With the recent event at the Oscars 2022 with Will Smith hitting Chris Rock, the debate around who is right and wrong is huge. In my opinion, both are wrong, somewhat.

The reason for the slap was because Chris Rock made a joke about Jaya Smith’s alopecia. The alopecia has caused her to lose her hair, which can be a major insecurity for some people, especially women. While people in the crowd laughed, Jayda didn’t, and she doesn’t have to. If she’s insecure about her hair loss, nobody should be making jokes about it. While it was light-hearted, that doesn’t make it okay for Rock to say in front of millions of people.

In response to the joke, Will Smith got on stage and slapped Rock. Once back in his seat, he told Rock to ‘keep his wife’s name out his mouth.’ While this was affirming that Jayda was uncomfortable, and it let Chris know that she was hurt about the joke, it was a misguided step in doing so. All that needed to be done was a conversation telling him not to make fun of her, on stage or off stage. Smith ended up apologizing for this, stating he apologizes to Chris and saying that it was ‘out of line.’ Yes, Smith was out of line, but so was the joke.

Chris should apologize for the insensitive joke, just like Will did. The joke was wrong, the approach to Jayda’s feelings was wrong, and I feel that all that needed to be done was a civil conversation about it.

Ethan Lebel stated, “I feel good about Chris Rock getting… rocked. He shouldn’t make a joke about something someone can’t help. I feel like Will probably should have gone about it a different way; he didn’t need to immediately get physical. He could’ve just explained it was wrong.”