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Read the room (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
It’s not easy being good. Living in a $42 million home, being worth $350 million, and stepping up to accept the greatest award of your career is no mean feat. Maybe, just maybe, we caught Will Smith at a bad time. Maybe, something else was weighing on his mind.
Put the price of fame aside, and the real pressure faced by the Fresh Prince, and to a lesser extent his “bitch slap” whipping boy Chris Rock, is being that most problematic of black male stereotypes: the role model.
Ironically, the pugnacious Smith’s rather comfortable living has come from playing an assortment of morally righteous heroes, including a homeless salesman, Muhammad Ali, and Venus and Serena Williams’s father. Arguably, as an actor, Smith is merely portraying characters who have little or no bearing on his real personality. By his own admission, his public persona is a confection, a construction “designed to protect myself, to hide myself from the world”. But under closer scrutiny, his self-indulgent tale doesn’t really stack up.
Smith has, for some years now, cried, crumbled and collapsed in countless interviews, reality TV scenarios and bizarre family encounters. He has spoken of his battles with mental health issues and his contemplation of suicide. He was left on the brink of a televised meltdown following his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s revelation of an affair in 2015, aged 43, with a 22-year-old rapper. Pinkett’s adultery, which she described euphemistically as “an entanglement”, led to gossip about her and Smith agreeing to an open relationship (which to me sounds like cuckolding by another name).
Yet Smith has courted the role-model dollar for decades. Way back in 1993, he refused to kiss co-star Michael Anthony Hall in one of his breakthrough movies, Six Degrees of Separation, for fear of the scene alienating his fanbase. His carefully chosen and generally wholesome roles, as well as occasional musings about running for president one day, have ensured the sort of “four-quadrant” appeal that has made him Hollywood gold. But his emotional outbursts, which include a previous slapping incident involving a reporter in 2012, not only illustrate Smith’s edginess, they demonstrate the fragility of the black role model.
If you’re a working-class black kid from South Central or South London, the chances are you’re still battling with disproportionate levels of unemployment, mental health, and urban deprivation in your neighbourhood. In an ideal world, it’s these areas that can really benefit from role models on the ground. But in the absence of government or corporate behemoths investing heavily in disenfranchised black youths — perhaps by building a well-funded, sustainable, nationwide role-modelling programme — the whole idea is just that: an idea.
The author is correct in his concluding paragraph but as others have pointed out this is the role that a father should be performing.
There is a mistake in idolising celebrities, musicians, politicians or sportsmen as paragons of virtue or exemplars for young men to follow especially if that is merely because they are men of the same race. These men are often said to be role models not because they are virtuous men or have done virtuous deeds but mainly because they have been successful in their field and they are rich. But what sort of role models can rich men who live exceptional lives provide to those who live very normal ones? Why should their (often self-serving and narcissistic) views of the world be given any more weight than that of the man on the street? What values does an actor who thinks violence is the answer to a joke hold? Or a grime artist or footballer who obsesses over material things (jewellery, cars and cash) and has misogynistic views of women? Celebrities aren’t role models, they are false idols.
Very well said. In the modern age, we ignore things we once understood:
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Colossians 3:5
If boys growing up in awful circumstances need a role model they need look no further than JD Vance. Black kids only think their skin colour is the defining issue because progressives relentlessly tell them it is so.
Clebs, of whatever colour, have only ever been role models for shallow narcissism.
I recommend Kwame Brown, for a load of reasons.
Celebrated No 1 Basketball pick straight out of high school, terrible early life, spends 10 years in the league underperforming the lofty expectations, being bullied by Michael Jordan and demeaned by much of the media, he’s finally found his voice.
He’s happy, well adjusted, and now spends his time podcasting, mowing his lawn, picking online fights with idiots (he’s hilarious) and acting as a strong voice for young black men.
His number one piece of advice – learn a trade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy-NRU63mzc
JD Vance is not a good role model, but I have no doubt there is a local man who is not a celebrity that kids could and should be encouraged to look up to.
