What the Smith/Rock Dust-Up Shows Us: There's One Set of Rules for Them & One Set of Rules for Us

If you're rich and famous, punch a guy in the face, and you can still drive home in the limo.

In the event that you got out of bed, stepped on one of your child’s Legos, clutched your foot while hopping up and down, smacked your head on a doorframe, passed out and just now came to, let me explain what happened during the 94th annual Academy Awards last night: Comedian/host Chris Rock made a wildly insensitive remark about actor Jada Pinkett-Smith’s short hair, equating it to something you might see in GI Jane: Part 2, and then Jada’s husband and Best Actor winner Will Smith stormed onstage, smacked Rock in the face, and yelled over his shoulder while marching back to his seat, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth!” Twice.

At first, Smith laughed at the joke, which was shocking in and of itself. In the next moment, he was swinging punches.

To say that the entire world is reeling is an understatement.

Social media went wild. Some felt the punch was staged by the academy in a desperate attempt to salvage the show’s abysmal ratings. Others cheered what they saw as Smith’s gallantry in defense of his wife. But this was an internationally televised event and Will Smith pulls down 20 million per movie. When you are able to command those kinds of figures, when millions of people worldwide watch everything you do with adoring eyes, when everyone from the maître d’ to the CEO of Columbia Pictures treats you like the Second Coming, it’s hard to remember you’re not actually entitled to everything you want. The rules still apply to you.

Ha ha! Just kidding. Of course they don’t!

You see, despite some hifalutin words about equality, we live in the real world, a world wherein the rich getting exponentially richer, and you shoulder the tax bill. Where you get thrown in prison for voting, and former presidential advisor Steve Bannon avoids voter fraud charges despite his obvious guilt. Where you and/or single mothers like Patricia Spottedcrow get twelve-year sentences for $31.00 worth of pot, and a drunk Ted Kennedy gets behind the wheel of a car and crashes it, killing 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne in the swirling waters of the Chappaquiddick.

Under California Penal Code 242d (the Academy Awards is recorded in California), punching someone is considered aggravated battery, a “wobbler offense,” which means it can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony. But the sentence is anywhere from one to four years, along with a hefty fine.

Is Will Smith in jail? Is he being asked to pay a fine?

No, Will Smith went to the Vanity Fair after-Oscars party. Will Smith was physically handed an Oscar for his work in the movie King Richard mere seconds after planting one on Chris Rock’s jaw. He stood on that stage for five excruciating minutes, weeping. Those tears weren’t for Rock, or even Jada. They were for him.

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued a statement saying, “The academy condemns the actions of Mr. Smith at last night’s show. We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our bylaws, standards of conduct, and California law.”

Oh ho! A “formal review.” Smith must be quaking in his $1,200 Gucci loafers. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen as a result of last night’s violence: Nothing.

It’s a politically incendiary issue to go after a Black actor. It should be. Black entertainers have been given short shrift since the beginning of Hollywood. Even though this was violence perpetrated by a Black actor against another Black actor, “justice” in the strictest sense will not be served here. Instead, in about three or four weeks, another statement will be issued by the academy saying that the matter has been investigated to their satisfaction and no further action will be taken.

Feel free to bookmark this Cappuccino and refer back to it. I’m that confident in what I’m saying.

And I’m painfully, acutely sensitive to the idea that Black actors, much like former president Barack Obama, have to engage in “respectability politics” as an extreme sport in order to claim a place at the table. A table, I might add, that is still white, still exclusive, and still demands that any Black person who has the temerity to sit at it be beyond reproach. That’s a separate issue, one that a middle-aged white lady like me is not qualified to tackle. But I do see the double standard, and I hate it.

Racism is alive and well, friends. Just because we elected and then reelected a Black president doesn’t absolve us of that.

No, I’m also incensed by another double standard, another divide, one that every single person reading this Cappuccino suffers from, without necessarily realizing it. This isn’t a Black person versus white person issue; it’s a rich person versus all the rest of us issue. It’s Trump continuing to get away with federal crimes. O.J. Simpson literally getting away with murder. It’s Mark Wahlberg avoiding jail over a serious assault and battery charge because he’s rich, famous, and can afford the best lawyers. It’s Caitlyn Jenner’s 2015 involvement in a fatal multiple-vehicle collision on Pacific Coast Highway, and guess what? No charges. The victim’s family went after Jenner civilly, but that’s small consolation when somebody you love is dead. Actor Rebecca Gayheart hit and killed a nine-year-old child. All she paid was a fine.

Will Smith clocks Chris Rock onstage during the 94th Annual Academy Awards on March 27, 2022, in Hollywood, California.

At the risk of sounding Grandma, what are we teaching our kids? That if you conspire to end democratic elections—even if you’re Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—you get a “there there, dear” slap on the wrist, and if you punch a guy in the face for saying something you don’t like, you get an award?

Jada Pinkett Smith apparently keeps her hair short because she has a condition called alopecia. Just to be clear, Chris Rock went after her hair, not her condition. But everyone’s got their knickers in a twist because what he said was “ableist,” and ableism is social prejudice against people with disabilities and/or people who are perceived to be disabled. Is hair-loss alopecia a disability? Is it different than general hair loss? If the answer is yes, then my Hashimoto’s Disease and my occasional psoriasis are a disability, too. Feel free to lob whatever insults you’d like my way. I’m pretty sure I can handle it.

Why is no one talking about what I see as a real sticking point here, which is the that women’s looks and women’s bodies are up for scrutiny in the first place? No one seems to be riding to the rescue here. “Oh, he made a crack about her haircut. Big deal.”

It is a big deal. There should be a moratorium on any remarks, positive or negative, about the way a woman looks, especially at these silly awards shows. I think women are done being judged—by men or anyone else. Maybe not punch-in-the-face done, but Smith and his wife were more than capable of gathering their things and leaving the auditorium. Except that Smith would have missed receiving his Oscar ….

My hope is that you will see the true injustice being done, here and in a thousand other ways. They are the injustices rich people don’t want you to see because if you did, you’d go French Revolution on them, start sharpening your blades and dusting off your guillotine.

We’re getting hosed here, and they’re getting away with it.

I’m not okay with that. Are you?

You know I want you to weigh in on this. We don’t have to agree. I still want to hear from you. Leave your comments below.