Let's play "Hot Take Bingo" with the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap

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So last night at the Oscars, Will Smith slapped the shit out of Chris Rock and the internet moved on from Volodymyr Zewhatshisname. We’ve got something new to talk about, and it’s way more exciting because it’s about Americans.

Every time a news story bubbles up, a clever man can predict the opinions that will soon start spreading across the internet. Its a game I like to call

Hot Take Bingo

and this one is perfect for Hot Take Bingo, because it’s ripe with 3 of the internets favorite topics:

  1. Celebrities

  2. Violence

  3. Race

And the best part about this video is the level of controversy. This is going to be a 50/50 debate. All of our main characters— Will, Chris, and Jada— are highly empathetic and generally beloved. Everyone has a fairly reasonable position. I can put myself in any of their shoes and I don’t like it. I can admire all of them for their role and I can also criticize any of them for their role.

OK, so let’s see how many hot takes I can fire off in say 20 minutes, before I poke around Twitter to see how many I got right.

Right off the bat— this one is going to break down into 2 camps, like the best internet fights always do:

Team Will

  • “It’s ok to punch people who mock disk disabilities because they are an extension of Nazis”

  • People talk like they’re not afraid of getting slapped these days.

  • I’d slap someone if they mocked my wife for having a disability.

Team Chris

  • We allowed him to be victimized for our entertainment then let Will Smith recount the moment as a morality tale in which he was the hero and Chris was the villain who got what he deserved.

  • This is a story about classism and life on the A List. Will Smith was allowed to commit an act of violence on national then he was handed a gold statue and gave a self-glorifying speech in which he justified using physical violence to “protect” people from words. I bet I just spoiled Ben Shapiro’s whole hour today.

  • Undersized men are actually the most victimized/least privileged people in our society today.

But then we’re always going to have outliers who don’t fit neatly into either camp.

Racial jambalaya

  • What if the racial axes were reversed? What would have happened if a white guy slapped a white guy? White guy slapped a black guy? Black guy slapped a white guy?

  • What if Tom Cruise slapped David Spade? That’s the most direct equivalent I can imagine of white actors.

  • What if Chris Rock walked on stage and tried to slap Will Smith? Would he be unceremoniously tackled by security? You and I would, that’s for goddamn sure.

Male on male violence is fertile soil for toxic masculinity/red pill discourse

  • Our society still makes heroes of men for perpetrating violence and makes jokes of men for being the victims of violence

  • What if in this same situation, a woman walked on stage to slap a guy? I bet that would have gotten a round of applause.

  • Guy slapped a woman? Big time accountability for him. Immediately and on the spot. I bet if some guy walked on stage to slap a girl, Will Smith would have jumped up and kicked his ass.

  • (These situations both seem perfectly fair to me, by the way. I’m an old fashioned kind of sexist, not one of these new weird insurrection virgins.)

An iconic meme photo

Say what you will about the whole situation, but this picture was instantly iconic.

My go to’s for memes are “me/me”, “me/my dick”, and “me/depression and anxiety”. All 3 work here. What a gem.

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