Celebrated With A Sky Dive For His 50th Birthday). And The Queen of Self-Improvement, Oprah Winfrey, Said His Was “One of The Best Books” She’d Ever Read.

So It Makes It All The Harder To Fathom How & Why He And His Wife Clearly Did Not Formulate A Coping Strategy As A Couple In The Event of An Utterly Foreseeable Joke or Comment At Their Expense From Comedian Chris Rock – Or Anybody Else At The Oscars or Throughout Award Season. Particularly In Relation To Her Self-Styled Extra Marital “Entanglement” or Her Alopecia (Sensitivity About Which Her Defenders Says Is The Reason For Her Reaction To The Chris Rock Joke). This Is Especially So After @Rebel Wilson’s Jibe At The BAFTAS @bafta Last Month (Sunday March 13 2022) Where Will Won Best Actor In His Abscence And To Which She Mercilessly Joked “I Thought His Best Performance Over The Last Year Was Bein’ OK With All His Wife’s Boyfriends”. The Audience Response Was Basically Non-Existent To Which She Replied “Come On. He Didn’t Turn Up”.

Talkin’ To Presenter Gayle King On CBS The Next Day He Denied Jada Had Been Unfaithful – Despite Her Previous Apparent Admission To Will of An “Entanglement”, Which She Then Later Referred To As A “Relationship” On Her Round Table Talk Show. Again, Also In Front of The Whole World.

Previously They’ve Said They Consider Themselves “Life Partners” Not “Husband & Wife”, And They Were Separated At The Time. It Brings To Mind The Ross & Rachel ‘On A Break‘ Debacle In The Hit TV Show Friends, Except In This Case Both Jada & Will Seem To Agree If You’re Technically Separated It Does Not Count As Infidelity. And So An “Entanglement” & “Extra Marital Relationship” Are Within The Bounds of Acceptability For Them. It Seems All Rather Complicated, Notwithstanding Will Endeavoured To Explain Elements of It In His Aforementioned Book.

The History & Anatomy of This Star-Studded Slap

Will Smith & Chris Rock Before That Slap (At The Oscars 2022) In The Fresh Prince of Belair (When Will & Chris Were Just Coming Up)

The Smiths Have A Long History With Chris Rock Which Stretches Back To Him Appearing In The Fresh Prince of Bel Air As Will’s Blind Date In The 1990s. It Was Also As A Result of Pinkett Being On The Set of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air That She And Smith Met And Subsequently Got Together As Will Explains In His Book. Chris Famously Took The Mick Out of Jada For Boycotting The Oscars More Recently In 2016 As Part of The #OscarsSoWhite Campaign. As The Academy Awards Host That Year Rock Joked “It’s Unfair Will Did Not Get Nominated For “Concussion” But It’s Also Unfair He Got $20m For Wild Wild West”. And “Jada Boycottin’ The Oscars Is Like Me Boycottin’ Rhianna’s Panties. I Wasn’t Invited.”

Fast Forward To Sunday March 27 2022 At The 94th Academy Awards (Oscars.org) And Here We Have A Stunningly Beautiful Lookingly Black Woman – Sportin’ A Shaven Haircut – Undeniably Like GI Jane (Who By The Way, As Portrayed By Former Hollywood Golden Girl At The Time, White Actress @Demi Moore, Looked Beautiful, Was Pioneering And Was Applauded). So By His Own Observant, Highly Intelligent, Profoundly Perceptive & Widely Respected Comedic Standards, He Was Factually Correct In Terms of The GI Jane Comparison.

By His Standards And Compared To What He Could Have Said, Has Said Before, – And – What Is Now Being Said By Others Since The Incident, It Was A Gentle Joke. And Let’s Not Forget One Quarter of The Sixteen Word Joke Included The Words “I Love You Jada”.

But Jada Did Not See The Funny Side. Instead She Rolled Her Eyes And Soured Her Face When Rock Announced ” I Love You Jada. Looking Forward To GI Jane 2. Can’t Wait To See It. OK?”.

