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00:00:01
21: Slapgate 2022
61 Plays2 years ago
Will Smith slapping Chris Rock doesn’t mean anything when it comes to the Black community or toxic masculinity - but it does mean something. For more pods, subscribe on YouTube & iTunes (search Brittany Geneva).
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello. This is Brittany Geneva. Another episode of Geneva Says. Hey, y'all. It's been a minute, huh? Anyways, I am here, audio only. It was that or no podcast. So I figured, well, let me do something.
Unpacking 'Slapgate 2022'
00:00:24
Speaker
But I have so many thoughts that I just have to get right into it
00:00:29
Speaker
on the slap heard around the world, slap gate 2022. I just like, this has taken over my life for the last 48 hours in a crazy way that I can't believe is real. Like I legitimately logged into Slack yesterday for work and already had two messages from two different client teams about, so should our client
00:00:58
Speaker
talk about this on social media like legitimate like it wasn't you know like bullshit people asking like one the answer was maybe and what the other one the answer was no but it really was like legitimate consideration for both so that just goes to show you like the area that I work in like everything melds together work life all of it because I really got got on my work
00:01:24
Speaker
you know, messaging system yesterday and was have, have like multiple conversations about this that were not just like the water cooler. So it really is like everywhere.
Critique of Public Reactions
00:01:36
Speaker
And I just, okay, first we're going to get the bad takes out of the way.
00:01:42
Speaker
shut the fuck up about what if he had killed him what if Will Smith had killed Chris Rock like what the hell he slapped the nigga like people get slapped every day B that's basically what Le Keith said he didn't say it just like that but that's what he meant people get slapped every day B Chris Rock is a healthy man you know what
00:02:05
Speaker
What if Chris Rock had been another human being and the situation was a completely different situation and the hypothetical had nothing to do with the actual thing that happened? Okay, get off Twitter, please. Just, okay. So those takes are just absolutely ridiculous, we know. Some others though that I hear, I've been hearing a little bit more from less ridiculous people.
Cultural Implications and Individual Actions
00:02:31
Speaker
Why did they have to do this in front of white people?
00:02:35
Speaker
Oh, why do they have to do this when the white people were looking? Nigga, fuck the white people. What? Oh, my God. I can't think of something I care about less. Let me think about things that I could care about less than white people watching us do things that may not be the most flattering things. There was nothing else. That was actually the lowest on my care list. So.
00:03:00
Speaker
Hell no, like who cares? Seriously, like, what is it? Somebody tweeted, and I feel bad that I don't have the name up right now, but just know this is not my original thought, but somebody tweeted, what is it like to live in constant awareness of the white gaze? You know, like, what does that feel like to always be worried about how white people think about what you're doing? Like, it sounds like hell.
00:03:28
Speaker
I really, wow. You know what I mean? Like, I feel so bad for any black people or people of color who constantly think about what if the white people see us? I just, I want you to be free. I want you to be free from that because it sounds awful. Oof. Oof. So anyways, fuck that. Or a version of that that's a little bit, you know, different, but to me in the same wheelhouse, oh, it's just such a bad look for black people.
00:03:59
Speaker
Oh, such a bad look for black men. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. There is no implications for the black community in this. There is no implications for black men. We are talking about Will freaking Smith, who was like the biggest star in the world and won the Oscar, by the way. So like that shows you where his career is. Like Will Smith is on another level. Will Smith is on his own level.
00:04:28
Speaker
He's not black. He's Will Smith. I'm just kidding. But no, he is like. He's not just like a black man out here looking get like that's not Will Smith is just not on the level to even be able to like have to me like a negative impact from this. Like I don't even think anything is going to happen to him. Like I don't think his career is going to suffer.
00:04:51
Speaker
I think that Will Smith can kind of do what Will Smith wants, which was very much evidenced by the fact that he did that shit and went and sat back down. Now that part's a little wild to me. That part is very wild. This man fully walked up to the stage, slapped the hill out of another man, out of a host, turned around, sat back down, cussed him out some more, and the show just went on.
