Words are the means by which we communicate ideas, and we ought to communicate with as much precision as possible because people are stupid and the more ambiguity we allow in the words we choose, the more likely it is that people will misunderstand our ideas. I stand by the idea I was communicating when I proposed the thought experiment. Words like assault and violent attack are shit descriptors of what happened. At the very least, if I heard that the guy who played Ali hit someone, I would be expecting it was a punch.

In this situation, it is clear to me that people latched onto calling this an assault and an act of violence because it gave them license to think it was a big deal that needed to be talked about days (and weeks!) later. Rather than admit what it was: a man slapped another man, and the man who got slapped didn't seem to care very much about it.
After all, if it isn't an assault or a felony or a deplorable act of violence, then how are we going to justify endlessly debating how and how much Smith should be punished . . . or if we will ever be able to enjoy watching Independence Day with our grandchildren. I mean, he's clearly not going to face any charges from the justice system, so the justice system has to be the court of public opinion, and how do you keep the public interested in a slap? Yes, because this wasn't just a husband slapping another guy who (he thought) insulted his wife. I mean who cares about that for more than 48 hours.

Meh. Even if no one had talked about this after the night, it would still be an act of violence and still meet the legal definition of assault.

Your experiment only "proves" that people imagine the worst. If you hear someone has been badly injured in a car accident, you also expect something worse than a broken arm, which still is a bad injury. Yes the media is making it sound worse than it is, but they aren't watering down violence, you are playing down a slap, which is a form of assault.

Has Alec Baldwin been banned from the Oscars yet? Or does he have to shoot somebody onstage there first?

I guess it depends on if she just "takes it like a man" or falls down and gets bruised up like a sissy. Also whether or not she used words that hurt. Or something.

Will accidentally walked up and slapped Chris Rock with someone else’s hand?

Can a mod change the title of the thread to "Post an asinine comment"?

Great question! Have you been 86'd from any bars you haven't been to?

Absolute doodoo. Because Rock declined to press charges in no way is any positive indication that he "didn't seem to care very much about it". The fucker's being cautious on how best to proceed from there, and declining to press charges at that time is congruous to that mindset entirely.

You can argue that people "talking for weeks" about this incident somehow imbues it with a gravity and onslaught of solemnity that is out-of-proportion to its impact, and maybe that's a valid point, but let's not trivialize what actually occurred here.

If you went to a local city council meeting and smacked a councilman for a poorly-conceived joke, I guarantee you they wouldn't brush it off as "just a little bitch slap". You'd be lawyering up bigtime. And rightfully so.

We have a gatekeeper here! Yes they're art. I may think something is bad art, but it's still art. Gatekeepers think that if they don't like something, it isn't art.

Yeah. I was a jerk when I was twenty. Happily for me, there were no cell phones.

I have a story about Mr Rogers. The big brother of a friend was a pianist. He was hired for a Mr Rogers stage show. Fred Rogers was brutal about holding him to a high standard. He didn't like working with Mr Rogers. There, I said it.

I don't have a problem with watching something with Will Smith in it, (or even buying a ticket to something if he had a film in theaters that I was interested in seeing) but I don't think his punishment was inappropriate either. You can't just assault someone without consequences.

I do have a problem with enjoying the work of convicted rapists and murderers but it depends on their level of involvement in the film and their ability to profit from what I'm doing. If they appear on screen, I usually can't watch it, because that's all I can see. If they were involved behind the scenes, I can probably watch it if it's on, but I wouldn't spend money on it.

I also can't enjoy the work of JK Rowling anymore because of her rampant transphobia. I can't in good conscience buy a ticket to the new Fantastic Beasts movie, because she still profits from it. Maybe I can watch it when it's on HBO in a couple of months, but I'm not sure at this point. I also gave away all of my Harry Potter blu-rays and books. It's not so much that I couldn't stand to watch them if they were on, but I really don't need them in my collection anymore. I'm certainly never going to read the books again or recommend them to anyone else. I don't begrudge anyone else who still enjoys them, I didn't burn the books or anything, I just can't really enjoy them anymore, as their author clearly would rather that my son and I didn't exist, and I can't separate that.