My paternal grandfather was a rich man who destroyed his family with his cruelty.
My maternal grandfather was one of the kindest most loving men I’ve ever known who had zero talent for making money.
But 50 years after his death at age 60, I still think of that wonderful man and all the love her gave us.
True Heroism has nothing to do with money or celebrity.
“they can’t measure up to an Obama or a Stormzy or a Will Smith.” – can role models only be found in rich guys? Surely then the model will be the money and not the man!
So very true and well said, the age of the celebrity, the footballer etc is sowing the seed that you can only have a happy life if selfish, narcissistic and wealthy. Why do we not talk of the solid role models who give their lives to help others , to make a difference for the common good, the local heros who live happy fulfilled lives in a community that cares !
There are tens of thousands of them in every neighborhood, but they don’t make headlines, therefore, are of no worth to Hollywood or the Twitterverse.
I’ve never quite understood why role models must be racially similar to those they inspire. I’ve learned from a wide variety of people from many cultures, all in different ways. Surely it’s character, rather than skin colour, which is most relevant? I realise many think that naive these days, but we lose something vital when we reject that insight.
No mention of fathers in this discussion of ‘role models’. Or did I miss it?
A good father is the best male role model for a boy of any race or culture. Failing that,(as in my own son’s case) a caring grandfather. And beyond that, religion use to teach us the ultimate story of courage, love and sacrifice. None of this need have anything to do with race.
Amen.
Agree. In some cases, of course, fathers (or mothers) are not good role models, but I remember my brother, as a child, setting off down the road once carrying a tiny case, when our mother asked what he was doing he answered seriously “going to work”. This is how he saw our father carrying his lunch case and walking to the bus-stop to get to work, this is what a father did.
A good father is also very important for girls, enabling them to see whether a man is the right choice for marriage. I was married for 48 years to my student boyfriend and my sister were/ are married for a similar length of time. We knew what a good man was and would not settle for anything less.
Absolutely. My husband brought our kids up as I earned more. Just the way it has to be. But whenever I got upset about it, I reminded myself that both my daughter and son benefitted enormously by having their father in their lives. He’s a good man and, whilst I regret all the time I spend at work, it’s not because of the way my kids have turned out. I wish more fathers could do it (nb it is of course hard work, being at home with the kids).
Love Gervais’ tweet today. Says he’d have said ‘great to see diversity at Oscars- except poor people F###k them…’.
Good, insightful article. I think it’s positively destructive to hold successful black actors out as models for young people who happen to be the same colour. Still worse when it’s rappers or sports stars. If it has any effect it will be to make young black people think that their only way to success is through such occupations, which of course can only be true for a minuscule proportion of them. That so many of them will try will make admittedly mean that ever more of them will succeed, which will give the illusion of black advancement, but it will still be only a minuscule proportion. Far better to encourage them to focus on less spectacular but more achievable forms of success – as most of the rest of the population do.
When my sister was very young she was obsessed with celebrities. She struggled in school, but she could remember every detail of every actor and singer. Even then, though, she knew she didn’t want to be like them and didn’t think of them as good people. I think people should look closer to home for role models. Someone in their family, their town, maybe someone who had a similar background and made something of their life. It seems that celebrities, like politicians, have to make too many cynical compromises to gain fame for them to ever make good role models, even if it was something they wanted to be.
Be your best self! Live your best life! Be your true self! Be authentic! Me! Me! Me!
Meanwhile the people of Ukraine show us the role models we really admire for selflessness, community support and personal sacrifice. Who cares what their skin colour is.
The people of the Ukraine who just shot the kneecaps off of prisoners of war lying helplessly on the ground?
There are certainly some good people who are Ukrainian, just as there are also good people who are Congolese, British, Korean, American, or Russian.
But this ridiculous lionizing of an entire country – a deeply corrupt and violent country at that – has got to stop. It’s ludicrous.
Couldn’t agree more!
Indeed. It’s getting a bit contrived at this point.