Turns Out It Wasn’t OK!

At First The Camera Shot To Will & The Audience Laughing.

But Then It Shot To Jada Rollin’ Her Eyes & Makin’ Her Disdain & Disapproval Very Clear By Way of An Unmistakably, Deliberately Displayed Vexed Miserable Face.

And Then It Shot Back To Will Again And Showed Him Suddently Swaggering To The Stage.

And When He Arrived At Chris Rock He Struck Him With A Big Slap of The Face And Then Strolled Back To His Seat Again.

The Shocked Host Was Left Standin’ Sayin’ “Wow! Wow! Wow!” And Looking Stressed Out And Every Bit As Shocked As He Was.

Not Yet Finished Will Started Shouting “Keep My Wife’s Name Out of Your F^^king Mouth”.

Twice!

And Then Much To His Credit, Chris, Havin’ Stayed On His Feet, And Kept Calm, Literally Performed The British Wartime Mantra of “Keep Calm And Carry On.”

Minutes Later The Next Guest Presenter Came On And Will Was Announced As The Winner of The Oscar For Best Actor, For Which He Received A Standing Ovation.

His Huge Mistake Seemed To Have Registerd Quite Quickly As He Took The Opportunity To Apologise, In Tears, To The Academy And His Fellow Nominees, But Notably Not To Chris Himself. The Person He Actually Hit. He Attempted To Explain Himself By Sayin’ “Love Makes You Do Crazy Things.” [That Was Apology Number 1.]

Within 24 Hours He Improved On That And Issued An Apology To Chris Too. It Was Pretty Lame Though. [That Was Apology Number 2.]

By Saturday April 2nd 2022 (The Followin’ Weekend) He Issued A Third Statment Announcing His Resignation From The Academy And Said He Takes Full Responsibility And Would Accept Whatever Further Action They Take After Disciplinary Proceedings On April 18th 2022 When The Board Was Next Due To Convene. [That Was Apology Number 3.]

From #OscarsSoWhite To A Look That Preceeded A One-Sided Fight, And Caused A Whole World of Hurt, What Was That Slap Really & Truly All About?

Despite Their Famous Red Table Talks Will Still Saw Red & Lost Control. Why? Perhaps We Will Never Know!

Followin’ The #Me Too Movement & The Expose of Sexual Harassment & Assault By Former Film Producer Harvey Wienstein Who Is Now In Jail, Having Been Convicted, The Academy of Motion Pictures, Art & Science (Oscars.Org) Drafted A New Code of Conduct And Its Wording Included The Potential For Will To Become The First Actor To Have His Oscar Taken Away, For Unacceptable Violent Behaviour. Such Retropsective Action Does Not Make Much Sense In TO.P’s Opinion Because The Oscar Was For His Acting,’ A Body of Work Long Since Delivered And An Academy Decision Long Since Made. Hence The Standing Ovation He Received At The Time On The Night, Seperate To What He Did Moments Before.

He Should Be Reprimanded For His Bad Behaviour On The Night, But Not Denied Recognition of The Great Acting He’s Already Delivered, Because Two Wrongs Never Make A Right. And How Could It Be Right That His Oscar Is Retracted When Wienstein, Roman Polanski, Mel Gibson, And Bill Cosby Got To Keep Theirs? It Seems Punishment Enough That He Has Had To Resign From The Academy And Thus Lose All His Oscar Privileges, As Well As Be Plunged From The Height of Success Down Into A PR Abyss, Thus Makin’ It Hard For Him To Ever Make Another Movie Without This Cloud Hanging Over Him, As His Box Office Draw Will Never Be The Same Again. Netflix And Sony Already Announced The Following Sunday That They Are Droppin’ Previously Lined Up Projects For Instance.

