Sometimes we forget how deranged people can be. Their outlook shaped by a reality foreign to anything we would characterize as rational or normal. It’s like looking into the eyes of a person and seeing nothing that is human beyond their steely gaze. It makes me shudder just to think of it, that kind of tenuous relationship with the most basic of human emotions.
The oddest moment of Oscar night wasn’t the slap itself. It was the speech Will Smith gave when he won his award. I’ve seen many incoherent speeches at awards shows. Sometimes winners are genuinely surprised and flustered by the gravity of the moment. Sometimes they have to fight nerves to gather their thoughts. This speech was something else. It was noteworthy in how earnest and naked it came across, all while being batshit crazy. Only Will Smith knows what he means by being a river to his people or protecting people who aren’t asking to be protected. Only Will Smith knows what he thinks being an ambassador of love means or how he’s shining a light on “all of the people.” To me, a layperson, possibly the one living in an alternate universe, it sounded like the ramblings of a madman. A person living in a bubble of psychobabble nonsense and new age self-help sophistry who has gotten high on his own supply of egocentrism. Hollywood has always been a warren of massive egos competing for supremacy and attention. The speech was a reach for a new level of preening bluster. A jumble of emotive words signifying nothing.
It made me think of a story (https://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/jaden-and-willow-smith-exclusive-joint-interview/) from 2014. I remember reading it at the time with utter confusion. It was almost like the Smith children were speaking a foreign language, maybe some dialect of Southern Californian, I don’t know. It certainly made an impression on me because it came rushing back to mind. I didn’t understand the context for how weird the piece was until I saw that speech, when it all seemed to make sense. Jaden and Willow come across as naive and glib. Two children twisting in the wind, wearing the overconfidence of a paltry education like a badge of moralistic honor. I’ve been trying to imagine the world you have to live in to be so overconfident and it’s a world so far removed from anything I’ve experienced that I can’t even begin to fathom what it is to experience it. Who knew there was a place in the United States where children forego formal education for cursory reading of ancient texts, like some modern day faux-Plato. That in itself is hard to fathom, but look at the result, manifested in the responses to the reporter. It’s the kind of nonsense Will Smith himself was spouting in the speech. The speech wasn’t weird in the context of that world. It was normal language.
But that wasn’t all. The audience reaction was enlightening on two fronts. First, it illustrated how the person engaging in violence can be treated differently based on status within what appears to be some kind of bizarre and insulated cult of celebrity worship. There was no negative reaction to the slap by anyone in a position of authority. Instead, everyone was subservient to one of the key stars of the night. The person at the top of the real-life call sheet, free to do what they please. Second, the speech and standing ovation that preceded it didn’t seem to strike the crowd as anything out of the norm. Instead, I saw awe and understanding, nodding heads and assent to the unspoken hierarchy of stardom. This was anodyne stuff for that crowd. Hollywood is an easy target I suppose, but feels like microcosm of the wider world. The leeway we give people in power, the deference to stupidity vested in a supposed icon, fame as synecdoche for wisdom.
The next time you read Us Weekly or peruse social media and survey the abundant evidence of celebrities being just like you, remember this speech. It’s a world you’ll never understand. They can walk their dogs, buy their own groceries, enjoy a coffee with friends, but their internal monologue is probably nothing you can imagine. I remember the commercials showing a fried egg as a symbol of a brain on drugs. Maybe we need a new PSA for a brain on fame.
GLAZ 