The BBC World Service in their 20 minute (!!!) long discussion about this little incident had one of their panelists make the unchallenged and racist suggestion that criticism of a woman’s hair is somehow worse if she’s Black than if she’s White. This event was nothing to do with race or roll models. Rather it was about whether or not, and how, a man should defend a woman who is apparently mocked.
You still listen to this? Wife and I bet that we can switch on WS randomly and discover issue is Africa/Racism/Feminism/LGBT/ Obesity and very often combined simultaneously. We rarely lose.
Lightly mocked, in a ceremony in which many are mocked.
I saw Ricky Gervais’ famous Golden Globes monologue yesterday, and he cracks a joke about how Martin Scorsese cannot go to an amusement park, since he is too short to go on the rides. Scorsese goes totally in on the joke, laughing, nodding his head, and saying “It’s true!”
But Scorsese is a gifted artist with an important legacy. Jada Smith, not so much.
Do we know how Jada Smith reacted? She wasn’t the one who did the slapping.
I have seen the enemy and it is us. Will Smith did not lose his temper because he is Black. He lost it because he is a human being. However, everyone insists on seeing this through the lens of race because we are obsessed with skin color. Why does it have to mean something? A rich guy blew his stack and made a fool of himself in a very public way. People lose their temper all the time, sometimes in public, although not as public as Mr. Smith.
He was a jerk. He apologized. Move on. If this means anything at all, it is that the people who make movies are too self-reverential. I was more appalled that a pop star and actor could describe himself as a river to his people with a straight face than by the slap. It is also another sick example of everyone’s obsession with celebrity and gossip. What it is not about, is race.
But we will babble on about it trying to find a deeper meaning about race for a week or so until we forget it, or some other stupid, irrelevant incident replaces it, allowing us to distract ourselves from the real problems that no one wants to, or knows how to, do anything about.
Of course no one has the bravery, guts or courage to use inalienable and empirical fact and economic, industrial, educational, and cultural /political democracy statistics to show which parts of the globe or peoples are lagging behind others…..
After this, being a complete fan of his Pursuit Of Happyness performance, I have no time for the man. The man I want to hear about in all this, is Chris Rock. A man who then tried, professionally, manfully to defuse the situation. Imagine if Rock had – with infinitely more justification of provokation than Smith strived to muster – struck Smith, no doubt an almighty punch-up world’s have ensued!
That it did not happen was down to Chris Rock.
Will Smith did his absolute best, physically and verbally, to humiliate and cancel the last bastion of free speech – stand up comedians. And a fellow entertainer to boot. It was the most disgusting display of privilege I’ve seen on TV. Smith demanded that Rock does not mention his wife, ever again. What of the rest, is Smith going to threaten everyone else too, critical of comic?
Unherd, shame, how you spend your efforts on the perpetrator and not on the victim. Any man in the street caught assaulting so very clearly another man, would be taken down the station.
Rock’s professionalism in the face of very public, physical brutality was noteworthy & commendable. Smith needs a psychiatrist.
“it’s time to forget about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett representing anything other than their own self-indulgent, decadent, narcissistic selves.” THANK YOU!!!! This is the danger of Identity Politics: no one represents anyone but themselves, and others of their same “group” do not deserve either credit or blame for their behavior.
As James Baldwin said, when asked who the Tolstoy of the Zulus was:”Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus.” And Will Smith is as much the Will Smith of white people as he is the Will Smith of black people.
Or better yet, he’s the Will Smith of “self-indulgent, decadent, narcissistic” rich people in Hollywood.
What poor kids (of every ethnicity) really need is structure. Like every other human being, they need external discipline (organized school with well-enforced rules, ROTC/army, mechanic’s school, park rangers corps) until they develop internal self-discipline.
But nobody’s interested in doing this, because it’s long, hard, unglamorous work that requires restrictions and telling kids “no” alongside applause and telling kids “yes”.
Nobody’s willing to be the bad guy long enough to turn these kids into good guys.
