Will Smith’s 10-Year Oscar Ban – A Little Too Much?

Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued a 10-year-ban to Will Smith, following the slapping incident that occurred at the Oscars.

The Academy’s President, David Rubin, and its CEO, Dawn Hudson, called Smith’s actions “unacceptable and harmful,” the decision spurred a debate online, with some supporting the academy’s actions as appropriate, and others criticizing them as excessive and hypocritical.

Some Reactions From People Against The 10-Year-Ban

Twitter users took to Twitter to express their anger and disgust as to how the case was handled, a user by name Frederick tweeted “The ten-year ban they gave Will Smith feels very ‘make a lesson of this Black person.'” another tweeted “I’m sorry but I can’t get over the fact that Will Smith got a harsher punishment than the people who tried to carry out a fucking coup”

Chris Rock Has Nothing To Say About Will Smith Slap Until He Gets Paid

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Many suggested that there was a double standard applied to Smith and called out the Oscars’ history of awarding celebrities who have been accused of sexual assault, racism, and misogyny.

A Twitter user Alier Meth posted “Will Smith being banned from the Oscars for 10 years is just straight-up racism at this point. It was a slap. Not okay to do. A fucking slap. Yet they would let Harvey Weinstein come for decades knowing he raped and took advantage of women for the same amount of time.”

Several viral posts referring to controversial figures who are yet to face repercussions from the academy surfaced, including Oscar winners such as Kevin Spacey, who has faced allegations of sexual abuse, and Woody Allen, whose daughter has accused him of sexual assault. (Criminal charges against Spacey were dropped in 2019, and Allen, who has never been charged, has denied all allegations.)

Natalie Dallas posted “Will Smith being banned from the Oscars for 10 years is astounding. They really kept giving awards to known sexual abusers and pedophiles, but a slap is really where they’re going to start banning people.”

Will Smith Oscar Ban

People accentuated how quick the academy was to ban Smith for a slap, condemning how long it took the organization to expel disgraced celebrities such as Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Roman Polanski, who had long faced accusations of sexual assault.

After banning Weinstein in 2017, and Cosby and Polanski in 2018, the academy offered Polanski’s wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, an invitation to join the organization in 2018 (which she rejected).

TikTok user Sharika Soal posted a viral take, accusing Hollywood of allowing white celebrities to build careers without consequences.

“I don’t know if it’s racism or classism, but it’s so blatant and hard to process.” Speaking with Buzz Feed, Soal asked “How can you punish a man for slapping someone onstage in an interpersonal confrontation when there are whole TV productions glorifying violence, and then there are men like Woody Allen who are literal pedophiles?” she said. “I don’t understand it.”
Will Smith’s 10-Year-Ban: “A Performative Response To A Performative Act”

Courtney Baker, Ph.D., an African American studies and film professor at the University of California, Riverside, speculates that the dissonance between the academy’s disciplinary actions toward Will Smith and others falls to the fact that the slap was televised.

“The greatest issue for the academy is that [the slap] happened on camera,” Baker told BuzzFeed News. “There has been assault, actions which were more profoundly dangerous, destructive, and repeated but had the benefit of not happening in public and on camera at an event run by the [Academy of] Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. That is the driving force behind the 10-year ban more than anything else.”

That statement triggered online users to share other instances of inappropriate behavior that happened onstage during televised award ceremonies. They noted that Adrien Brody did not face the academy’s heat when he grabbed and kissed Halle Berry without her consent while accepting his 2003 Oscar for Best Actor. Berry later described her only thought at that moment as, What the fuck is happening?

One said, “Adrien Brody suddenly kissed Halle Berry on the lips, without her consent, did it live on stage in front of everyone. People laughed it off as a funny story, but that violation of consent is literally sexual assault. How long was he banned for? Oh, zero.” Another added “A decade of banishment from the Oscars is a ridiculous level of performative decision making. Was Adrian Brody even *chastised* for French kissing Halle Berry without consent on stage? The fact that a punishment this big is happening to a black man isn’t lost on me either.”

Chris Rock Has Nothing To Say About Will Smith Slap Until He Gets Paidhttps://t.co/VNthYovHXi#ChrisRock #WillSmith

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To those analyses, Baker replied, “This is a performative response to a performative act, those are much easier to get up and get people behind than really do the deep analysis of, what is wrong with our industry that it’s so easy to repeatedly and rampantly conduct assault?”

Baker said it would be a mistake to “extrapolate any kind of morality by the academy or even of society from this slap. I’d love to see a more thoughtful conversation asking more crucial questions about comedy towards oppressed groups and our tastes in public behavior that lead towards us being kinder towards one another,”

Will Smith resigned from the academy and apologized to Rock, calling his behavior “unacceptable and inexcusable.” But, Smith will still be able to be nominated for and win Oscars irrespective of the ban.

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