Last night I was just getting ready to go to bed when Cal came running upstairs. He was really excited when he said, "Did you see what just happened at the Oscars?" We had been watching them earlier, but turned them off to start the movie "Fight Club." Once everyone went to bed, I decided to read instead of watching the last hour of the Oscars. After what he told me, I wondered if I had made the wrong decision.
When Cal first asked about the Oscars, I really thought from looking at his face that maybe a bomb exploded or that there was a shooting. It wasn't as big as that, but the news was pretty exciting. During the awards ceremony, Chris Rock came out to present the award to the best documentary. Before he announced the winner, he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's hair. It really wasn't very funny especially since she had a medical condition that caused hair loss. Most of those in attendance only laughed half heartedly. The remark wasn't the incident that Cal came up to tell me about, however. It was Will Smith's reaction to it. As soon as he heard the comment he walked up on stage and slapped Chris Rock in the face. He then sat back down and yelled, "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth." Everyone was in shock and many thought it was staged. Either way it was a complete surprise.
Cal and I were up for the next hour watching the highlights of the slap and finishing the Oscars. No one was surprised that Will Smith eventually won the Oscar for best actor, but after what he did to Chris Rock it all just seemed surreal. His acceptance speech was long and didn't make a lot of sense, but that was ok with Cal and I. We used that time to call and text Meg about the slap and to read posts on social media. There were a lot of funny ones. Cal's favorite was that "Chris Rock should give out another award only this time wearing a neck brace."
Today there were a lot more memes and gifs. The news was full of stories of what happened after the slap, what the academy thought of the incident, Will Smith's apology, etc. It was definitely a big story and Cal, Meg and I followed it all day. Brett and Cameron weren't quite as interested, but still found it all as funny as their siblings did. I enjoyed being a part of today's conversation about the Oscars with the Heinisch children, but overall I just felt really bad for Will Smith. It was his big moment and instead of being remembered for it, he will always be thought of as the actor that overreacted to a bad joke.
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