My old pal Pat O'Neill sent the following in response to me writing that "I still couldn't say what should be done now to Will Smith but I think someone ought to do something." What Pat wrote to me was…
And what should be done about Chris Rock — who instigated the whole thing with a rude, tasteless, ad-lib dig at Smith's wife? Is he blameless in all this? Add in the fact that this is not his first go-round at "comedically" insulting Jada Pinkett-Smith and his role in the incident can hardly go unnoticed or undisciplined.
Absolutely nothing official should be done to Chris Rock. There are laws in this country against striking another human being. People get arrested for that and tossed in the pokey every day. We do not arrest people for being rude and tasteless. Pat, you and I have many mutual friends who would be doing hard time if we did.
I mean, you can punish him by never watching him on TV again. I'm guessing you already don't pay money to see or hear him perform but you can also vow to never start doing that. You always have that right.
I don't think his role has gone unnoticed. It may be the most viral video of the century so far and everyone has their opinion of whether he crossed some highly-arguable line and if so, if the proper retaliation to that is being assaulted in front of the whole world. They may not all agree with you as, for example, I don't. I do not agree that the joke — which was surely planned and not an ad-lib — was as bad as you make it out to be. Her husband even laughed at it before he then decided to be an asshole about it.
As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put it in one of the best pieces I've read about the incident…
Ok, I can see where the Smiths might not have found that joke funny. But Hollywood awards shows are traditionally a venue where much worse things have been said about celebrities as a means of downplaying the fact that it's basically a gathering of multimillionaires giving each other awards to boost business so they can make even more money.
Read the whole piece Kareem wrote. It's an article called "Will Smith Did a Bad, Bad Thing."
Gee. For a guy who didn't watch or record the Oscars, I sure am writing a lot about that ceremony.