After the miserable ratings of last year’s coronavirus-tainted Oscars show, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked for ways to speed up the ceremony and reconnect with the zeitgeist.
Sunday’s broadcast of the Oscars certainly succeeded in making headlines — though not in ways the Academy could have expected — after an extraordinary moment when the actor Will Smith charged the stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock. Rock had made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pickett Smith, who has a shaved head and has spoken publicly about her hair loss.
In the US, audio was cut from the broadcast as Smith yelled profanities at Rock after returning to his seat. Later in the show, Smith won the Best Actor award for his performance in King Richard and gave a long, rambling speech in which he called himself “a fierce defender of his family”. The actor also apologised to the Academy, but not to Rock.