{"id":1404106,"date":"2022-03-28T08:17:15","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T12:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1404106"},"modified":"2022-03-28T08:18:04","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T12:18:04","slug":"will-smith-only-stalled-the-oscars-descent-into-obscurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/will-smith-only-stalled-the-oscars-descent-into-obscurity\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Smith Only Stalled The Oscars\u2019 Descent Into Obscurity"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwill-smith-only-stalled-the-oscars-descent-into-obscurity%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1404106&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/861595A1-F121-49DE-814C-D3020E8DA6B8.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Bona fide movie stars saved the Oscars\u2014and they weren\u2019t working off a script either. When he slapped Chris Rock live on stage, Will Smith produced a genuine, Kanye-at-the-VMAs water cooler moment. But, of course, our water coolers are now Slack chats and most people saw the moment on social media. <\/p>\n<p>Think about this: The infamous 2009 Video Music Awards drew about 9 million viewers. That\u2019s roughly the same as last year\u2019s Oscars, meaning the country was almost certainly pretty tuned out when Smith\u2019s hand came down on Rock\u2019s cheek. From the live broadcast, bleeps made the moment hard to discern anyway, leaving people to wonder if it had been scripted. Immediately, however, uncensored footage and reports from backstage trickled onto social media, clearly showing otherwise. <\/p>\n<p>Just as the country began debating whether Smith acted virtuously or petulantly in defense of his wife, the star of \u201cKing Richard\u201d was crowned Best Actor. It was surreal television, watching an icon process an iconic mistake on an iconic platform. Smith should have taken the joke like Rock took the slap\u2014it was nothing worse than your average Joan Rivers quip\u2014but his acceptance speech framed the masculine outburst poignantly as the unfortunate consequence of a husband\u2019s unrestrained protective impulse.<\/p>\n<p>If anything, masculine mistakes in Hollywood are most often borne of disloyalty and unfaithfulness, going without apology or remorse. Smith\u2019s rapid correction served in real time as a difficult display of healthy masculinity, and at the Oscars of all places. He gave our pop culture some life.<\/p>\n<p>As is the case every year now, the Academy sought haplessly to make its three-hour back pat more palatable. The hosts fumbled their punchlines and fought the teleprompter. As a trio, Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, and Amy Schumer managed to land a few good jokes between cringe-inducing political potshots. (Schumer handled the Smith moment deftly.) They showed clips of Marvel movies and celebrated Hollywood classics.<\/p>\n<p>The broadcast still dragged. As a production, it was at least high-energy and colorful, marking a small step in the right direction for an Academy that wants to keep bringing in ad money. But the reason Smith captivated the country is also the reason awards shows are in trouble. <\/p>\n<p>Movie stars on average are dimmer than they used to be because we have more choice. On screen, our raw emotions are filtered through unimaginative ideological lenses. Of course, anyone slapping anyone live on stage at the Oscars is a big deal, but an A-List actor slapping another A-List actor then picking up the top award in his field is on another level. <\/p>\n<p>Award shows are like reality television. The public watches celebrities react in high drama moments, waiting for glimpses of their humanity. That\u2019s less powerful when there are fewer Will Smiths, true kings of popular culture, and when social media sucks the mystique out of celebrity, for better or worse. <\/p>\n<p>There are fewer Will Smiths and Chris Rocks because Hollywood\u2019s business model is adapting to the splintered streaming landscape, which is also why the Oscars have recently celebrated fewer blockbusters. Niche movies create niche celebrities, which perpetuates the vicious cycle of siloed culture: How can you create unifying art if you\u2019re unfamiliar with what would actually unify audiences? We\u2019re spiraling quickly down that route. <\/p>\n<p>So should the Oscars just do everything to ensure every film and fashion buff tunes in, assuming the show may never do much better than 10 million viewers again? Or should they try to recover their place in pop culture as one of the few truly massive television events Americans watch together? You could lose a lot of money trying to do the latter. <\/p>\n<p>For the Academy, the lesson of 2022 is that Will Smith is an American icon. Their show shaped our culture because of his star power. His star power exists because people of all different backgrounds like his work. If the Oscars and the industry they honor don\u2019t heed that lesson, in 2032 we\u2019ll be watching five-hour foreign films win every award while ephemeral YouTube influencers kick each other in the shins to sell more FitTea. <\/p>\n<p>Judging by the rest of the show, we might as well get ready to drink a lot of FitTea.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young America\u2019s Foundation. She\u2019s interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d \u201cMedia Buzz,\u201d and \u201cThe McLaughlin Group.\u201d Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center and a visiting fellow at Independent Women&#8217;s Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bona fide movie stars saved the Oscars\u2014and they weren\u2019t working off a script either. When he slapped Chris Rock live on stage, Will Smith produced a genuine, Kanye-at-the-VMAs water cooler<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":554,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1404106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}