Last night at the Oscars, Will Smith assaulted Chris Rock live on stage after Rock delivered a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada.
While a lot can be said about it, from the memes using male abuse as the punchline, to how wealth and status can protect even the most egregious acts. I’m more interested in what compelled Smith to lash out in this manner, to begin with. That is the belief that men have to prove their masculinity by not tolerating disrespect and being violent and domineering over other men.
If you watch his award acceptance speech, he goes on about how he only wanted to protect his family. Protect them from what exactly? Thieves, murderers, and rapists? No, just a comedian that made bad jokes. Because men are still socialized to take arms and fight for women's honor, conflicts usually escalate as the man is now fighting for his manhood as much as he is for the honor. You can even see the light switch flip for Smith. For one second he enjoyed the joke, and then assaulted Rock a second later and demanded compliance. In that timespan, Will either got the joke and felt emasculated or Jada chastised him for not being “man” enough to defend her, which also emasculated him.
For most straight, cis men, being perceived as masculine is everything. After all, most still see men who aren’t sufficiently masculine to be unworthy of love or compassion. See how insults like virgin and lncel shame socially awkward men for not fulfilling the role of a confident, suave man. Since men are desperate to hold on to this value, socially destructive ideals such as these take form as the perceived loss of masculinity by anyone, especially women, would be devastating.
Fortunately for us all, Smith only socked Rock with a weak slap. In many other cases, however, some have felt the infraction so grave that they have to kill to rectify it. Men being conditioned to act in such brazen ways has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of countless men when the easier and better solution would be to walk away.
Unfortunately, I don’t see this antiquated thinking going away anytime soon. We have seen that this expectation still runs deep even in progressive circles. Rep. Ayanna Pressley minutes after the assault tweeted in support of Smith’s actions, as did Rep. Bowman. Outside of Congress, there are countless examples on social media of those defending Will, who said he’s doing what any husband ought to do when stuff like this happens. If we’re ever going to combat this type of harmful behavior, a complete and total revocation of our thinking of masculinity has to follow with it.
(PS. There’s also something to be said about so many feminists and progressive types agreeing with sexist ideas, as men fighting women’s battles stems from the belief that women are either too fragile or incompetent to do so on their own. If Jada Pinkett wanted to contact Chris after the show or use her platform to address the joke, she is more than capable enough to speak for herself. Another example of the problem of discussing gender relations nowadays.)
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But why could Jada do it. It's her feelings and she's an adult. Like. She is clearly wearing the pants' in the relationship. Just to maintain gender roles?
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