It’s an antiquated trope to defend a woman’s honour. The knight rushes to the princess’s aid or the love interest floors the town scoundrel. We’ve seen it in every film from Twilight to Dirty Dancing, which perhaps is why it makes perfect sense that life imitated Hollywood at this year’s Academy Awards.
‘Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,’ Will Smith said in his Best Actor acceptance speech for King Richard minutes after slapping Chris Rock across the face for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s buzzcut hair - Jada suffers from alopecia.
‘Can’t wait for G.I Jane 2,’ the comedian had jibed before Will ‘slapped the sh*t’ out of him and advised he keep his wife’s name ‘out of [his] f**king mouth’.
In the aftermath, there has been much debate about whether Will was in the right or wrong to use violence to convey his feelings. But few are actually talking about Jada Pinkett Smith herself...
Jada barely moved at the dig. Rolling her eyes and clasping her hands together, Jada repositioned herself upright as to almost convey her confidence and pride despite the cheap gag. It was dignified and quietly powerful.
Following the scene, Jameela Jamil wrote on Twitter: ‘Will Smith said “Not Today”. A man big enough to absolutely floor him, slapped him softly enough that Chris barely moved, because he made fun of his wife’s alopecia on a world stage. Don’t say protect Black women for two years and then only condemn Will here. Come on…’
'It was one of those times in my life when I was literally shaking with fear'
While there’s power and value in speaking or acting for those who don’t have the platform or privilege to stand up for themselves, the attention and fall-out of Will’s act risks negating this aim. Perhaps he should have instead created the space for Jada to speak out about her condition and shared his spotlight on the ‘world stage’ so she could defend her own honour.
‘I’ve been getting lots of questions about why I’ve been wearing this turban,’ she first said of her alopecia on her Red Table Talk podcast in 2018. ‘Well, I’ve been having issues with hair loss. And I’ll tell you it was terrifying when it first started. I was in the shower one day and then just handfuls of hair, just in my hands, and I was like, “Oh my God, am I going bald? It was one of those times in my life when I was literally shaking with fear.
‘People are out here with cancer, with sick children,’ she continued. ‘I watch the higher power take things every day and if the higher power wants to take my hair? That’s it? God, you want my hair? When I looked at it from that perspective it did settle me.’
Rock’s joke at the Academy Awards was a clear example of a comedian punching down. Comedy loses its laugh factor when at the expense of the marginalised.
But this is not to say that Jada isn’t powerful. She’s strong, visible, used to being in the public eye. And while Jada is still yet to make a statement on what unfolded last night, she certainly doesn’t need her husband fighting to speak for her.
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