The Oscars Slap Heard Round the World

CLAY: Were you watching the Oscars last night when the slap heard round the world happened?

BUCK: So I happened to be in… I’m in North Florida right now, which is lovely —

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: — and I happened to be watching the Oscars at a friend’s house. And we just turned it on, and sure enough, we were… I only watched maybe, I don’t know, 45 minutes of the Oscars the overall, and the slap happened so for anybody who missed it — which would be hard, because it is on many websites. It’s basically either Ukraine or the slap are the two big stories.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Which is pretty amazing. You know, one is a massive war in Europe with a nuclear-armed power and the other one is someone getting slapped in the face. So there’s a reason we opened with Biden and Ukraine first here, just to be very clear, and what’s going on in this country with the regime failing on so many levels. But now there is a lot of debates around this incident. I think originally people were saying it was faked. I don’t think anyone believes that. I shouldn’t say anyone. I think the consensus now, such as it is, that this was a real slap, at least.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: So he did hit him. The absolute worst take on it was from a CNN analyst who said that this is basically what you get because of Trump.

CLAY: Yeah. Which is so predictable and perfect.

BUCK: Amazing.

CLAY: Amazing.

BUCK: So, Clay, this is where you get into, I think this is very straightforward. You know, you have a comedian who’s being paid to do his job, which is to make fun of people, make jokes and make fun of people. He made a joke; Will Smith didn’t like it. Will Smith is totally within his rights, legal and otherwise, to shout out that he didn’t think this was funny, to go up to Chris Rock after he’s on stage and say, “You know, don’t say that. That’s not funny,” or “You should apologize or whatever.”

To walk up on stage and strike somebody? Again, I know there are people saying, “Buck, it was faked.” I don’t think so. I looked at it a lot. I don’t think it was fake. He definitely hit him. So now you’re just saying, “Why would Will Smith, the most famous — among the most famous — movie actors in the world…?” He doesn’t need publicity, folks.

CLAY: On a day that he’s potentially gonna win the Oscar too.

BUCK: The storyline doesn’t add up. I think he lost his temper, he went up, and he hit this guy in the face. But it’s amazing to see how many people, Clay, were like, “Yeah, that’s what you do.” I’m kind of sitting here like, “No.”

CLAY: In the event that people did you not hear it, we’ve got a couple of cuts here. Here is… I believe we have the joke and then the reaction. I think this is 17. Let’s listen to this.

BUCK: Yes. Play it.

BUCK: Big respect, I have to say, just to the fact that Chris Rock kind of kept going afterwards, because look, I think there’s many layers to this. And people were looking at the photos. This was almost like an Oliver Stone JFK movie, where everybody looking at different angles.

CLAY: Yeah, Zapruder film.

BUCK: Everybody was trying to figure out, “Oh, did he really hit him? Did he really?” One thing is, Clay, if someone walks up to you on the street and they are being aggressive, I think that you’re more ready. He’s at the Oscars on stage doing his job. If somebody walked in here and I knew who they were and I was doing my radio, I’d be like, “Hey, nice to see you.” I would not expect them slap me in the face doing my job. So I think that it’s also additionally uncalled for considering it was in a professional setting. It’s not even like this was just two guys in the street having a dispute.

CLAY: Yeah, and Chris Rock managed to take the slap and actually deliver the documentary. I don’t think Chris Rock has said anything since. Will Smith, amazingly — and this is where I really think it becomes such an intriguing discussion — goes up on stage, he assaults a comedian — and let’s be clear about this. What is this, like the 60th Oscar celebration, the hundredth, whatever the heck it is? It’s been going on for a long time, and that’s what the job of a comedian is.

They show up and they make jokes at the expense of the famous celebrities who are sitting down in the crowd. And Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith is a famous celebrity as well. So it’s not like she’s a civilian in the sense of, “Oh, well, nobody knows who she is, so he’s picking on the wife,” and even if he were, the idea that you would go up on stage and hit someone because you don’t like the joke that they’ve made?

I don’t know how many people in our audience — most people are not famous — but everybody, a large percentage I would think have been to a comedy club at some point and set — if you go to a comedy club and you sit down near the front of the stage, it’s oftentimes the case that the comedian will pick out something and have some fun with people down close even if you’re not famous. Let’s play the Will Smith. We’ll play the Will Smith reaction ’cause he goes on and he wins best actor.

This should be a crowning moment for his career, Buck. But they don’t do anything to him. I can’t think of any other public venue where you could assault a performer, go back down to your seat, stay there, nobody does anything to you, and then when he wins the best actor, everybody gives him a standing ovation like he didn’t just assault the comedian on the stage.

BUCK: You would think that security would escort him out. First of all, where was the security? I mean, this guy just walks up on the stage and does this, but you would think that they would at least escort him out of the venue or, you know, escort him to a viewing area outside where this had just occurred. But no, he’s Will Smith! He’s up for — he won — the best actor award. It was King Richard, right, was the movie?

