The Smack Heard Around The World

 The 2022 Academy Awards will go down in history for many reasons. The first openly queer person of color to win a major acting award. Despite being nominated for 12 Oscars, one film walked away with only one statue - for Best Director. A film with a mostly deaf cast winning the Best Picture award.

But perhaps the one thing that most people will remember is "the smack heard around the world." In case you've been living under a rock, Will Smith (eventual winner of the Best Actor award) became highly agitated at an extremely out of place and rude comment concerning his with, the gorgeous Jada Pinkett Smith, made by presenter Chris Rock. It's widely known that there is a history of animosity between Mr. Smith and Mr. Rock (a quick Google search will get you all the info you need on THAT topic). Mr. Smith walked up on stage and smacked the ever loving crap out of Mr. Rock.

Needless to say, people have been talking about this incident ad nauseum ever since.

After reflecting on it for a while, I've come to some conclusions I'd like to share.

• Chris Rock is not funny. Never has been, never will be. He's a bully who thinks insulting people will get him laughs. 
• Will Smith has a temper. Like ... DUH.
• Violence against another human being is NEVER the answer.
• Toxic masculinity is alive and well in Hollywood.

It's unfortunate that an otherwise lovely ceremony will be forever marred by this incident. Let's all learn a lesson from this - if you don't have anything nice to say (especially about the way a person looks), keep your mouth shut. We have no clue what's going on in someone's life. And quite frankly, it's none of our damn business.