Jimmy Kimmel Really Beat A Dead Horse At The Oscars With Too Many Will Smith Jokes

Am I the only one who naively thought the Oscars might not fixate on the slap this year? The Academy's response to the moment last year when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock across the face after Rock told a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith's expense was dramatic and drawn out. In late March 2022, the Academy launched an official investigation into the incident. In April, they banned Smith from the ceremony for a full decade. And last month, the Academy added an official crisis team in case of any future incidents. As plenty of commentators have noted, it's all a bit much for an organization that has awarded serial abusers plenty of times in the past. You'd think maybe the Academy would want to move on.

Except, Kimmel did the opposite of moving on tonight, choosing to bring up the slap multiple times in the form of largely unfunny jokes that felt shoehorned into the telecast. It started with the monologue, during which he made the most pointed references to the confrontation. He talked around it at first, saying that the Irish cast of "The Banshees of Inisherin" ensured that "the odds of another fight on stage just went way up." Then he got more forthright, addressing the situation directly. "We want you to have fun, we want you to feel safe, and most importantly, we want me to feel safe," Kimmel quipped in his monologue. He went on to explain the "strict policies" in place for the evening: "if anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for Best Actor and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech."

Kimmel then went on to poke fun at audience members for standing by when Smith, who he called "the assailant," slapped Rock, as if it were some extended violent rampage and not a quick, unpredictable moment. These aren't just punchlines that flatten the incident at hand, draining it of any nuance related to Rock's track record of misogynoir or the racist response to the incident; they also hinge on a bizarrely melodramatic and fearful reimagining of the story, one that's on par with Judd Apatow's ridiculous tweet claiming Smith could've killed Rock. Kimmel seems to be joking that the Academy and audience let Smith get away with too much, when in reality, he already got a decade-long ban.

The host (who likely worked with a writing team on these jokes, or at the very least approved them) then went on to recruit audience members into his extended bit about having bodyguards on hand in case of any violence. Andrew Garfield's grimace pretty much summed up my response to a bit that also incorporated Michael B. Jordan, Michelle Yeoh, Pedro Pascal, and more in an imaginary dream-team of people who could kick the butt of whatever imaginary attacker might threaten the sanctity of the Oscar stage. In a world where large-scale public violence is a serious threat, but is totally unrelated to a random beef between actors, it all feels over-the-top. Unfortunately, Kimmel didn't stop there.

After the monologue, the host started weaving in slap-related jokes somewhat at random, and while they had fewer uncomfortable implications than his bits at the top of the show, they still felt unnecessary and — perhaps just as bad — unfunny. When the Best Documentary award approached, Kimmel pointed out that it was the area of the show that directly followed the slap last year. "Hopefully it goes off this time without a hitch – or at least without Hitch," Kimmel jested, referencing Smith's role in the 2005 rom-com of the same name. 

"Please put your hands together and then keep them to yourself," he continued. If this was meant to give the Best Documentary category the respect it deserved and wasn't given last year, I'm not sure it worked. "Navalny," the excellent non-fiction film about a man fighting Russia's authoritarian government even after being poisoned, won the award. Then the room got back to laughing about the slap.

As the night wore on, Kimmel delivered a joke that hit two popular Oscar quadrants at once: the slap and the runtime. "At this point in the show, it kind of makes you miss the slapping a little bit, right?" he said in reference to the flagging energy levels. The final reference to the slap reference came in the last seconds of the telecast, and it was even more cartoonish than all the rest. At the end of the show, after "Everything Everywhere All At Once" made history as the first sci-fi film to win Best Picture and one of very few films centering Asian-American characters to ever take the top prize, Kimmel headed backstage to flip a sign labeled "Number of Oscars Telecasts Without Incident." He changed the tally from 0 to 1, as if the Oscars are a dangerous factory where attendees could lose life or limb.

These jokes were underwritten, overused, and almost impressive in the way they missed the mark when it came about talking about anything that actually matters, from the context of the slap itself to the ways in which Hollywood institutions punish some incidents of violence while totally ignoring others. Hopefully next year we can change a sign labeled "Number of Oscars Telecasts Without Tired Jokes About The Slap" from 0 to 1.