I agree it seems reasonable it that, I think if someone punched someone in a football stadium or any other sporting venue you’d expect a 10 year ban (maybe lifetime?).
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Just to be clear Will Smith didn’t “punch anyone out”. He slapped someone who seemingly suffered no immediate or medium/long-term harm.
I would like to see the Oscars consider their code of conduct for their hosts following this event. Because the hosts could do with being kinder and more professional.
I genuinely can’t help but feel that if a white comedian had slapped someone the reaction would’ve just been a disappointed tut.
Just to add a PS: I am increasingly furious that we have a growing list of men who have abused women and they face no sanctions from the Oscar’s committee.
Their message is clearly “don’t mess with men” or “don’t ruin our ceremony”. Anything else is fine.
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I understand where that feeling is coming from, but but I know my own reaction would be exactly the same as above. And I would be very upset if others/the Academy went with ‘disappointed tut’. Violence is violence. On which point, I don’t see or make the distinction between a punch and a slap that you do; they both hurt equally. Rock appeared to suffer short-term physical harm (he was shocked, slightly teary-eyed), and while there may be no medium/long-term physical harm, there could still potentially be mental harm.
Changes to the code of conduct should probably be more along the lines of how to deal immediately with a breach of the code, to avoid the flapping and miscommunications that happened on this occasion.
In terms of what I think you mean - more care over the jokes/roasting - that’s going to be down to the writers room and more oversight of the scripting, more people being given the power to say “I think that joke is bad, we should take it it.” Which already happens to an extent - Amy Schumer had an appallingly poor-taste joke about Alec Baldwin nixed - but clearly there are still some blind spots that should be covered.
It is appalling that Weinstein was allowed to get away with his behaviour for so long, and that it took 40 years to deal with Polanski - but they have both been booted out of the Academy. Clearly there is a need to do better there.
It’s a much longer list than Polanski and Weinstein and they themselves only faced sanctions after prolonged criticism over years and years.
Will Smith’s punishment is disproportionate and punitive.
There are videos of men accepting Oscar’s and then literally sexually assaulting the woman presenting them with the Oscar on stage. On camera. AND NOTHING. No repercussions.
But god forbid you slap a man.
I am so annoyed with this ten year ban.
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Sorry I missed a bit; what I mean by better professional standards for hosts goes beyond the writers room. If Will Smith is banned then Chris Rock should be banned for a period of time too. His behaviour did not suit a supposedly professional body representing the peak of their profession and he shouldn’t be welcomed back for a while.
But again the Oscar’s isn’t actually that. It’s a boys club where people buy awards.
Appreciate that everyone can have different opinions on this but I don’t believe this would have been the case, had a white person physically attacked someone on stage.
Where evidence suggests racial injustice I am firmly behind it being brought up and challenged, but I can’t see any at all here, and I don’t think it’s helpful to go down that road, personally.
And personally I think it’s worth us examining these thoughts when they are brought to us from people with different lived experiences. (and that is how I was brought in to this particular bit of the discussion)
We obviously can’t predict the future or alternate timelines but I personally can imagine a scenario where a well loved white celebrity had a seemingly out of character emotional response, repented and was forgiven.
Some people have struggled to hear Will’s apology and I find that really interesting.
Of course. And I can imagine a scenario where the same response Will Smith has been given was provided.
Because the Oscar’s has such a strong and consistent history of punishing other people who commit assaults? Or stand on a stage and give racist speeches?
I’m not here to argue that things have always been perfect, because they certainly have not. I’m just suggesting that nothing overtly suggests race is an issue here and I don’t think it’s helpful to suggest this is with the current information available. You are, of course, free to disagree.
Will Smith’s behaviour made Chris Rock into the victim**which basically means that what he done massively backfired.
*Well let’s be real he was the victim…Of an assault which was captured on camera for the world to see.
**Apart from Jada obviously.
Was it the best joke in the world? Nope, did it deserve a slap? Once again nope and even if it did there is a time and a place for everything, that wasn’t the time or the place.
Will Smith’s PR afterwards was all smokescreen and mirrors.
Something about he watched his mum get beaten up by his dad and he was 9 years old wishing his could help his mum. Blah blah blah. Look it could well be true and it’s not the above I’m rubbishing, it’s the fact that he is not a boy anymore but a grown man. He chose to make somebody else feel the way he felt back then which was powerless in the face of violence. He apologised to everybody else within 24-hours apart from the one person he should have.
That happened a whole 24 hours later probably because he knew that he couldn’t not, or maybe it was a PR move if so it really was too little too late.
If someone knows better they are expected to do better and as above nobody can argue that he didn’t know better.
Will Smith is absolute scum.
Oh and to make it worse, the woman he was at pains to defend isn’t defending him, she said he shouldn’t have slapped Chris. You really couldn’t make it up. 
It takes two to tango
I’d have expected the investigation to review the situation as a whole and not entirley focused on Will.
Chris got a thank you out of it, Will a 10 year ban. This seems unjust in my opinion.
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This I definitely agree with. Not that I think the 10 year ban was unjust, but that I feel like they have basically said the level of the joke was fine by them.
I guess we’ll see more of this type of humour at the Oscars then, as that seems to be what they want and support.
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Do you mean like his wife and August? 
As I’ve said above his reaction made everybody talk about the slap first and not the “joke” which lead up to it.
Chris got a slap and Will got a 10 year ban FOR the slap. It’s there something I’m missing or what? Once again in a civilised society you don’t go around slapping people. When children are young they are taught not to hit people just because they’ve heard something that they doesn’t like.
To err is to be human, we all mess up but the way it was handled on Will’s side was incredibly calculated until he realised that his slick 
won’t work. Not this time and not now.
Chris’s dignified silence makes him look like an old statesman. 
Was Chris in the wrong? Like I’ve said above yes he was but Will went and stupidly done something even worse so yes he was judged more harshly and rightly so.
Adults acting like children for the world to see. Shame shame shame. Money can’t buy class it seems, not that it ever could.
Remember this if Will had a working brain at that point he could have relaxed waited until his speech and mentioned it then directly addressing Chris but nope.
Either he felt he was entitled to do so which says a lot about him (narcissist) or he just didn’t care either way (narcissistic behaviour once again.) To be honest all actors are to varying degrees so it is what it is.
The Academy can’t really do anything to Chris Rock. He isn’t an actor, he’s not voting on anything, he probably doesn’t care about being invited next year.
So other than saying “we don’t want him as a host again” which they probably do for viewing figures, there’s not really a lot they can do.
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They could though say something like ‘the joke made was in bad taste and we don’t support that at our awards ceremonies’, ‘we’ll ask hosts to consider the jokes they make at the audiences expense etc’. Basically if they weren’t happy with the level of humour there are ways they could deal with that if not Chris Rock himself. They didn’t, assuredly because it’s not a problem for them.
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The problem with that is, Chris Rock could reasonably say “Motherfucker, why didn’t you bring that up when I ran my jokes for you before the show?”
There is a degree here when the failure is not with Rock, but with the Academy’s vetting and editing procedures. So it comes as no surprise this is an aspect they are not dwelling on in public (even if, no doubt, there are conversations going on in private).
tl;dr, there is no way the Academy weren’t aware of Rock’s joke, they would’ve had advance notice of his intended jokes so they could nix any they thought weren’t appropriate/could cause offence/went too far, and they thought Rock’s joke was fine at that time.
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