00:05:18
Speaker
I don't even know how I would have felt if I was in there. I would be looking around like, yo, yelling on a security that's going to come out, like y'all ain't going to take a pause. Like literally the show just went on and 25 minutes later, that man just won the Oscar. Like that's a little wild. That's wild. But to me, that's Will Smith. Like that's Will Smith privilege. I feel like
00:05:41
Speaker
that's a privilege specific to Will Smith. I don't know how many even other actors would be able to get away with that. But I don't think there's any implications for the black community or for black men or for any of that stuff. It just happened. It's just two niggas that have been beefing.
Awards Show Dynamics
00:06:00
Speaker
So now to talk about the actual moment itself, I wanna make one thing very clear. I did not watch the show.
00:06:08
Speaker
I still very much am in my place of I do not watch non-black award shows. So I only watch like Soul Train Awards, NAACP, BET Awards. Like those are the only award shows I watch. I do not watch the white award shows because I still feel as a community that we let those shows mean too much to us and don't give enough meaning to the black shows and then complain
00:06:36
Speaker
when the Oscars and Emmys and Grammys and Golden Globes of the world are not nominating, you know, Michaela Cole, you know, and are nominating Emily in Paris instead. All like every year we get mad about something and I'm just really excited for the point where we say, wait a second, why do we have to even care about this shit? Why do we even have to let ourselves
00:07:05
Speaker
have toil, you know, let's just move on and either support and uplift the existing black shows, or if you still don't think that they are giving what they're supposed to have gave, then make a new one. Like let's just come up with a new show then that reaches whatever level you think it should reach, you know, and let it be a show that centers black people, you know, so.
Media Coverage and Initial Impressions
00:07:31
Speaker
That is my rant I don't watch the award shows, but I do watch Twitter, as you all know, so I was watching at that time either candy in the game or. power I can't remember which one, but I was watching one of them.
00:07:48
Speaker
And I'm on Twitter and then all of a sudden my whole timeline was like, wait, what? What just happened? Huh? Was that real? What? That like my whole entire timeline. And I was just like, okay, so something just happened at the Oscars and people don't know if it's real. So I just was like continuing to look at the timeline. I started just searching the Oscars hashtag. And then I see the original clip from American TV
00:08:18
Speaker
where it's muted at the second half. But so I saw what happened, but I didn't hear what happened. And that actually, like, I could understand why people think it was fake at first, because
00:08:31
Speaker
Chris Rock, say whatever you want to say about him. We can talk about Chris Rock separately in terms of what type of man he is, what type of comedian he is, but say what you want about him. In that moment, the amount of restraint that that man showed, oh my God,
00:08:51
Speaker
Kind of I could see why he would think it's fake at first because Chris Rock is so chill I'm like He just fucking absorbed that slap into his body He if you look at like there was a I think the LA Times posted a picture of a particular freeze frame where you can clearly see that he was like about like his
00:09:14
Speaker
natural reaction was like about to square up, but he but he stopped himself so quickly. It's like a millisecond where he was like, and then he just went right back to normal. And so he doesn't even really appear to try to hit will back at all. He sort of, you know, you know, like he was still smiling through the thing, the things that were being said.
00:09:41
Speaker
And so when you definitely without the audio, it seemed he's so calm that that's why you could think it was fake. Cause he was so calm. I mean, I was like, Oh my God, Chris Rock act like nothing just happened. But then, but then when people started posting from the international broadcasts or they don't have all these delays and mutes, I was like, Oh,
Speculations on Personal Conflict
00:10:08
Speaker
No way, this was fake. Oh, that energy was 100% fake and real. Like even the sound of the slap, it was like a sound effect slap. It sounded like a slap that they created in a lab. And then the way that Will Smith walked back to his seat and was cussing Chris out with the most beautiful articulation. Like every single word was crispy, you know?
