shame and cowardice

We are at the lowest point of last November. A friend writes to me: listen without fail to the new series of Will Smith on YouTube, Best Shape of My Life.

The six brief episodes chronicle the fitness of a 53-year-old guy. He gained belly during the pandemic by playing Richard Williams, the father of Serena and Venus. He wants to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks by training like crazy, while writing 20 chapters of his memoirs.

It’s both vaguely ridiculous and very touching.

Ridiculous, because, from the start, this kind of challenge that is a little too Hollywood and a little too filmed is badly crossed. Smith is followed by a procession of personal trainers, nutritionist, psychologist, film crew… who whip or cajole him at the gym, on the track, in the kitchen… Or decide to take him to Dubai in a private jet, where we makes him climb the steps of the Burj Khalifa (tallest skyscraper in the world) as if it were Everest. And other stuff intended to put a little “visual” in what would remain a rather austere project otherwise.

Touching, because Smith recounts the dark side of his life. And as he progresses through his memoir, he reads new chapters to his team and family on camera. And goes further and further into the dark corners of what his childhood was really like.

Smith had often spoken of his father, his idol, his hero, his trainer.

Willard Carroll Smith, a US Army veteran, had his small business servicing commercial refrigerators. The actor says that very young, after school, his father took him with his brother to his shop, to build a brick wall. The children were discouraged by the magnitude of the task. “He told us: forget the wall; your task is to lay the next brick perfectly. »

And the wall was built.

Until his father died in 2016, and in fact until last year, Smith always spoke with immense admiration of his father. of his requirement. Of its rigor. There was no question of being anything other than the best, or at least of being the best possible. You had to “perform”. hard loveas the saying goes.

What we learned in this series and in his memoirs is that this man whom he admired beyond any other is also the one he hated more than any other. To the point of wanting to kill him. To the point of wanting to kill himself.

All his life, Will Smith lived in fear and shame. Fear of other children. Fear of his alcoholic and violent father, above all. Shame for not standing up to him.

The event that “defined” him happened when he was 9 years old. When he saw his father hitting his mother very hard. She was bleeding. He was too small, he couldn’t protect his mother. She left her husband a few years later.

When his father was dying of cancer, Smith says that while wheeling him from his bedroom to the bathroom in a wheelchair, he thought he would “accidentally” fall down the stairs. To avenge his mother.

I’m not saying all this to make people feel sorry for Smith. Hitting someone is a criminal act here like in LA, like anywhere. Even if the victim made a dirty joke about the baldness of his wife Jada Pinkett, due to an illness. “Provocation” is not a legal justification or defense (although it can turn murder into manslaughter in some cases).

But having seen it live, with the sound muted following the “incident”, I was struck by one thing: Smith was laughing at Rock’s joke (which I hadn’t understood); but Jada Pinkett rolled her eyes and didn’t find her funny at all.

What happened so that three seconds later, he gets up and goes to slap Rock on the stage? It happened that he saw his wife hurt by this humor cheap. He didn’t want to feel coward again. It’s as if 40 years of helplessness and shame have suddenly been lifted.

Violence is not the product of spontaneous generation.

So this man who, even though he lost those 20 pounds, weighs more than 200, went and slapped a much smaller man.

Some would have us choose between two camps. False dilemma. A joke, no matter how cowardly (laughing at an illness is in this category), obviously doesn’t justify punching someone. Will Smith didn’t really have a choice to apologize on Monday night.

The courage would have been to answer with words – other words than this supposed divine mission to protect his family which he sadly invoked.

Cowardice prevailed.