However There Still Remains A Huge Disconnect Between Him Laughing’, Jada Fumin’, And Then Him Strutting Up & Slapping The Ceremony’s Well Known, Well Liked & Duly Announced Well In Advance Host For The The Night. What Was The Communication That Took Place Between Him Laughing At The GI Jane 2 Joke, Her Fuming, And Him Slapping?

And How Could This Power Couple of Two Directors, Producers, Interviewers And Leaders Not Have Had A Conversation Before Attending The Event On How To Deal With A Possible Wisecrack From Chris, When It Was So Utterly Predicatable That Such A Joke Could Possibly Happen. If Anything It’s Their Joint Lack of Professional Preparation That’s Hardest To Fathom. Hopefully It Will Come To Light In The Fullness of Tme. But Whatever It Is, Their Joint Ultimate Response Was Just Not Right. And This Is Why They Appear To Have Come off Worse.

Meantime In Last Year’s Autobiography ‘Will ‘He Shared That His Greatest Fear Was Losing Everything, Which Was Second Only To Him Not Making It At All. It Seems His Worst Nightmere Has Come True. It’s So Sad, So Horrible, And So Haunting.

Another Poignant Insight He Shared Is That When He Visited Late President Nelson Mandela In South Africa, Whilst Filming ‘Ali’ (In Which He Was Excellent) Mandela Wanted To Share Time With Him To Show Him Something Special During The Trip. Will Never Made The Time. About Which He Felt Very Bad And Later Explained Was Due To The Fear He Might Not Be Able To Live Up To Whatever It Was Mandela Might Have Asked Him To Do.

So In The Abscence of The Requisite Transparency To Get To The Bottom of This Mystery, Despite Initial Appearances It Would Seem That Will Is Not As Healed As He And We (His Fans) First Thought He Was. And Perhaps Entanglements (To Coin A Certain Someone’s Phrase) Come In Various Forms. That’s All We’re Saying As We Keep Her Name Out of Our Mouths For Now.

Credit To Chris For Remaining As Steady As A Rock And Keeping Calm And Carrying On. What Carnage There Would Have Been HadThey Both Kicked Off. Getting To That Stage (For Both Men) Took Way Too Long. It Would Have Been Even More Horrendous If They Both Threw It Down The Drain !

The Irony Is Deep. @JadaPinkettSmith Started A Hashtag Called #Oscars Too White In 2016, She Turned Up In 2022 And Her Husband Was One of Two Black Guys Involved In A One Way Fight Over Her.

A Fictional Film About The First Woman To Undergo Navy SEAL Training (1997). In Her Autobiography @Demi Moore Who Trained Physically Hard For The Role, Famously Transforming Her Fitness And Physique, Called It Her Proudest Professional Moment. This Notwithstanding She Won A Razzie For Worst Actress (A Spoof of The Oscars). And With A Return of $48 On A $50 Budget It Was Officially A Flop. Even Though It Opened At No.1 At The Box Office.

But It Brought Demi Much Hollywood Acclaim Due To Her Physical Transformation, Dedication And Such A Daring Hair Cut In Hollywood At The Time (Which Actually Highlighted Her Natural Beauty). The Hair Cut Does The Same For Jada Too. But It Seems They Have Different Approaches To It. ( In Any Event, Six Years Earlier, Demi, Married To Bruce Willis, Became The First Woman To Appear Naked & Pregnant On A Magazine Cover – Vantiy Fair 1991. So Her Acclaim, Style Kudos, Cool Factor – And Controversy Factor – Were Already High.)

Born June 10 1893 One of The 13 Children Born To Two Freed Slaves, African-American Hattie Mcdaniels Won The 1940 Oscar For Best Supporting Actress At The 12th Academy Awards. She Beat Fellow Nominee Olivia de Havilland To Do So. Her Achievement Was Phenomenal Considering The Day n’ Age. She Was The First Black Person To Win A Supporting Actress Oscar. @Halle Berry Was To BeThe Second In 2002. Hattie’s Award Was Presented By Fellow Actress Fay Bainter, Who Was Born In The Same Year. Hattie Passed In 1952. Bainter Survived Her By 14 Years, Passing In 1968.