The real hero on “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” wasn’t Will Smith; it was the character of the father played by James Avery. He provided structure.
The whole idea of ‘role models’ is stupid. Children often do look up to a particular person in say football or F1 or rugby, but the idea that they then will model their life in every facet on that person is laughable. But then so much of our novelty culture, the one we replaced our old one with, is laughable and naive and clown-like.
They need Ricky Gervais next year to give them a dose of reality.
It is always a delight to see RG twist the knife into these creatures. He is the only comedian who hits home amongst the huge egos and puerile pretensions.
Trying to take a step back, what actually happened? One guy made a rude and tasteless joke about another guys wife. Who got up, slapped him, told him in clear terms to stop and the first guy stopped.
I don’t see why this needs be viewed through the lens of race. It’s normal male behaviour, Chris Rock did not press charges, so I guess he understands the situation. Will Smith apologised for how he acted in the moment. Seems to me matter is now closed.
A more positive spin could be that both men acted very well. Smith stood up for his family, Rock did not over-react and backed down. Then both reflected on the incident and moved forwards. I’ve not got a problem with that.
Smith’s slap was merely a very public signal of his supposed virtue. He was once again protecting his image. It’s Hollywood, and all the world’s a stage.
I’ve got a big problem with violence being used to suppress speech. His behavior was criminal and unstable. Not okay.
Just wait 5 years. It will be legal to jail people for certain speech. After all, the U.S. Constitution needs to be completely replaced in order to satisfy the woke mob.
Yes, both men “acted” very well indeed. It’s all an act when it comes to Hollywood, including their lives as the article details.
Oh for crying out loud millionaires can’t take a joke? Had she laughed instead of being pissy none of it would have happened. Jokes are the only reason to watch these moralizing snoozefests.
Just as Beckham is not a true role model, neither is Smith. The true role models are the fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers who the young will see.
The young can definitely be inspired by celebrities, but it is pointless to make them a role model, when down-to-earth, modest ones are close at hand. These are the people that will guide you on your path to success.
Celebrities live their lives for themselves and there is nothing wrong with that – but being successful in one’s chosen trade is not restricted to celebrities: it is that of real people and they live all around us.
Smith is not “another wannabe hero that can’t read the room.” He is a veteran of many public spectacles, and played a role that night which will earn him the respect and admiration of many, and the tacit non-objection of the virtue-signalers of Hollywood Inc. Expect more public sobbing and victim performance to follow.
Thoughtful, sensible article, thank you.
Mr Smith obviously needs ‘counselling’. Need any more be said?
Smith is a deeply troubled soul…which has been on exhibit for a while now during his outbursts, crying etc during interviews.
If Smith needs counselling then so do tens of thousands of blokes up and down the country. You’ll witness handbags like this in any pub up and down the country on any given weekend, often between friends. Half a pint later and it’s all forgotten about
Exactly!
Strong, reliable, relatable male Role model – it’s often otherwise called a father.
I didn’t have one either. I have yet to leave the rails.
Most people are good at something, Some people are very good at something. Some of those people are extremely good at something and some of those are in the right place at the right time to become a “celebrity”. They can be admired for what they are extremely good at but they are still ordinary people and are not particularly different from every other ordinary person. Outside of their particular skill set there is no sensible reason to put them on a pedestal.
The trouble with the notion of role models (as opposed to being yourself, keeping your own counsel, getting help and inspiration, sure, from others) is that people are free, and not unlikely, to chose poor role models. A clear form of this is spelled out in this article – following a bunch of preening, narcissistic rich people famous who are good at pretending to be other people – maybe not so good. A more pernicious form has arisen in the form of rigid, American ‘blackness’. Ironically authoritarian activists and commenters are aggressively trying to persuade The World (Black, White, American, non-American, all) that there is a single definition of Blackness along the lines of a suffering, persecuted outsider. Whilst there is clearly some truth therein, and I assume said commentators at least intend good (though they tend to deny the relevance of intentionality in others) their claims create a psycho-cultural trap viz, ‘blackness is inexorably bound up with misery, losing, and victimhood, and this cannot change until white people do. A wrong and dysfunctional role model.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/29/white-outrage-about-will-smiths-slap-is-rooted-in-anti-blackness-its-inequality-in-plain-sight?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
of course
Well if it had been an anglo smacking Chris Rock in the face no doubt the reaction of the world would have been much different.
