The Time of Monsters
The Time of Monsters
Podcast: The Slap Heard Round the World
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Podcast: The Slap Heard Round the World

Doug Bell on Will Smith, Chris Rock and the Academy Awards
Will Smith accepting the Academy Award for Best Actor on Sunday night (Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

As all the world knows, Will Smith upstaged the Academy Awards this year by slapping Chris Rock, who made a joke in very poor taste about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair. (She has alopecia and is, of course, Smith’s wife.) Smith’s act raises all sorts of legal and ethical issues: Did Smith commit a crime? Why was there a surprising amount of sympathy for him? Was his apology, made after he won the best actor award, adequate? What remediation can be made for the this act? I take up these questions with Doug Bell, friend of the pod. 

Smith’s slap certainly distracted attention from the rest of the show, and the many deserving winners. So Doug and I also take up the awards handed out, discussing the wins and losses of Dune, The Power of the Dog, and CODA

Previous movie discussions

Some of the movies, not all of them nominated, discussed have been taken up in previous podcasts, including Dune, Macbeth, Passing, and The French Dispatch

(Post edited by Emily M. Keeler)

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The Time of Monsters
The Time of Monsters
Political culture and cultural politics.