The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recalled Will Smith’s actions at the past Oscars. The president of the Academy, Janet Yang, referred to the incident, stating that the institution’s response was incompetent. A mistake that will not be repeated in the future.
The 2023 delivery ceremony is getting closer. Therefore, on Monday, February 13, the traditional lunch for the nominees was held. All those mentioned in the 24 categories are invited by the Academy for the coexistence between peers, the capture of the group photograph and the recognition for their artistic contributions to the cinematographic year that ends.
In this context, Yang recalled (via Variety) the incident with Smith. He confessed that the Academy should have been faster and more decisive when acting. Especially when it comes to a crisis like the one that happened with Smith onstage.
“I’m sure everyone remembers that we had an unprecedented event in past Oscars,” Yang told guests. “What happened on stage was totally unacceptable and our organization’s response was inadequate. We learned from this that the Academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and especially in times of crisis we must act with speed, compassion and decisiveness for ourselves and for our industry. They should not and cannot expect less from us in the future.”
At the 74th Academy Awards ceremony, Chris Rock took the microphone to deliver the award for Best Documentary, but not before making some jokes. And one of them, directed towards Jada Pinkett Smith, referred to her lack of hair. The actress revealed in the past that she suffers from alopecia, a condition that causes her hair to fall out. Her husband Will Smith did not take the comment well and went on stage to slap the presenter. Moments later he returned to his chair and from there yelled at Rock to “keep his wife’s name out of her fucking mouth.”
Forty minutes later the Best Actor envelope announced Will Smith as the winner. Going on stage to collect the statuette from him, his speech was a strange mix of thanks and justification. He aligned the character principles of him in King Richard: a winning familywith their own claiming that “it was a man who defends and fights for his family.”
“The 94th Academy Awards was meant to be a celebration of the many people in our community who did incredible work last year,” Yang said in a prior statement shared last April. “However, those moments were overshadowed by the unacceptable and disruptive behavior we saw Mr. Smith exhibit onstage. During the broadcast, we did not adequately address the situation in the room. We sorry. We had the opportunity to set an example for our guests, viewers and the Academy family around the world, and we fell short: we were not prepared for something unprecedented.
Days later, the Academy revoked Smith’s membership as one of them. In addition, the actor will not be able to attend any Oscar ceremony in a period of 10 years. Months after the incident, specifically in the month of July, the actor revealed that he had communicated with Chris Rock personally: “I contacted Chris and the message I received is that he is not ready to talk, and when he is, he will. will do”.
The 95th Oscar Awards ceremony will take place on March 12.
Luis Angel H Mora My most stable relationship is with the movies, parties and music. I love writing about cinema, meeting new people and sharing ideas. Idealistic in every way, I guess that’s my Ascendant Aquarian trait.