Minor blip in Smith’s public persona. He will gracious and amicably announce divorce of Jada, apologize for losing his cool. Reinstatement of privileged caste status bestowed.
Meanwhile society bifurcates even further into those that know bullschiz when they see it and those twisting to rationalize their relationship with their own egoic delusions.
Good news is Hollywood’s perversion is on full display.
It seems that entertainment for entertainment’s sake has been for a while considered passé by the modern entertainment industry and further afield in American society. The incident at the Oscars could ONLY happen in that gloomy outlook.
Entertainment used to be the end, the be-all and end-all, but it’s been twisted into something that makes it the means to an end. A song these days is merely a vehicle for a video. And product is merely a vehicle for awards. Awards are the be-all and end-all. It’s as if … artists have forgotten how to entertain and be entertained. They blub their blurbs out now, pontificating on this or that at the awards conference.
Americans just don’t like each other. They’re always fighting. Or saying snide things about each other. They have infected the world to a degree with their miserable, vexed, guilt-laden outlook on life. A hundred years ago, antibiotics did not exist and TB was rife. Now we have anti-this and anti-that and TV is rife. The imagery of violence today just got worse with what we saw at the Oscars. The smug, iniquitous fair-game form of humour just got another airing all over the airwaves courtesy of the Oscars. It’s all so childish. Perhaps the nature of technology has made people mad. When screens were bigger, the entertainment was grander.
Unfortunately, you need many years of positive discrimination to create a role model. Actors have nothing except money, sportsmen are only of the moment and will be forgotten in a few years.
Please remind me, who are the white role models? Joe Biden? Donald Trump? Boris Johnson? Ryan Giggs? Trudeau? When I grow up I want to be like Shane Warne – overweight, false hair, house in Koh Samui, affair with oldest ‘sexbomb’ in the universe, no aim in life, no life.
What an unnecessary vilification of Shane Warne Esq. You have obviously been drinking too much Welsh water for your own good Mr Wheatley.
I Know hundreds of “white male role models”, men who have quietly worked hard to keep and protect their families as builders, farm workers, fishermen. People who have never lost touch with nature or reality. People who know the rules and live by them; some are Christians, some atheists or agnostics like myself, but all recognise the importance of strong family life in our madcap modern society.
And the Christian ones are usually portrayed as simple racist idiots in movies. It is unique and comforting to hear about an atheist who recognizes the importance of strong family life, however. I wonder where that sentiment comes from?
Why on earth should an atheist or agnostic not wish to see strong family life? Marriage need not contain the religious element to be strong and fulfilling; and even as an atheist I am full of admiration for those who have the strength to hold the belief in a Deity.
I simply do not have that strength, but I find belief in a Deity no more ridiculous than all the scientific theories on the origin of the universe.
I have teenagers in my home, and they are fans of Elon Musk.
I would have loved to live Warneys life for a week, or failing that Keith Richards or Tom Jones. I don’t want celebrities to be dull, I want them to be decadent and live the life normal people can’t get away with. Give me Will Smiths slap or George Bests antics with Miss World over some dull virtue signaller any day. Tiger Woods only became interesting once we found it he’d been having it away with all the supermodels.
Anyone who needs to know why we’re going to hell in a handbasket only needs to read this article. Smith did what any man would once have done, but without the subsequent psychobabble and handwringing we’re now being assaulted with.
No. What he did was NOT what a man should do – walking up, smacking him, and quickly walking away?
