Being a man. The man you want to be.

This is a blog about the Will Smith slap on Chris Rock. The dynamics that go into a thing like that, when on the surface, it appears to be something simple like an insult comic insulting a man's wife, likely unintentionally, and that man having issues that go back decades where he snapped and felt like he had to react. Which he did, and to some extent, now regrets.

But that is not where I will start this. I will start with a story that gives me perspective on where this all comes from.

I remember it like it was yesterday. But actually, it was more than 40 years ago. I was about 14, and somehow, my mother told a story about how my grandmother had gotten my uncle angry, and being that he had a very bad temper, which is a family trait his kids and I also inherited, he took my grandmother and put her on top of the fridge. After my mother left the room for some reason, I said something like, that was cool, I might try that someday.

To which my father replied, and I am paraphrasing as I don't remember the exact words.....I wouldnt do that if I were you. If you know what's good for you.

While I don't remember his exact words, I do remember that steely glare he gave me. The one that suggested if I did ever do any such thing, it would be the last thing I do on this earth. He didn't need to say that. I understood it from his look.

It was a good life lesson I learned that day. My father taught me lots of lessons like that over the time I knew him. As far as I know, my father never hit anyone, man or woman, in his entire life. He didn't have to. He was scary enough when you provoked him that just that look was enough. Anybody who ever saw it knew better than to mess with him, and I saw a few people that did see that look and how scared they were when it was presented. His rage was not something you would want to bring to the surface. And he gave the impression that if it did ever come to violence, he would be relentless and there would be no mercy.

The most important thing I learned from him was how to treat people, and women in particular. My father had lots of issues that made him tough to live with at times, and there were many long periods where he caused the family and my mother in particular, lots of pain. Not on purpose. He just had issues and those were the effects. He never hit or abused my mother in any way. He had personality issues that caused her pain when they caused him to do crazy things. For many years, which caused her pain.

That pain I saw in my mother for many years. As strong as my father was, my mother was equally weak. When you see your mother decimated like that, you learn to protect her, as I did. While my father may have caused much of that pain, he also taught me to stand up for a woman, to do what you have to to look after them when that is the thing to do. It's your duty, your obligation. And anybody that hurts them, they are also hurting you in the process, and you must respond to make it understood that is not acceptable and there are grave consequences.

In my world, the one created by my parents, by my father...when I was growing up, you always defend and stand up for women, specifically your mother, your sister, your wife and your daughter. I don't have a daughter. I have, in my life, stood up for all the other three many times when it was required.

I will start my trek into the Academy Award fiasco on Sunday night with this. I don't watch the Oscars, or Grammys, or any awards show. I have no use for them. They are simply entertainment spectacles based on glitz and glamour. But I do understand that back in the day, they had some level of class and real showmanship. Many times it was hosted by serious actors, many up for an award that night. Other times, by accomplished comedians like Bob Hope, who hosted it 19 times, and Jack Benny who hosted it twice.

Around the late 80s, there began a trend where comedians who were very good at stand up comedy, night club stand up, where things are a bit more racy and edgy, were engaged to host it. When you engage that type, you know what you are looking for. I have no problem with night club comedy. I actually enjoy it. When it's in the right venue. The Academy Awards is not that type of venue in my opinion. You are asking for the type of incident you got on Sunday night when you engage a Chris Rock type to host. That is what he does. He picks on and insults as part of his act. And that plays in the clubs and on his specials. When Chris Rock first hosted the Oscars in 2005, they were looking for something edgier. Of course, that gets ratings, which is really what the Oscars are about. If not, they could just give out the awards and have no show, no spectacle, no red carpet.

Many stand up comedians will tell you that it's their job, and getting work over time requires them,  to test boundaries. But there is a line. and you dont cross it. Being mean, disrespectful, insulting a man's wife. That is a line you don't cross. Making fun of someone who has died is another. Anyone can be insulting, and funny about it if they want to and have some talent. Not everyone can be funny and stay respectful. In my view, intentional or not, Chris Rock steps way over that line all the time. That makes him popular, but not classy. Not classy enough to host an awards show. If class is what you are aiming for.

The Academy Awards is not a Comedy Central or HBO roast. If you are on one of those roasts, as the main person being roasted, or on the panel of other roasters or guests, you expect to be targeted and to some extent, all is fair game. If you are at the Academy Awards, you are there to attend as you are a member of the Academy and likely up for an award, as Will Smith was. That doesnt give the host or any other presenter the license to insult you or your wife or anybody else for that matter. The premise for what the Academy Awards has become is half the problem here and where the problem started. Chris Rock was just doing his thing. That thing doesnt belong in that venue.

As for Will Smith. What he did when his wife was insulted, and he realized that she was hurt by Chris Rock's joke, his words, was wrong. Not because he shouldn't have confronted Rock later, off camera in private, but because on that stage, was not the place for it, nor was hitting him and being violent before he at least asked Rock what he meant by that and if he understood the hurt he was causing his wife. Will Smith is not a dumb guy. So why did he do that?

