A Prince and King step into the ring
The rise and fall of Hollywood's beloved Will Smith
Photo: Illustration by Ryan Casey
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🗞 THE NEWSSTAND
The greatest night in the history of TV → With each year the glamorous award ceremony celebrating the film industry is sure to bring plenty of tears, laughs, and… slaps? That’s right it was an Oscar night to remember. By now you likely all have seen the unfortunate images of Best Actor Will Smith walking on stage and slapping comedian Chris Rock across the face in retaliation for a joke made about his wife’s baldness. And this week the 53-year-old actor resigned from the Academy.
Atrocities in Ukraine → There is almost no word to capture the brutality and atrocities being committed against civilians in cities across Ukraine by Putin and the Russian army. After images surfaced in cities like Bucha showing men, women and children tied up and left for dead with signs of torture, references have been made by President Zelensky to the Russian invasion as ‘genocide.’
SCQTUS → January 6th was of course fueled by plenty of deranged QAnon folks and yes men perpetuating the ‘Big Lie’ to appease the supreme Big Mac eater. But it came as a bit of a shock when text messages were released showing Ginni Thomas, wife of Chief Justice Clarence Thomas, and Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows discussing the overturning of a free and fair election. The integrity of the court is now being challenged with lawmakers on the left calling for the recusal of Justice Thomas from any Jan. 6 related cases.
Jobs look good, so what gives? → While the job market has almost entirely bounced back to pre-pandemic levels of employment and as wages continue to rise, it has not been quite enough to keep up with rising inflation. It looks like to be a long road ahead for workers, as well as for Biden’s approval ratings.
Rise of workers → With a growing call for worker’s rights and higher wages coming off a two-year pandemic that hit working-class families especially hard, a wave of recent labor movements is taking off at Fortune 100s, from Amazon to Starbucks.
🎙FIRESIDE CHAT
There is nothing more exhilarating and quintessential to Hollywood than a rags to riches and fame story. But that story tends to have a different arc for some in society.
The previous record for the shortest throne ever held was Louis XIX in the 1830s who was replaced by his brother only minutes after being named King of France. That was until King Smith of Hollywood was stripped of his crown before his coronation.
The rise to royalty for the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is one that goes up and to the right but not without plenty of dips before reaching its peak and sharp decline.
Willard Smith Jr was born to humble, loving parents right outside of Philly in 1968. In his public high school, he excelled in math and his teachers nicknamed him “Prince” for his charming personality. Despite being accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for engineering, Smith decided his story would have a different fate.
It wasn’t long after the Fresh Prince crossed paths at a house party with the Duke of Philly, Jeffrey Townes, aka DJ Jazzy Jeff, that he decided to put off college for a career vision that didn’t involve classrooms and books, but rather studios and cameras. The duo released their first LP in 1987 with Rock The House and soon found their way on tour with hip hop legends like Run DMC and Public Enemy.
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince broke barriers when they were nominated and won the first Grammy for a rap performance for “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” Though in true to whitewashed Hollywood fashion the committee decided ahead of time to not air the award. Despite Smith’s unique "clean rap" style and choice to not use swear words, the inaugural recognition of hip hop by mainstream entertainment would be denied its moment of glory. Smith and Townes joined a boycott of the ceremony led by rap mogul Russell Simmons for the Recording Academy’s discriminating snub.
In protagonist-like fashion, Smith continued to chase his dreams despite the battles that lay ahead in a white-dominated industry. Determined to become the world's biggest film star he began his career in a sitcom starring himself, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The young rapper and actor became a millionaire by age 18 and was on his way to global fame.
Over the next few years, he was cast in several summer blockbuster hits like Bad Boys, Independence Day, and Men In Black. In 2005 he set a record for attending three premieres in one day. He was well on his way to being named the King of Hollywood.
The red carpet would be rolled out for Smith, but the infamous Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science was not going to grant him his throne so easily. He was nominated for Best Actor in 2001 for his performance in Ali, then again in 2006 for The Pursuit of Happyness. Though he would walk away from both nights empty-handed.
Then in 2016, he committed his first “offense” against the Academy when he and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith started making trouble by announcing they would join a boycott of the awards ceremony for the failure to nominate a single Black actor or actress for the second year in a row. And the social justice movement known as #OscarsSoWhite took off.
Though most of the media dismissed the family boycott as a protest against the Academy for failing to nominate Smith for what many considered to be one of his best performances yet in the sports drama Concussion.
Over the years the Smith family has refused to fall in line with the mainstream media’s expectations of a Black family in the spotlight. Calling out the inequities of the film and entertainment industry, refusing to raise their kids the way society says they should, and even daring to have a non-monogamous relationship. They were simply not going along with the “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” space that had so graciously been carved out for them.
But after thirty years it was time for the Fresh Prince to be crowned king for his portrayal of Richard Williams in highly-acclaimed King Richard. The film is a heartfelt rags to riches story about a Black working-class father and his wife raising a family in Compton. Richard brilliantly plans for and propels his daughters Venus and Serena to tennis stardom.
Will Smith received his third career nomination for Best Actor and it was rumored to be the night that the Academy would award him the highest honor in his field. The stage was set for the Prince of Bel-Air to finally take the throne as the King of Hollywood.
But then something unusual happened. Infamous comedian and actor Chris Rock came to the stage to present the award for Best Documentary but not before roasting a few of his peers. It would not be the first time the comic would earn some chuckles at the expense of the Smiths. Rock had previously mocked the couple for their boycott as the ceremony’s host in 2016. Only this time Rock may have taken it too far when he joked about Jada’s baldness brought on by her ongoing struggles with alopecia.
We all know what happened from there. But the real question is where do we go from here? Friday Will Smith officially resigned from the Academy and there are many who will celebrate this outcome or even continue to call for the stripping of his well-earned Oscar.
But why?
We have to look around and ask what it is that demands us to require certain people to be more than human? What demands us to condemn and destroy a man who has tirelessly reimagined the role of Black actors in a primarily white industry? A man who has had to tread the line of being “black enough” yet “clean enough” in the eyes of the mainstream.
The night was filled with questions about toxic masculinity, violence, and misogyny. But in the end, the night was a mere example of how society has raised the bar so high for some with an extremely low tolerance for missteps. We are so quick to cast a stone at those who are less than gracious in polite society. So quick to name the next in line worthy of the throne.
Will Smith made a grave error when he let pent-up emotions erupt in a bout of anger and violence that should not be condoned. Chris Rock in a commendable display of composure resisted escalating the situation and refused to press charges following the ceremony.
Like King James loathed for taking his talents to South Beach or Chicago rapper Kanye West ‘booed’ off stage for interrupting an acceptance speech by the music industry’s sweetheart, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has been deemed no longer be “worthy” of his crown.
The question for all of us is will we respond with the same tact witnessed by Mr. Rock or will we retaliate and make way for the next prince we deem fit?
🎧 WEEKLY MIXTAPE
Will Smith and his “clean rap” style have put out absolutely dope tracks over the years worthy of re-listening. Some well-known, others less so, but all are sure to tell a story of a man determined to make it in an industry stacked against him.