I'm trying to decide how surprised I am that Dooku is here arguing that an open hand slap can't be considered violence while also talking about using one's words carefully so as to not be misunderstood. Come to think of it, I'm not surprised at all at his take.

But what if that art won awards? DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince have 2 Grammys and Will has 4.

If there was a way for Will to 'man up,' it would be by dumping Jada. What's there to be hanging on to? It's not for the 'kids' anymore. I hope he takes a step back and reflects upon the sham open marriage bullshit he's embroiled in. Or he can continue to be a cuck and think his actions are his own.

Yeah, every time I see this thread's title, I grow more irritated with it. It's fucking absurd. I think it's a combination of 1) it was at a highly public, televised event; 2) the victim was also a famous person and 3) Will Smith is black. I'm trying to give our dvdtalk community the benefit of the doubt and assume that 1 & 2 are more of the driving factors here, but 3 is definitely part of why the nation has been so obsessed with it.

Slapping someone, shoving them, spitting on them, throwing a drink in their face... all of these are assault. They're all technically violent. Hell, spanking a child is violent assault that we make an exception for as long as a kid's parents are doing it. But unless a specific incident of minor, small-v violence is part of a larger pattern of aggressive, abusive and/or abhorrent behavior, it's pretty fucking small potatoes and it's weird as hell to see people doling out their opinion on Smith next to their opinions on Weinstein, Cosby, Polanski and the like.

Just going off memory/quick googling of some actors who have their fans here: Josh Brolin has been in drunken bar fights, same at least once for Vince Vaughn & Steve Buscemi, Sylvester Stallone elbowed Richard Gere in the head because he spilled some mustard on him, Bill Murray punched Chevy Chase in the face over him leaving SNL, Tom Hardy and Shia Lebouf got into an on-set fight that supposedly ended with Hardy getting knocked out and Sean Penn could fill a list on his own. I'm sure someone with time to compile a comprehensive list could add dozens more. I could understand a discussion comparing Smith's slap to some of those types of examples. I don't get asking, 'how do you deal with viewing art by rapists and Will Smith?' followed by pages of people offering serious takes that lump these people together and insisting how grave a crime an open-handed slap is. It's fucking bananas.

I'm just trying to look at the thread topic more broadly as behaviors and attitudes of artists that may impact whether you'd see something. It could be rape, a slap, a political view, or a crazed jump on a couch. I'm not saying all of those things are equal - not at all - but I was reading the intent of the thread to be more in that vein. I guess the problem is that this devolved into another Smith debate.

Behaving as a taskmaster to uphold certain standards one has for one's own productions is not necessarily a negative character trait. Optimally, one would achieve desired results with smiles, patience, and soft tones, but is it possible your friend's brother wasn't the right man for the job? I never excuse someone's being a jerk, but it's hard to imagine Rogers that way.

That's not what happend in the thread. Yes, there has been a discussion about the seriousness of the slap, but besides the opening question he never was lumped together with rapists.

I can’t argue with this take.

Jada seems toxic.

It's also not unusual for celebrities with "nice" public personas to turn into raging assholes when the second the cameras are off.

I don't think Will Smith should be mentioned in the same breath as other people in this thread. The only movies that are hard to watch is when he acts like he's God's gift to women so I'd say Hitch seems odd now.

Well for one, Polanski's trial was a bloody joke. Watch "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired".

No question, but other than Nick's anecdote, I have never heard anything negative said about Rogers.

Yes Rogers was a saint, I brought him up as an example because I can't imagine anything that bad being said about him (knock on wood).

Not really sure Mel Gibson belongs on that list. He may belong on a list but not the one of rapist and pedophiles

1) No argument there
2) See #1
3) Yeah fuck RIGHT OFF with that. Your condescending "benefit of the doubt" trivializes the many people of color (including myself) who have soundly condemned Smith's actions, and I guarantee if Bradley Cooper slapped Ansel Elgort over a Lady Gaga remark, you'd get the same response. Although I'm sure many people want to slap Ansel Elgort anyhow.