Let's go back to something Will Smith's mother said today about the whole thing.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him go off. First time in his lifetime,” she told local Philadelphia news outlet WPVI after the Sunday, March 27, awards show, calling her 53-year-old son “a very even people person” in his daily life. “I’ve never seen him do that.”

What did Will Smith have to say about it today?

“I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”

The important part of both of their statements is very subtle. It's not at all like him. Not the man he wants to be.

But there has to be some context here. That is where my story at the top of this blog comes in.

Smith struggled to hold back tears during his emotional acceptance speech, during which he spoke about protecting his family at all costs. Something he would know about from his childhood.

In his autobiography, published in November 2021, the actor describes at length the appalling domestic violence he and his three siblings witnessed his father, William, inflict on his mother, Caroline.

“When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed,” he wrote. “I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am.”

Smith wrote that it wasn’t only the violence that traumatised him, but his own inaction in the face of it.

“Within everything that I have done since then — the awards and accolades, the spotlights and attention, the characters and the laughs — there has been a subtle string of apologies to my mother for my inaction that day. For failing her in the moment. For failing to stand up to my father. For being a coward.

“What you have come to understand as ‘Will Smith’, the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction – a carefully crafted and honed character designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward.”

Smith’s parents separated when he was a teenager and divorced in 2000. The actor maintained a close relationship with his father but says his hatred resurfaced when his father had cancer and was using a wheelchair. When Smith was caring for him, he said he considered killing his father.

“As a child, I’d always told myself that I would one day avenge my mother,” he wrote. “I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down and easily get away with it. Thank God we’re judged by our actions and not our trauma-driven, inner outbursts.

When you see your mother beaten like that, in pain, and you know you did nothing to stop it, even if you realistically could not have anyway, in your own mind, you remember that, and you make a vow not to be that way. You also commit to making sure that you defend and protect your mother going forward, and to that extent, your wife and daughters if and when you have them. Of course, that look of hurt and pain in your mothers eyes never leaves you, although you don't think about it on a daily basis. But when you see it, in your wife's eyes, you can and will flashback and lose your mind. The kind of man Will Smith wants to be, in my opinion, is one that stands up to violence against women. And also the kind that avenges it if there is hurt involved with someone like his wife. Which is exactly what he saw when he initially laughed at Chris Rock's joke, but then looked over at his wife Jada and not only wasnt she laughing, she was hurt. He would know that, because he is married to her and would know that. He would also recognize it when he has seen it before with his mother. As I had when I was younger.

It can make you lose your mind and get very angry in a big hurry.

Now, knowing that he did nothing to stop it more than 40 years ago, the man he is now is in no way going to make that mistake again.

So, he made a different mistake.

In life, it's important to pick your battles. You don't fight every fight, over every little thing. But in addition to that, when you do pick a battle, you pick the right time and place to battle. You don't just go off right away. Unless you lose your mind for some reason, which clearly Will Smith did.

We have all been there at some point in our lives, when we lost our mind and reacted in a way we wish we hadn't.

As a man, Will Smith had to stand up for Jada. That is simply what he had to do. But how and when he did it was not the way to do it.

Some have said that what Chris Rock said wasn't that bad. As insults go, by insult comics, it was mild. It was. As an insult. If that is the only way you view it. If you view it as a hurtful comment, uncalled for, it was obviously very hurtful. And that is something Will Smith could have asked Chris Rock about. From Rock's reaction, I gather he didn't even know how hurtful it was. I would presume when Rock gets around to making his public statement, that is what he will say. He didn't know he was actually hurting Jada, and he is sorry it happened.

All of that could have been taken care of in private, and everyone would have had a chance to resolve all this. Will Smith will have fulfilled his duty as the man he wants to be by defending his woman, without using violence, and Chris Rock would have gotten the message that he needs to be more careful with his words as well as expressing that he didn't mean to hurt Jada.

In this case, both sides are to blame for what happened. One was careless, the other was reckless. Both were acting in real time, Rock with his ad lib joke, Smith with his angry tirade in front of the entire world.

The Academy is to blame because they are putting a night club style comic in a position where that isn't the place for him to do his act either. And for what? For ratings. Simple as that.

I just think Will Smith snapped. He saw the look on Jada's face, and somehow he had a flashback to what his mother went through, while he was right there, doing nothing about it in his eyes, and he snapped and just went off on Chris Rock, who he saw as an attacker, like his father was.

It happens. All the time, to people. They snap when things like that bring them back to a moment in their past when they wished they had done something entirely different than they did.

Unfortunately for Smith, he did that in front of the entire world. It's done, and it's over. He has apologized to pretty much everyone now, including Chris Rock. Rock will do the same shortly. Hopefully everyone learned their lesson here, and since it happened in front of the entire world, some, not everyone for sure, but some, might also learn about how to treat people, when to stand up for what, and when is the right place and time to do that.