I won’t go over the facts of the Will Smith case, we all know them.
For the rest, however, several components blur the reading and the reflection.
A tormented family past, Smith is black, his wife, Jana, is also; their life is public, generously feeding social networks. They know they are followed by thousands of fans and are certainly not allergic to their great popularity. The history of black men and, especially, women is a stain on that of the United States, and the week before, at the Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings, we witnessed live the unleashing of a pack of white men who questioned (!) shamelessly (I remain polite) the candidate for the post of judge of the Supreme Court.
Violence is in the air, accelerated. We can smell its nauseous stench everywhere.
We arm ourselves, we stand up to elected officials by calling them Nazis, we threaten death on so-called “social” networks. Insurgents become patriots, the word “freedom” seems to mean that one is no longer bound to follow rules established for the common good.
Anything that is perceived as a philosophy or an inadmissible request therefore deserves immediate retribution.
And the show is king! The agora has become planetary, so let’s be sure to be there in full view: the end will justify the means.
Speaking of spectacle, Will Smith knows that some 15 million spectators are listening. The bad joke is thrown, he notices the wrath of the one he loves, the mustard goes to his nose and, without the slightest hesitation, he puts himself on the stage, ignoring any reason or any other means of honoring and to defend the one he loves — as he will say.
The slap is given, frank, precise, scathing. Impeccable, but easy (loose?), because Chris Rock did not expect it. And long live the cinema! Smith returns to his seat, satisfied, smirking. The episode evolves with two more cringe-inducing vulgar caveats.
The public thinks of a stunt scripted, so unlikely is the event.
It is, and it will take several days to digest its components.
The freedom of expression recently renewed as a cardinal democratic value by our own Supreme Court, during the trial against Mike Ward, in no way condones excesses of taste, judgment, or stupidity. These excesses must be denounced by all those who are concerned about maintaining respect for the collective organism of which we are a part. Making fun of a person with a disability or still struggling with a health problem, this abjection, for me, transgresses the red line of respect and human dignity.
Which brings us back to Will Smith. He could just as well have seized this moment, charged with his resentment, to go on stage in an unprecedented gesture and grab the microphone, which Chris Rock would surely have conceded to him, to denounce the abuse in the heart of his emotion.
No one would have been divided by such a gesture, his wife would have been seen and “avenged”, then his words could have reflected on all those who suffer in silence from degrading abuse. The other winners of the evening, including those who embody courage in CODAwould also have been doubly valued by sensitive advocacy on wounded minorities, their courage and their victories.
A gentleman could have made an unprecedented gesture of brilliance. Instead, Will Smith did himself justice.
That a Black gives himself this role in these particular circumstances, why not, but the social context of the United States should not make it such that we find there an opportune condemnation simply because its author is a Black: a hero to envy, rich and at the top of his game, but now embodying the slippage of violence.
The interpretation and the consequences of his gesture should not, however, hide the evidence that a man hit another, regardless of the reasons.
What is most disturbing about this story is neither the heinous humor nor the unjustifiable slap in the face. Perhaps the most disturbing, the most alarming, is the double consecration that Smith received when he went to get his Oscar. In the eyes of the audience in the room, the explanation would wash away the aggression. “Victim” of his vigilante impulse, Smith offered an intimate and emotional reading of it that should be welcomed without reservation. The capital of sympathy from the environment and the friends present would therefore ignore any moral dimension. Their momentum, their ovation would, however, endorse de facto the violence now integrated as a manifestation sometimes seen as excusable (celebrated?) in certain circumstances.
Since in real time, everything was at stake that evening at the level of the epidermis.
It is here that the red lights flash strongly: it is clear that the North American epidermis has, for several years, integrated certain acts of violence, considered acceptable, certain physical abuse by “the other”, as now become part of the landscape.