Will Smith Slap Relief
I saw the Will Smith Academy Awards slap video on the news soon after the event. I didn't see the slap live. I heard about it on the radio and, though I’m not a celebrity-watcher, I quickly checked TV news to see what happened.
(If you haven’t seen it, here’s the slap clip from the international broadcast which also maintained the audio that had been muted on the American broadcast. WARNING: explicit language)
I’ve seen the Will Smith strike once, and that was enough. Since then I have managed to avoid the Oscars video clip and the photos. But while channel surfing since the Academy Awards, I’ve had to quickly click past the Will Smith movies Independence Day (1996) and Gemini Man (2019.) Before the slap incident, I liked some Will Smith movies. But now I know I won’t enjoy his films because I'll think of the slap heard around the world. Any movie fight he does, I’ll think of the real-life slap.
Viewers of the Academy Awards may have been hoping to momentarily alleviate their stress from seeing Ukraine war coverage and its real-world violence. To be visually assaulted by a then much-liked actor actually hitting another entertainer on live TV was traumatic for many viewers, especially children.
But now I’ve found a way to stop thinking about the slap: cats.
To help you get your mind off the Will Smith 2022 Academy Awards violence, just think of kitties playfully punching.