00:10:39
Speaker
my wife's name out of your fucking mouth. Like it was like acting class, like how he was, he was articulating himself so well. And Chris Rock was, the fact that Chris Rock was like, okay, I will. I'm like, oh, he might've been a little shook. But right away, even without seeing what people had eventually started posting on Twitter, I literally was like, there's absolutely no way that this
00:11:09
Speaker
one joke at this one moment caused that reaction like this has to be a build up there has to be some beef like i'm waiting for somebody to drop the article to the years-long beef between chris rock and wilson like there's just no way that that one joke tacky as it may have been ugly as it may have been by itself i just don't think that it was strong enough to elicit that reaction
00:11:30
Speaker
but then people start posting, oh, from 2016 Oscars when Chris Rock did this and like, you know, there might be other sets that we don't even know about where he's like poking fun at Will and Jada. Cause it seems like maybe, you know, Jada particularly was a fun target for him. And then obviously layer in like, you know, Jada's own insecurities about the alopecia and blah, blah, blah. And now like we have sort of like more of a tinderbox situation, but I'm just like, whoa.
00:12:00
Speaker
I mean, it was, I just am like, it was a lot. Like I said, I don't care that the white people were watching.
Impact on Will Smith's Legacy
00:12:07
Speaker
I don't think there's any implications for the black community.
00:12:10
Speaker
I don't think Will Smith genuinely put Chris Rock's life in danger. And I actually appreciate the energy very much around protecting a black woman. Like that is your wife. That is a strong black woman. You feel that she was disrespected and you did what you had to do. I don't even mind that at all. I really don't. The only thing, the only thing that I just keep coming back to is like, fuck Will, you ruined your own night.
00:12:40
Speaker
Your all night you ruined will 20 minutes later, you freaking win best actor like you've never done that before. Black people have barely ever done that before. So this is historic. This is beautiful. This is well deserved. Everybody kind of knew King Richard. He's probably going to win.
00:13:03
Speaker
And now instead of being able to go up there and thank your mom and thank the Academy and thank Jada for her support. Now you got to go up there and apologize. Now you got to go up there and be crying. I'm talking about Denzel told me that the devil comes when you, when you're at your, when you're at the top, you know, and now you gotta be doing all that instead of just saying,
00:13:27
Speaker
I'm so proud, I'm so happy to have been able to represent this man and honor the Williams family, you know? And you ruined your own moment, Will. And that's the part that's so disappointing, and a whole bunch of other people's moments. Well, I won't say he ruined it, but he certainly overshadowed it. I mean, right after the slap, Quest's love wins, you know? Oh gosh, her name is escaping me, but the first openly queer woman of color
00:13:56
Speaker
one for either best actress or best supporting actress. And there was just like a lot of things, Will Packer, you know, producing this and a whole black production team actually. And like, there was a lot of like moments that are overshadowed now. And that makes me really sad. That part sucks. I really hate that.
00:14:21
Speaker
would have been more than happy for Will to slap the shit out of Chris in the green room, backstage, at the after party, in the parking lot. I mean, whatever. I don't care about Chris Rock's face, but I do care about the fact that like, ah, now this moment is like so overshadowed. Like Oscars 2022 is the slap Oscars, you know? Not the Oscars that Will won best actor. And even yesterday,
00:14:52
Speaker
Excuse me, yesterday, the Oscars had to release another statement after mad people were like, Oscars, you just don't act like nothing happened. I mean, they really were though. They really were just like trying to close their ears and close their eyes to this shit, but they had to come back out and be like, okay, we're gonna start an investigation. Like you can tell they're just going through the motions, but even then, now, you know, there's like,
00:15:19
Speaker
talk, I mean, I think it's highly unlikely, but like talk that they could revoke the Oscar. And now Will Smith has to come out and make another statement. And it's just like, now this is what, this is what the, this is what it is now. Instead of being about like, actually some like pretty good black excellence on display and like a show that had a lot of like firsts and all this stuff, you know? So that part I think sucks.
00:15:48
Speaker
And one thing I will say, now like I said, a lot of people had a lot of terrible takes. Steve Harvey had a take that I actually think is spot on, or at least it's not crazy. That he said that he thinks Will Smith reasoned that if I do this to Chris Rock here and now, Chris Rock won't respond.