I was less offended by Smith slapping Rock (since when did a man slap another man? What happened to the good old manly punch?) than I was by his swearing. You are on TV, being broadcast internationally, and the least you should be able to do is watch what you say.
Stupid fucker (oops – no-one is reading this, are they?)
No one.
Smith acted like an ass. Jada Smith is a grown woman who considers herself a feminist. She can and should have fought her own battle.
Tut, tut, Bernie! They’ll chuck you out if you are not careful.
Role models are best found in the family. Not all family members are good role models. Youth can best learn by seeing first-hand the results of choices made by family members and friends. Each of us gets to “paddle our own canoe.” Hopefully, youth will pick their role models from the family and friends they know and watch over time and not from the persona developed by entertainers, politicians, &c. Even very young children realize that TV lies.
Whether we like it or not, some film stars are regarded by the young as role models and some of them hugely so. Thus his act of violence on Chris Rock and his descent into shouted vulgarity twice that evening deserves significant sanction.
He has resigned, or perhaps his publicist has written a resignation speech before he was made to anyway. Although that resignation appears fulsome, it really means very little, as if he is nominated in the future and wins, he automatically resumes his place I believe. Thus, further sanction is necessary. His Oscar when announced was deserved and confirmed long before that evening. So that should remain.
At the very least his name should be disqualified for nomination in any category for a given period of say 3 years, and indeed he should be disqualified from presenting the best actor award next year as would normally be the case.
This is not because one wants to punish him per se, but more importantly, it should be a “slap in the face” of the audience, most of which rose and applauded him and presumably his behaviour, that night.
It amazes me how narcissistic and self-important these dreadful people are. I’ve never watched a film award presentation in my life, and I had no idea who Will Smith is, until coming across this story.
No comments as nowadays it is concentration camp Britain with hate speech/ crime/ opinion that has anything to so with colour, climate or genitalia
What was the joke? Anyone know?
Mrs Smith has an illness that has caused her alopecia. Mr Rock thought to make a joke out of it by referring to a film role in which the female lead has a shaved head. Pretty poor taste, pretty bad joke. Mr Smith stood up for his wife. Good for him
Another person who advocates physical violence and abuse being ok if someone is offended/upset/triggered by words. It is NOT ok.
Jada Smith had some hair loss, and has decided to go with a closely shaved look, as numerous other Black women have done. She looks a bit like a character in a 1990s move, GI Jane. Rock said, “I love you, Jada. Looking forward to seeing you in GI Jane2.” That’s it.
Oh dear. Really glad I didn’t look it up now. They really are desperate for ratings.
Isn’t the focus on wealth and high profile success about a few issues?
1. An inability to come to terms with reality and just how much work and long term effort and deferment of pleasure is required.
2. An attempt to make a single leap to the top where admiration, high status and lots of available partners follow.
3. A deep fear that you won’t make it to the top coupled with a ready made excuse if it goes wrong. You can always blame racism and society.
I have met a lot of kids who all were going to be top footballers in my past career, but none ever were.
Not much of a slap. Could do better.
A clear and honest look at the dilemma of “being black” in a white dominated culture. All sides of things that divide us are subject to the vicissitudes of being human. More honesty like this, it is to be hoped, will lead to more tolerance.
Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. Our successes are more worthy of attention.
Why is all the focus on the man who reacted unthinkingly, not on the man who, deliberately and with forethought, made a joke about a woman’s illness?
It’s a minor, painless illness. She overreacted, and so did he.
Because the whole thing was staged so us lemmings will keep our minds off the insanity that is going on in our governments.
Jada PS is fond of posing on Instagram to show off her short style with comments about how proud of her ‘bald head’ she is – and it does suit her extremely well, as she knows. I don’t know if CR was aware of her alopecia – some are saying that he wasn’t – but she doesn’t present as someone who’d be so over-sensitive to a weak joke, particularly one that was more of a back-handed compliment if anything, since GI Jane features a very empowered and capable woman who certainly doesn’t need a man to fight her battles for her.
I still wonder if it was staged, too.