Will Smith's Chris Rock slap, in response to a poorly-aimed jibe about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith's hair, may have occupied the entire 2022 Oscars news cycle and undermined his King Richard Best Actor win. But the slap doesn't overshadow the genuine triumphs made at the 2022 Oscars for marginalized representation. In an awards ceremony that critics and equality watchdogs so often scrutinize, the Academy made some historic decisions and filmmakers broke new ground with their achievements.
Smith's visceral reaction to Chris Rock's joke – a hearty slap, followed by a request to "keep [his] wife's name out of [Chris Rock's] f**king mouth" – was the slap heard around the world that stained a groundbreaking Oscars for Smith, looming over the conclusion of a quest for an Oscar that began with Ali two decades ago. His performance as Richard Williams, Venus and Serena Williams' overbearing father, is a tour de force, and will now sit just behind his ill-judged slap in the public imagination. The impact moves beyond Smith's self-installed personal roadblock into something even more distracting and obstructive, but audiences mustn't let it.
The moment has brought to the fore a lot of discussion about violent, toxic masculinity, but it's important not to let the moment drown out the beautiful signs of progress that emerged from the ceremony. As a film about the only hearing member of a profoundly Deaf family, CODA took home the Best Picture award – a landmark for Deaf representation in cinema since The Sound of Metal's arguable snub in 2021. Jane Campion became the first female winner of both a Best Director award (for this year's Power of the Dog and a Best Screenplay Award (for 2003's The Piano) and one of only three female Best Directors in the ceremony's history.
West Side Story's Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in West Side Story, marking the first-ever Oscar win for a queer woman of color. While the #OscarsSoWhite campaigns of the past acknowledged a need to recognize a more diverse array of filmmakers, the firsts among the 2022 Oscars wins suggest that representation is alive and well. The Academy might just have moved past the "token" era of handing out awards and seem to recognize a wide range of storytelling perspectives and experiences.
Given the Hollywood media machine's propensity to zone in on scandal rather than hope, it's likely that cinephiles will be force-fed news about Will Smith and his family for months to come and push sexual, racial, and disability-based representation out of the limelight. But the incident should also pull focus on another aspect of the public discussion – mental health. From the #FreeBritney movement centered around ending Britney Spears' conservatorship to Kanye West's recent threats to Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson, the effects of celebrity speculation, memes, social media's pernicious influence, and gossip culture are now becoming painfully clear. His attack comes after years of fun-poking around Smith's relationship with Jada Pinkett-Smith and the way he raises his family, memeing his teared-up response to Jada's "entanglements" with other men.
Smith's actions set a poor example and a terrible precedent moving forward, and the Academy is likely to take action. And it did steal the limelight from a diverse and closely contested Oscars that, despite awkward moments (the #FanFavorite and Most Cheer Worthy Moment need confining to the trash can of history), marked real forward motion in recognizing stories from all backgrounds and walks of life.
But perhaps in celebrating the most diverse upcoming talent, Hollywood media and its audience should consider how it treats its most established names. Will Smith will live with the slap's consequences, but failing to fit those actions in the wider context of celebrity culture would be a misjudgment. One man's emotional outburst at the 2022 Oscars doesn't scrub out historic firsts for underrepresented communities – but it also didn't happen in a vacuum and doesn't undo his work in King Richard.