Has Wills Career Gone With The Wind? Only Time Will Tell. But Anyone Who’s Read His Book Will Know The High Calibre Kind of Guy He Is And That He Will Feel He Has He Definitely Let Himself Down.

The Irony Is Deep. @JadaPinkettSmith Started A Hashtag Called #Oscars Too White In 2016, She Turned Up In 2022 And Her Husband Was One of Two Black Guys Involved In A One Way Fight Over Her. Never Had Either Man Behaved Publicly In This Way Before. And Yet Mr & Mrs Smith Both Host An Online Chat Show Called The Red Table But Apparently Never Discussed What To Do If Chris Rock Makes A Joke About Either One of Them, Knowing His Comedic Style. Really?

How Is That Possible? It’s Incredulous!

So Why The Jada Eye Roll? Jada Is Reportedly Naturally Sensitive To The Fact That She Has Alopecia (Say Those Making Excuses For Her Until She Speaks Up For Herself And Explains What On Earth Actually Happened). But Here’s The Thing. She Also Has History With Chris Rock. And Rock Has History With Black Women And Black Women’s Hair Issues. How Did She Not She It Coming And Prepare For It? Especially As She Has So Many Inspiring & Empowerment Talks Around That Red Table Discussing All Kinds of Sensitive Issues?

Will Could Have Gone Stratespheric Had He Not Done What He Did, When He Did It, Where He Did It, And How He Did It. It Makes One Wonder If This Was The Ultimate Case of Self-Sabotage. Conciously Or Otherwise! Based Upon His Book, He Had Apparently Sorted All His Issuses Out. And Was Lauded For Doing So. Includng By Us. We Read It. Reviewed It. Loved It. Attended The Book Tour. He Was A Superstar!

Whatever It Was That Truly Caused This Fall From Grace It Was Not Only His Loss, But A Loss To All His Fans, The Black Community And The Whole Wide World Which Witnessed His Least Finest Hour, And Will Now Never Know Where The Wonders of His Phenomenal Talents Could Have Taken Him…And All of Us. Whilst He Must Be In Agony. It’s A Loss For All of Us Too. And It Hurts!

On Sunday March 27 2022 In Real Life. And In Real Time, In Front of An Audience of Billions, As Well As Unfortunate & Fundamentally Unexplained Slapping There Was Unseemly Yet Quite Specific Shouting. Having Returned to His Seat After The Slap (Strangely Slightly Sheepishly) From That Seat To The Stage He Shouted An Order To Chris Rock “Keep My Wife’s Name Out of Your F’ ing Mouth”.

Twice!

The Second Time More Emphatically Than The First!

Everybody Was Shocked. Includin’ Actress @Lupita N’ongo Who Was Sittin’ Next To Smith At The Time, With Jada On Her Other Side. She Looked Visibly Surprised And Stunned. As Was Everyone.

The Irony Is, Because of That Woefully And Uncharacteristically Bad Behaviour, That’s All Anybody In Hollywood And Around Is Talking About In Oscar Night Terms Right Now. And It Doesn’t Look Like He’ll Ever Live It Down. It Is Now Oscar History In Tinsel Town!

The Academy (Oscars.Org) Later Banned Him From Oscar Events For A Decade!

Whether He Knew About Jada’s Alopecia or Not, Chris Rock Knew About Black Hair Sensitivity Because He Made A Documentary All About It Years Ago. But Good Luck Gettin’ A Ticket To Rock’s New Comedy Tour Because Prices Have Rocketed & It Seems They’re All Gone!

But There’s Another Element To The Story of This Incident. Namely The History of Some Hollywood TV Shows & Movies.

What About Hollywood Hipocrisy?

