Last year’s Oscar award show was a bigger deal than usual and not because of the results. The now infamous moment when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage after a joke aimed at Smith’s wife, has forced the Oscars to introduce a “crisis response team”. The team was dedicated to handle any unexpected event in hopes that they could prevent any more scandalous moments from happening. However many are split on whether or not this team was necessary or able to stop any situations like last year’s.
Will Smith’s actions at last year’s Oscars stunned people around the world and left everyone with questions. Of course, Will Smith apologized to Chris Rock but many felt that it was half hearted and not sincere. Chris Rock had remained publicly silent up until his Netflix special “Selective Outrage” dropped on the platform on March 4. In the special, Rock goes into detail about what happened that night. Answering the question of whether it hurt or not by reminding the crowd that Smith is much bigger than him and also portrayed Muhammad Ali in a past role. Rock also threw some more shade at Jada Pinkett Smith in his special when he said, “she hurt him way more than he hurt me,” obviously referring to the “entanglement” Jada Smith had that was largely publicized.
The new crisis team was at the ready to stop any unwanted incidents but, it could be in the Oscar’s best interest to just let things happen. Last year’s ratings for the Oscars were up 60% from 2021 which only had 10.4 million viewers.
Some people enjoy the spectacle and looked forward to what might happen just like second-year computer science major William Cohen who said, “I only saw the clip of Will Smith slapping Chris rock. I didn’t watch the whole thing but I thought it was just so out of character for him, it was kinda funny.”
Even though it was funny to some, others like third-year sociology major Sonia Garcia found it uninteresting she said, “I thought it was annoying. I was tired of everyone talking about it in my class at work and even at home. If they are putting in a team to stop things like that from happening again it could save me a headache.”
First-year Business major Danny Guzman and his friends were excited to watch the show. “I didn’t know they had a team that is looking out for things like that. I still hope something funny happens.”
Even with the boost in ratings for last year’s Oscars, the award shows seem to be losing relevance among the public. Going from 40 million viewers in the last decade to 16.6 million last year has shown that maybe a little drama during the show could be good for ratings.
Fortunately, Sunday night’s Academy Awards went smoothly, with host Jimmy Kimmel mentioning the crisis team in his opening monologue and in his closing remarks. Some notable wins of the night were Brendon Fraser taking home the best actor award for his role in “The Whale,” and Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh made history by winning best supporting actor and best actress, respectively.
