Oscars overshadowed by altercation


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The 94th Academy Awards, held Sunday night, featured a moment of chaos that viewers have come to expect as Best Actor winner Will Smith abruptly slapped host Chris Rock on the live telecast. (Photo courtesy of Blaine Ohigashi / A.M.P.A.S)

Before Sunday night’s 94th Academy Awards, it was hard to imagine an Oscars moment that could be more calamitous than when “La La Land” (2016) was mistakenly announced to have won Best Picture over “Moonlight” in 2017. Yet, a physical altercation between two beloved movie stars raised the bar for chaos during this year’s awards. 

Deep into the Oscars ceremony, comedian Chris Rock took a few jabs at members of the audience, specifically joking about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hair. Pinkett-Smith shaved all of her hair off last year in response to her public struggle with alopecia, a chronic hair loss condition, causing her husband, Will Smith, to take offense to the joke. 

“Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see you,” Rock said. Smith proceeded to walk on stage and smack Rock across the face on live television. 

While the audio was cut from this moment in the United States by ABC, other countries’ feeds caught Smith yelling obscenities at Rock from his seat. Rock gave a nervous laugh on stage and defended his joke. The uncensored altercation has circulated online thanks to international watchers who flooded social media with the clip.

Shortly after the incident, Smith won the Best Actor award for his performance in “King Richard” (2021) and delivered a hesitant acceptance speech, apologizing to the Academy and his fellow nominees. With tears streaming down his face, Smith mentioned how fellow actor, Denzel Washington, pulled him aside a few moments earlier and told him that “at the highest moment, be careful, that’s when the devil comes for you.” 

The Academy later posted on their Twitter account that the organization “does not condone violence of any form.” While the organization tried its hardest to keep the night moving, it was hard for the ceremony’s winners to not be overshadowed by the incident.

Regarding those wins, Apple’s “CODA” became the first Best Picture Oscar winner produced by a streaming service, hinting at the future of streaming services and their impact on the movie industry. “CODA” (2021) dives into the story of Ruby, the only hearing member of a financially struggling, deaf family on the East Coast. The film additionally won Best Adapted Screenplay, and Troy Kotsur became the first deaf man to win an acting prize at the Oscars, taking home the Best Supporting Actor award. 

“This is dedicated to the deaf community, the CODA community and the disabled community,” he said. Kotsur’s ASL interpreter became audibly overcome with emotion as Kotsur told the audience about his father, who, once the best sign language performer in the family, became paralayzed and unable to perform ASL. 

“Dune” swept the ceremony with six wins, including Best Original Score, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. The film’s lead, Timothée Chalamet, arrived bare-chested to the show in a Louis Vuitton womenswear suit, living up to the expectations of his usual, standard-challenging red carpet looks from past award shows. 

Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes proved themselves to be quite the comedic trio as the Oscars’ hosts, the first to host the awards since Jimmy Kimmel in 2018. Schumer didn’t fail at making a classic Leonardo DiCaprio joke about his young lovers and even took a stab at Aaron Sorkin for his humorless Lucille Ball biopic, “Being the Ricardos.” 

“The inclination to make a movie about Lucille Ball without even a moment that’s funny,” she said. “It’s like making a biopic about Michael Jordan and just showing the bus trips between games.” 

Billie Eilish and Finneas delivered a captivating performance of their James Bond film track, “No Time to Die.” The brother and sister duo later won Best Original Song for the track, Eillish’s jaw-dropping at the announcement of their names. Beyoncé, a fellow nominee for the award, gave a thrilling performance as well, performing “King Richard’s” “Be Alive” on a tennis court in Compton, Calif.

The Oscars took a different route this year in an effort to boost viewer ratings by presenting a “Cheer Moment” and “Fan Favorite” award, decided by users on Twitter. Zack Snyder’s “Army of the Dead” won “Fan Favorite” and Snyder’s “Justice League” scene in which the Flash enters the speed force won the “Cheer Moment.” Evidently though, it seems that the Academy got the attention it was looking for thanks to Rock and Smith’s wild altercation, whether that press proves to be good or bad.