Back In The Day There Was Chris Rock’s ‘Good Hair’ Documentary Film (2009) Which He Made Following A Hair Question Form His Little Daughter. Last Year There Was Will’s Smith’s Triumphant Self-Titled Biography Called ‘Will’. And In Very Simple But Carefully Selected Language Describing A 21st Century ‘Situationship’ There Was Jada’s Pinkett Smith’s Very Liberal “Entanglement” With A Much Younger Man. And Then Came Slap-Gate. And Then After That Came Virtually Immediate General Utter Outrage, Open Season For The Self-Righteous, Haters, And Racists. And That’s A Crying Shame!

And Whether Certain Members of Society Choose To Admit It or Not, The Devil Is Always Lurkin’ In Different Guises.

Another African-American Hollywood Great (The Legend That Is Denzel Washington @DenzelOnly ) Reminded Will of This On The Night During An Impromptu Break.

And Will Revealed What He Said In His Subsequent Oscar Acceptance Speech On The Night.

Comedian Steve Harvey Discusses The Incident & Agrees With Denzel’s Words of Wisdom (Sadly Deliverd After The Event!

The Utter Tragedy & Great Controversy Here Is Location. Location. Location. Will Smith Chose To Enact The Worst Moment of His Career – Just Before The Greatest Moment of His Career – On The Global Stage That Is The Oscars.Org. On The Night He Won A Best Actor Oscar For ‘King William’. In Front of Millions of Fans Who Love Him & Haters Who Love To Hate Virtually Everyone. And Others Somewhere In Between. Consequently It’s Almost Possible To Forget He Did Actually Win An Oscar For Best Actor Altogether!

But This Is Also A Tale of A Black Married Hollywood Female Director, Actor And Producer And Two Black Hollywood Male Stars Who Used To Be Friends With Each Other. One of Whom Who Lost Control And Escalated. And One of Whom Kept Control & Descalated. Whilst In The Moment It Was Shocking, Humiliating And Traumatizing For The Latter, He Has Come Out A Hero, And Sales For His Comedy Tour Tickets Have Gone Through The Roof.

In The Final Analysis One Man Made A Joke About Another Man’s Wife. Husband of Said Wife Slaps Man Across The Face. That Dynamic Is Not New. It Has Been Portrayed By Hollywood Over & Over & Over Again. It’s Been Lived Out In Real Life Over & Over & Over Again In People’s Daily Lives. And It Will No Doubt Happen Again & Again & Again. The Difference In This Case Is It Featured Two Very Prominent Hollywood Men. Who Just Happen To Be African-American Superstars. And Former Friends. Now Opponents. At Their Industry’s Most Prestigious Annual Awards Ceremony. The Oscars. The 94th Academy Awards. On Stage In Front of A Global Audience of Millions.

For One of The Men It Sent His Career Plummetin’ Downwards To A Whole New Low. For The Other It’s Sent Their Career Soarin’ Upwards To A Whole New High. But None of Us Saw This Devastating, Far Reaching, And Tragic Plot Twist Coming In This Real Life Drama Unlike Any Other. And Now The World Is Watchin’ This Ongoing Saga.

In The Heat of The Night Won Best Picture And Best Actor For Rod Steiger At The 1968 Oscars. Sidney Poitier Won A BAFTA For Best Foreign Actor For His Role In The Film. This Clip Was Smuggled Into Prison In South Africa To Nelson Mandela Who Had Heard About It And Desperately Wanted To See It. He Thought It Was Historically Important As A Sign of Progress & Change.

On Screen Hollywood Has Been Cashin’ In On The Dramatic Face Slap Since Time Immemorial And Yet Suddenly It’s Like Nobody In The World Ever Did That Before. Well To Be Fair. They Haven’t Done That Before In Real Life, In Real Time, On Stage, At The Oscars, At The Apex of Their Career.

