You can’t hold an event where the perpetrator of a visible and unquestionable assault gets to remain in the the room to taunt and threaten his victim and then receive an award to a standing ovation and call it a success by any metric.
Prior to the 94th Academy Awards, Will Smith was one of the most beloved Hollywood power players. To his delight and ours, he was capping off an outstanding year of professional accomplishments including a bestselling book and an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Richard Williams, the father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams, in the movie King Richard. Will Smith’s performance in this movie is simply phenomenal. The problem now though is that his violent assault against Chris Rock was just as disgraceful as his acting performance was admirable. And this, this violent assault against Chris Rock—a towering and beloved comedian—will forever tarnish Will Smith’s career legacy. Will Smith’s popularity has plunged 30% after Oscar slap. Sadly now, Smith—a larger-than-life kind of celebrity and personality—just looks small. Will Smith looks small because: As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says, “ Will Smith did a bad, bad thing,” but he’s certainly not the only one who looks bad. While these people may not have committed criminal behavior related to this event, they failed in other ways that will have lasting repercussions. Let’s start here. Will Packer is proud of increasing diversity and viewer ratings for the Oscars by nearly 60% over the prior year numbers, but he should know that a boost in ratings doesn’t make the violence okay, and it doesn’t absolve him of his leadership failings that night. To be fair, Will Packer might be one hell of a good producer under ordinary circumstances, but the greatest producers must possess demonstrable crisis management, decision-making and leadership abilities. Sadly, it appears that Packer deferred these aspects of his job to Chris Rock, the comedian, presenter and assault victim. When interviewed by TJ Holmes with ABC News, Will Packer acknowledged that it was indeed Chris Rock who saved the Oscars and salvaged what would be left of the production. Given that Will Packer knows this, he should know better than to tout ratings and celebrate how he and his team were able to do things no one else had done after what occurred Oscar night. Sure, human beings are drawn to spectacles—including, and especially, violent ones—but crisis leaders don’t consider events a success just because a lot of people watched it. Viewership numbers should only be celebrated after you’ve demonstrated the ability to lead a production where the hosts and all attendees and workers can go home without having been violently assaulted during the event. Given that no one can control another person’s behavior, attendees should at least have been assured that Packer or someone else would immediately remove any perpetrator upon learning an assault occurs. The metric that trumps all other metrics is safety, and on this measure, Packer dropped the ball by allowing Will Smith to remain in the Dolby Theatre, receive his award, get a standing ovation and give that overly-long, blame-the-world speech. Packer left Chris Rock—the victim—in charge of deciding what next step to take while Rock was fresh from being hit and likely still feeling the burning sensation in his face and jaw area. I’m sure Packer feels he was there for Chris Rock in some way, but he wasn’t there for Chris Rock or others the way he needed to be.
