JIGGENS: Time to move on from the Will Smith thing

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Enough, already. The fallout from the Will Smith-Chris Rock face-slapping incident at the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony in March is starting to get old. This happened six weeks ago, and not a day has gone by since then that this hasn’t been in the news in some way, shape or form.

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It’s getting tiresome, and who really cares anymore? The late-night TV talk show hosts have had a field day with it. Saturday Night Live has had its fun with it. Can we not move on from this?

Smith got his comeuppance for his on-stage assault with a decade-long ban from the Oscars, cancelled movie projects and having to live in shame for an indefinite period. Furthermore, his marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith is said to be on the rocks with Hollywood insiders speculating divorce proceedings are imminent.

Again, who cares? It’s interesting to note, however, that Smith’s assault of Rock was allegedly precipitated by a joke Rock made about Pinkett Smith’s lack of hair, and Smith was supposedly defending her honour. Was this perhaps a last-ditch attempt by Smith to salvage an already doomed marriage by putting on an act of bravado in front of millions of people?

If so, it seems to have failed. Regardless, the entertainment media isn’t ready to let go of the story. Smith has kept a low profile since the March 27 Oscars ceremony but has since emerged in India where – it is speculated – he is seeking spiritual guidance from a guru.

I guess the entertainment media figures they have an obligation to keep the public informed of every step that Smith, Pinkett Smith and Rock are now taking since the so-called “slap gate” incident. Those who continue to tune in night after night to Entertainment Tonight in anticipation of the latest developments of this saga are probably the same people who keep such drivel as Keeping Up with the Kardashians on the air.

This is the price of fame. Celebrities live their lives under a microscope and seemingly can’t go a day without a camera pointed at them. The price they pay for their mansions, fancy cars and big bank accounts is the surrendering of their privacy. Oftentimes, however, the entertainment media goes a little overboard, figuring perhaps that the public wants to know what these celebrities are up to every minute of the day. Throw an “incident” into the mix, and their scrutiny is multiplied tenfold.

The focus of this scrutiny is aimed primarily at Smith. Rock has pretty much shrugged off the matter and is pressing on, and the entertainment media can’t seem to find an angle worth pursuing in his direction. It’s the Smith-Pinkett Smith subplot that seems the most newsworthy now.

It’s getting almost as bad as the ongoing media coverage of the lives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle or Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Stand in any grocery store or Walmart checkout line and scan the front pages of the tabloids or the entertainment magazine covers, and you’ll be hard pressed not to find images of Smith, Pinkett Smith, Rock, Harry, Meghan, Depp or Heard.

Surely most of the world has better things to do than to religiously follow what’s going on in these people’s lives. This is what sells these periodicals, I suppose. But, as William Shatner once famously said, “Get a life.”