“The reactions [to the slap], strangely enough, appear to be mixed. Remember, this was an altercation between two Black men, at a time in the Academy’s history where the entire film community is striving to change things for artists of color. So the reaction to Will Smith has been, I think, more muted than it would have been if, say, Bradley Cooper slapped Kevin Costner. Then you’d have long agonizing think pieces about white male privilege and toxic masculinity.
“But what we’re seeing today appears to be a much more somber reception, except for all of the people making fun of it and there are a lot of those too, mostly the people who truly loathe Hollywood and the Oscars (and there are a lot of those too).” — from Sasha Stone‘s “The 94th Oscars — Wild, Weird, Awful and Wonderful.”
Critical Drinker: “Is this gonna tarnish the reputation of Hollywood, or enhance it? What’s actually gonna happen is that more people are gonna tune into next year’s Oscars in the hopes of catching a similar confrontation.”
Violent outbursts are not good for anyone’s social standing:
