Editorial: In praise of the talented actor who used his hands, not words, to express himself

Will Smith hits presenter and actor Chris Rock while Rock was presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars. Photo / AP

Opinion:

Unless you have been living on a desert island for the past week, if I say let's talk about that slap, you will know exactly what I mean.

For the sake of the desert island dwellers amongst us, what I want to talk about in this column is the moment Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock live and on stage at this year's Academy Awards - the Oscars - after Chris Rock made a joke about Will Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

Actually, no I don't.

I don't want to talk about the moment a grown, professional and supposedly intelligent man decided to use his fists as a way to deal with something he didn't like, any more than I want to talk about the fact a comedian - also a grown, professional and supposedly intelligent man- decided it was okay, and in fact funny, to mock a woman's appearance/medical condition.

Why not? Because all the time we are spending talking about a joke and a slap is time we aren't spending talking about other things.

We shouldn't be talking about the moment a talented actor used his hands instead of words to respond to a situation. We should be talking about the moment a talented actor used his hands to express his words when he (Troy Kotsur) received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor - the first deaf male to get the golden statue in the history of the awards.

Troy Kotsur arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party with his Oscar. Photo / AP

We shouldn't be discussing a joke about just one person. We should be discussing the fact Jada Pinkett Smith is just one of the 147 million people worldwide who have, or will develop, alopecia areata at some point in their life.

We shouldn't be questioning whether it is okay for comedians to mock hair loss. We should be questioning why we aren't doing enough to remove the stigma of it.

We shouldn't be talking about how Will Smith has "excused" his behaviour with the line "love will make you do crazy things". We should be talking about how love is never an excuse for violence, a message domestic violence shelters and charities would love to get more airtime.

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We shouldn't be critiquing the silence from the rest of the Hollywood elite present as they saw that unwanted physical interaction play out on stage. We should be critiquing the silence from the Hollywood elite over the decades of non-disclosure agreements, silencing so many women from speaking out about the unwanted physical interactions they experienced at the hands of famous actors, directors and other members of the inner circle.

We certainly shouldn't be spending hours upon hours, talk show upon talk show, column after column, analysing why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is taking so long to decide upon a course of action following Will Smith's clear violations of its standards of conduct. Not unless we have already talked in just as much length and depth about the fact it took the Academy an excruciatingly long 41 years to actually expel Roman Polanski, despite him having pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 before fleeing the country. Side note - he wasn't the first Academy member to be expelled, that dubious honour belongs to Carmine Caridi who was booted out in 2004. Carmine Caridi's crime? Copyright infringement. Yes, the first person to be expelled from the Academy was guilty of giving friends pirated VHS tapes, while someone who had pleaded guilty to sex with a minor remained a member for another 14 years before facing the same punishment.

If we want to question whether the Academy should rescind Will Smith's Oscar in light of his behaviour, we should first question the decision made by the Academy in 2003 to award Polanski the Best Director Oscar, despite the fact he was facing jail on that 40-year-old rape case.

We have been quick to talk about Will Smith and demand "something is done', but we have been incredibly slow to talk about, or demand something is done about the behaviours of Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby and the many more (mainly male) members who the Academy has taken far too long to censure for their behaviour and actions over the years.

Will Smith might have intended to silence Chris Rock with that slap, but we need to make sure the buzz around that moment doesn't drown out all the other conversations we need to be having right now. So let's turn the spotlight away from that one moment and instead ensure actors like Troy Kotsur get their moment in the spotlight instead.