00:16:18
Speaker
And he sort of knew that if he were to run up on Chris Rock in that way, in that moment, that Chris Rock would not be able to react the way that maybe he would have had it been behind the scenes. And to be honest, that's not a crazy take. I think Will Smith is smart enough to have quickly done that calculus in his head.
00:16:46
Speaker
and be like, let me do this now and not wait till later. So that's possible. That's really possible. And I just think, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's just, it was such a bad decision. Oh my God. What a bad decision. Overshadowing your own night, truly, but, um,
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, those are my thoughts on that. I had to get it off my chest. I'm like, oh, and it's just crazy because the, there's really no, this is my last, my last thought.
Debating Cultural Reset
00:17:23
Speaker
There's really no sort of predictability about who was going to say what, you know, one thing I didn't even get into was like, was this will protecting his wife or was this assault? You know, and to be honest,
00:17:38
Speaker
you might think, oh, it's like white people or conservative people who are like, this is assault. And black people who would be like, this is Will standing up for a black woman. But that is absolutely not the breakdown. I can't find consistency by race, by age, by political affiliation. I have heard plenty of young, black, democratic people saying that was assault.
00:18:07
Speaker
and will could have been arrested or that was violence, that was toxic masculinity that can't be excused. And again, I sort of disagree in the sense that I don't necessarily think this was toxic masculinity because it was between two men. I think this was just niggas beefing. I really don't think that there's like a lot of depth to the reasons here.
00:18:39
Speaker
But I do just find it interesting that there really is no consistency. There are plenty of people that I would not have expected who have said that was assault, that was violence, that was ugly, that was toxic masculinity, and who said, I can't believe he did that in front of the white people, that makes us look bad as a community, who I wouldn't have, I'm like, really?
00:19:06
Speaker
You? I didn't think you were a respectability politics motherfucker like I didn't think that was you. I really like I'm I'm like surprised by the people who are doing that and then like the people who
00:19:18
Speaker
really believe like that was violence point blank and he has to be like arrested and like punished. I'm like, this was his beef in and he didn't punch Chris Rock. He slapped him, which actually is a distinction that makes a difference. You know, I don't know. I mean, I don't I don't know. I just don't think that there's that much depth to this thing. I think, you know, he was mad.
00:19:46
Speaker
And I think it was building up. I think there was beef over time. And I think he saw that moment as the moment to be able to get that slap off without having a whole fight ensue. Because that would have been some world star shit. What if Chris Rocket hit him back? Y'all, you in the hood now, baby, for real. Oh, my god. That would have been world star. Oh, my god. That would have been crazy. So I think Will Smith was smart enough to make that sort of rational decision.
00:20:16
Speaker
I do appreciate the energy behind standing up for this black woman. I do. That trumps everything for me. I'm like, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. That's what you gotta do. And Chris Rock is gonna learn that he needs to throw away those old 1993 ass jokes about G.I. Jane and bald women and fucking come up with some new shit, because that's played out anyway. Anyways, there's so many, I mean,
00:20:44
Speaker
What did I say? Somebody said this was a cultural reset. I don't know what a cultural reset is. Hold on. I'm going to go with what is a cultural. I don't know if you can hear me. What is a cultural reset? Maybe it is that maybe it is. Hold on. A cultural reset is when something big in well-known pop culture changes or
00:21:09
Speaker
causes people to change the way they look at things. So something really sort of shifted the way that we view a certain thing in pop culture. I don't know. I still don't know if I would call it that. I mean, do I look at anything differently? Do I look at Will Smith differently? Do I look at Chris Rock differently? Do I look at the Oscars differently? No, no.
00:21:39
Speaker
I don't know if this is a cultural reset either. Again, to my earlier point, I don't really see any implications for society. This was just two men who had a problem.
Listener Interaction
00:21:49
Speaker
So anyways, I would definitely be curious for y'all's thoughts. I'm sure that as much as it might get on people's nerves, this conversation is gonna keep going for a little while. So anyways, let's talk about it. I'm online at Britney underscore Geneva on all the things
00:22:07
Speaker
Um, let's talk, let's chat and I will be back soon with another podcast. This is Geneva says, thank you so much for listening.