Will Smith physically assaulted a man during Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, yet that was probably the least bizarre thing to happen all night.
What’s truly weird is that Smith, in the presence of our most virtue-signaling elites, wasn’t escorted from the premise in handcuffs. Indeed, after he struck comedian Chris Rock across the face on stage, he returned calmly to his seat, enjoyed the rest of the evening, and even got a round of applause as he accepted an Oscar for “Best Actor.”
So much for “toxic masculinity.”
But that the entire event is a joke is simply taken for granted anymore. How could anyone take it seriously when the very first award winner, an attractive, able-bodied actress named Ariana DeBose, portrayed herself as a victim of sorts by identifying as “an openly queer woman of color”?
The media, naturally, bought the gimmick, with headlines referring to DeBose as “the first openly queer actor of color to win an Oscar” (CBS) and “Ariana DeBose makes history as first Afro Latina, openly queer actor of color to win Oscar” (NBC).
The boring truth is that DeBose is just a Hispanic and a lesbian. Unfortunately for her, those two categories have already seen Oscar nominations and wins. “Queer,” by the way, is not a real thing because it means whatever anyone wants it to mean, which means it means nothing. (Even the liberal Human Rights Campaign nonprofit says the word is “a catch-all to include many people.”)
She didn’t make history. Her award also wasn’t for anything original. It was for her role in the remake of “West Side Story.”
Trying to make something sound new when everyone knows it’s old is desperate and cringey. But this is the Oscars.
Lastly, is anyone going to state the obvious that Beyonce, who screamed a song at the start of the show, hasn’t been interesting or fun for the better part of the last decade now? Her performance was a microwaved serving of the same routine she’s been doing since 2013, placing herself in front of an all-black squad of dancers and instrumentalists, all of them in braids and natural afros, a symbol of black empowerment. (Curiously, Beyonce herself tosses her head to flash the striking blonde highlights of her perfectly straight front-lace.)
She did it at the Super Bowl. It’s the backdrop of her entire 2019 Netflix hagiographic documentary “Homecoming.” Her most recent full body of work “Lemonade” is a visual album expressly about black empowerment (when it’s not about black oppression).
Zzz…
But again, this is what is now expected of the Oscars and virtually every other entertainment award ceremony. Still, though, it really is shocking that a man violently struck a comedian on the face, and no one at the event said a word.
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