CLAY: Where he’s playing Richard Williams who is the father of the tennis players.

BUCK: Just for those saying, “Buck, don’t… Come on, it’s Hollywood, who cares?” There are members of Congress who are saying, “Yeah, that’s right! Get up there and hit him!” No. That’s not. That’s not right, actually. That’s not how a civilized thing to do. That’s not how we operate in this country.

CLAY: It’s crazy.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: The slap heard round the world. We’re closing out hour number 1 talking about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock last night at the Oscars ’cause he did not like a joke. Nothing happens to Will Smith. Talk about privilege. He goes back, sits in his front-row seat, wins the Oscar for his portrayal of Richard Williams within who’s a father of Venus and Serena Williams, gets up and kind of gives a rambling, tearful speech celebrating his Oscar win. This is what it sounded like.

CLAY: So, Buck, my thing here is, I’m married. I got a wife. Will Smith looked psychologically unstable, and the fact that some people are normalizing a comedian making a joke, which wasn’t even that aggressive of a joke… But if you’ve ever watched any of these award shows, these Hollywood celebrities do need to be ridiculed and mocked. In fact, Ricky Gervais, I think, should be the host for every single award show because he’s actually willing to puncture the narcissism that is so readily apparent in those rooms. I bet you love Ricky Gervais at those things too.

BUCK: Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes was the most entertaining emcee. I don’t know if there’s ever been a more entertaining emcee at any event on TV that I could think of.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: It was remarkable. But that’s also why… For everybody who’s gonna say, “Oh, but you gotta stand up for your wife.” No one’s saying don’t stand up for your wife. When I say “no one,” my claim here would not be you can’t stand up for your wife. Not at all. Will Smith shouting out stuff? Fine. Will Smith going up to Chris Rock after this thing and having a man-to-man with him, fine.

This is not some guy saying something to your wife at a bar. These are two multimillionaire celebrities who are in a professional setting where one of them is paid to make jokes and is in that context and if you don’t like it, you’re of course allowed to — when I say “allowed,” I think you have every right to say something.

But to those who were saying, “Yay! He did the right thing.” Okay. Will Smith’s a big guy. What if he had gone up there and taken a full-on swing? He open hand slapped him. He catches him off guard. He catches him unaware like that with a closed fist, could have broken his nose right there on stage. Is that…? He could have knocked him out, Clay.

CLAY: And they would have had to stop the performance. Yes.

BUCK: Think about that.

CLAY: And the other thing, Buck, he wouldn’t have done that if it had been a bigger guy. Like, the Rock every now and then hosts performances. If the Rock had come out and made that joke, he ain’t walking up on the stage and open-hand slapping the Rock. And let me also say this. Will Smith is a comedian. Right? So he should understand more than some of the other serious actors who may consider themselves to be complete artists. He understands — or should understand — comedy in a way that others should not. We get a bunch of people who want to weigh in, not surprisingly.

BUCK: Okay, let’s go… I know people are fired up on this. I get it.

CLAY: No doubt. Who should we go to first? Let’s go to Michael in Florida.

CALLER: Hey, guys. Look, I really do like the show; so just take this… It’s coming from a good spot. You’re spending time talking about a guy who wanted exactly what you’re giving him. He knew. You walked on up… You’re right. If it was the Rock or something he wouldn’t have gone up there. But he knew. Even if it was, he knows there’s not gonna be any repercussions, go up there and slap a smaller guy and then no nothing’s gonna happen to him; nobody’s gonna swing back at him. He did it because he wants everybody talking about him and he’s getting exactly what he wanted.

CLAY: See, I disagree. I disagree with this. I understand that argument. I think Will Smith lost his cool, and to me this is the logical extension, Buck, of the world we’ve created where we treat speech as violence and so we allow people to respond violently toward someone who says something mean to you, right? Wasn’t even to him. This is the logical extension of “words are violence,” now a violent response.”

BUCK: He’s about to get the best actor award at the Oscars. I don’t think that he planned out some publicity stunt.

BUCK: This would be like Tom Cruise with a publicity stunt. These people don’t… They have all the publicity they could ever imagine and then some. In Will Smith’s case in particular, he’s sitting in the front row; he’s about to get an Oscar. I think the guy had a bit of a meltdown. I think that’s apparent, and I think that Chris Rock also… Clay, I’ve seen people get punched and hit before.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Chris Rock responded the way people do, like he was in shock. Like, that was… That did not look like acting to me.

CLAY: He thought, I think, if you watch him, Buck… I think what he anticipated was that, who is a comedian, was coming up on stage to do something funny. It was weird that he got up on stage in the first place. By the way, I’d like to hear from some women, like, in the audience. What did you guys think about this?

And also, Buck, there’s so many crazy angles on this. Can you imagine if it had been a white comedian? Can you imagine if it had been a white guy walking up, like you said off air, “Bradley Cooper walks up and smacks Chris Rock because he doesn’t like the joke that he made”? The conversation spirals wildly out of control from there.