Love & Violence: Really?

. . . after the slap, after his Oscar win, after ‘defending’ his wife, after declaring himself ‘a vessel of love’, Will Smith

Full disclosure: I watched the Oscars last night. You may not have done so. I salute you no matter what you were doing.  

I wasn’t going to watch the Oscar’s either, but the alternative was doing an hour or two of ‘evening tasks’ (Godzilla has recently rampaged through my office). On my way to my office, I just happened to pass by the TV room, where my husband was watching the Oscars. So . . . I sat down to keep him company for a few mintues.

  And then . . . there were just so many shiny things to look at on the TV! The stage, and the jewels, and the dresses—the fashion is stiff cape-y things, btw, a glittering gold gown, a glittering silver gown—CODA director , Sian Heder quipped “Yes, I came dressed as a disco ball”--and the beautiful, inspiring and surprisingly sincere emphasis on diversity, inclusion, loving up the world as we know and often do not know it  . . .  

Movies help us to feel into and experience what we do not live ourselves. To see Troy Kotsur, the first Deaf man to win an Oscar, signing his speech and describing his father’s love and gift for communication--was extraordinarily moving. I was moved. I learned. I wished I’d made popcorn.  

That’s the Oscars: profound, mundane, and beautifully (or mysteriously) dressed . . .

Chris Rock

Then came Chris Rock. In the midst of the laughter and the Rockian banter, I barely heard the joke about Jada Pinkett Smith—just something about GI Jane. Jada rolled her eyes. But to the casual viewer, it gave no sense of grave offense (Demi Moore, in the 1990’s, starred in a movie called GI Jane, shaved her head to better excel at being a Navy Seal) as a lot of women have shaved heads at the moment—it’s a cool look.

 Who knows, people, I may be bald tomorrow! Apparently Jada suffers from alopecia, hair loss—but—the entire world didn’t know that until . . . Google searches about Chris Rock’s joke.

 Will Smith initially laughed, too, but then (obviously) got so angry that he went up on stage—TV sound cut out at this point--and slapped Chris Rock, hard, across the face. The camera had switched to frontal view, so the TV audience couldn’t quite see the slap. Will Smith stalked away, then yelled expletives at Chris Rock from his seat—sound still off, and not that many people can lip read—then Chris Rock picked it up the pieces, brilliantly I thought, made the joke “that was the greatest night in the history of television!” and went on, giving out the Best Documentary Award.

 The joke was mild; it was not an attack, as comedic attacks go. Will Smith’s response was more damaging, problematic and frightening than the joke: it was also illegal, a.k.a. physical assault. And shameful, i.e. a powerful man loses his ability to regulate his emotions and physically assaults and cusses out another man in front of the world. It was embarrassing.

 Yet I was immediately aware of how the incident could be twisted up by racists. Aware of the trauma of racialized and marginalized communities and individuals—including (potentially) Will Smith, his wife, Chris Rock. Aware of kids watching the Oscars: what did this mean to them?

  And I was viscerally—that means ‘in the guts’--reminded of being a child in a volatile sometimes violent home. Things were going along just fine, all was well, we were laughing, there were jokes that maybe weren’t that funny, maybe were even hurtful, but we were laughing along—cause that’s what we do, that’s what the audience did, gratefully, for the rest of the night . . .

 But then it got even worse.

 After hitting Chris Rock in the face, on stage, in front of the world, Will Smith made an emotional, rambling acceptance speech (yeah, he won the Oscar for Best Actor) and talked a lot about love.

 Loving and protecting his family, his people. (By committing unwarranted violence.) He justified his behaviour.

 Trigger, anyone?

 Dissociation, elevated heart rate, hypervigilance!

 Come on down!

“I hurt you because I love you.” Right. Gotcha.

To hear a man who’s just committed assault speak of love as the reason for it was eerily familiar. But this was not some guy in a baseball at a bar in Alberta. No. No. Not at all. A cultured, brilliant, talented man who’s just won the Oscar for Best Actor. My friends, these narratives run so deep in us, in our human cultures.  

Where a man protects “his” woman’s honour by hitting someone, what does he to her when she offends his honour?

 What does it mean to speak of love as a justification for committing violence?

 It means love and violence live happily ever after. This is the familiar ugly story we are trying to wake up out of. Love does not justify violence. If love justifies violence, every violent life partner, every violent parent has a right to the next slap, the next act of abuse.

Those words are in the Best Screenplay of All Time in Every Language when it comes to  intimate and family violence. It is the most familiar script of incest: I love you, that’s why I’m doing this to you. Narcissists do it; violent parents, caretakers and teachers do this to the children in their realms. Shitty toxic friends do it: ‘I’ve hurt you because I care about you so much’.  

 This is my personal and my therapeutic perspective: I’m not saying that Will Smith is any of those things. I’m just pointing out the script, the words, and why people are so riled up about what happened. In his tear-filled speech (I felt for him; he was clearly unravelled) he also apologized, to the audience, and to the Academy.

 But he did not apologize to Chris Rock, the man he hit in the face. Sigh. He could have done so much good with a sincere apology, instead of trying to justify his behaviour and use saviour language to do it.

 Unfortunately, he’s since stated publicly that he wants Chris Rock to apologize to him!

DARVO . . .

In this, he fulfills the DARVO acronym. DARVO is often used, consciously or unconsciously, as a way to rewrite the narrative of abusive situations. When enacting DARVO, a person typically Denies their own crappy behaviour, Attacks the individual they harmed, and Reverses the roles of Victim and Offender.

 If you’ve ever been gaslit—made to feel responsible for someone else’s bad behaviour, or crazy for calling them out for being a bad friend—the person will often use DARVO as part of their arsenal to defend against the uncomfortable truth you’ve named.

Maybe someone should make a film about this . . . Maybe someone should write a book. Ding-dong! I think I know who might be able to do it!

Well . . . What can we do?

We can . . . breathe.

Really. A few cleansing breaths. This is heavy stuff.

A little mantra. Or a few benedictions, cuz you know the words gather strength and meaning when each of us says them out loud.

May I be kind.

May my words and acts align.

May all beings embrace peace.

May all beings be free from suffering.