But Hollywood Also Has History When It Comes To Depiciting Fierce Face Slaps. And Ironically, The Black Man Featured In The Most Famous Slap of Them All, Was Considered A Hero For His Celluloid Slap-Back. The Slap Was In The 1967 Movie In The Heat of The Night And It Was Delivered By The First Black Man To Ever Win An Oscar. He Won It Four Years Previously For Lillies of The Field (1963). That Man Was The Late, Great, Debonaire, Civil Rights Activist And Ethical Actor Sidney Poitier.

Poitier’s Slap Was Powerful Because It Was A ‘Slap-Back’ (A Physical Manifestation of The Modern-Day ‘Clap-Back’ If You Will). A White Man Slapped His Detective Character And His Detective Character Slapped The White Man Back. Reportedly Political Prisoner Nelson Mandela Heard About It And So Wanted To See It That A Clip Was Smuggled Into Prison For Him. It Reportedly Helped Him Do His Notorious 27 Years As He Believed The Progress He Sought, Was Actually Happening. It Was Infact Such A Ground-Breaking Moment In Hollywood It Was Banned In Several States. Poitier Was Both An Actor A Dedicated Civil Rights Activist.

And Where Did The Hollywood Portrayal That It Was Okay To Casually Slap A Black Man Come From In The First Place? Centuries of Slavery, Decades of Jim Crow Laws, Racist Police Brutality, And Racial Discrimination In America – Including Within The Film Industry. All Have To Be Considered In Answering That Question.

African-American Actress Hattie McDaniel (Born June 10 1893-Passed October 26 1952) Was The First Black Woman To Win An Oscar. Yet She Was Not Allowed To Attend The Premier of Her Own Film, Gone With The Wind (1939) In Which She Played The Role of Mammy, A House Slave, To A Southern Planation Family. Despite Being Nominated For The Academy Award For Best Actress (And Subsequently Winning It), She Was Not Allowed To Attend The Whites Only Theatre As Racial Segregation Was Still Legal In America. At The Actual Oscars Ceremony She Was Relegated To A Segregated Side Room. And In Death She Was Denied Her Wish To Be Buried In The Hollywood Cemetary Because Even That Was Segregated (In 1952, The Year She Passed).

It’s Been A Long Journey To Slap-Gate On The Oscars Stage At The 94th Oscars Sunday March 27 2022. 70 Years After Hattie’s Death. She May Well Have Turned In Her Grave. And If She Did It Might Have Been A Comedy Turn For She Too Was A Comedian (As Well As Being An Actress And The First African-American Woman To Sing On Radio).

Scarlett O’Hara Slaps Her Sister In Gone With The Wind 1939 In One of Hollywood’s Most Successful Films Ever

Scarlett O’Hara Slaps Her Child Slave In Gone With The Wind 1939 In One of Hollywood’s Most Successful Films Ever

So To Some People It Would Seem The Very Height of Hypocrisy To Have Even Considered Takin’ Mr Smith’s Oscar Back Bearing In Mind Certain Historical Hollywood Portrayals, Behaviours And Facts.

If The Academy Wants To Move Forward Positively, It Needs To Take A Long Look Back. And Ask Itself The Question If They Don’t Like It On Stage In Real Life, But Do Love It On Hollywood Celluloid, How On Earth Do They Expect Themselves And Their Audiences To Reconcile That Going Forward?

And The Glorification of Guns In The Midst of Continued Mass Shootings Is A Whole Other Conversation Regarding This Sometimes Violent And Trigger Happy Nation, Which Is Revered For Its Hollywood Glamour, Its Leading Democracy, Where Freedom of Speech And Expression Is EveryThing, As Enshrined In The Constitution. But of Course Expressing One’s Feelings Is One Thing. But Expecting To Do So Without Consequence Is Another. That Was Never The Deal. Chris Took His Chances. And So Did Will. And Subsequently It Seems It’s Time For A New Fresh Approach. So Will’s Gone Full Circle Perhaps!

Jane Fonda & JLO Get Happy Slappy Hollywood Style In Monster-In-Law (2005)

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