What does it look like to atone for a terrible mistake?
At last year’s Oscars, actor Will Smith shocked the nation when he stormed on stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock, after Rock made a dig at Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has struggled with hair loss due to alopecia. For the assault, the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences banned Smith from the Oscars for the next 10 years.
The slap was stunning in part because of Smith’s reputation as an affable family man, and in part because of the timing: For the past several years, Hollywood has been reckoning with the toll of male abuse and mistreatment, though largely of women, through the #MeToo movement. The slap was an outrageous display of male violence disguised as chivalry – a man standing up for his wronged wife by hitting another man who insulted her.
There may have been an era in which Smith was widely applauded for his actions. Thankfully, this isn’t it. But the question now isn’t whether or not Smith was justified (he wasn’t). It’s whether he can ever come back into the public’s good graces, and what it means to make amends. Smith has recently reappeared in the public eye, and how he has handled himself is a revealing window into American society’s inadequacies when it comes to violence – and to forgiveness.
Smith’s foray back into public life came with an interview on “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah to promote his new movie “Emancipation,” the story of an enslaved man who not only escapes his captors but also has a direct hand in the success of the abolitionist movement in the United States. Smith, of course, has a personal and financial interest in the film doing well, which requires the public go see it. But he also seems to be taking responsibility for his actions, calling the slap at the Oscars a “horrific decision” and explaining that he was going through a hard time personally – “not that that justifies my behavior at all,” he added. He said what was most painful to him was that his actions “made it hard for other people. And it’s like I understood the idea where they say hurt people hurt people.”
