That Slap

 

Everybody else is talking about it. I don't really want to; frankly I'm not interested, but in order to stop people asking for my opinion about it all the time, here goes. There's a lot of commentary on who was right or wrong. Why did Will Smith get so angry? What about Chris Rock's reaction? In my view, both of them were right... and both of them were wrong. You see, the Oscar awards ceremony is far less popular than it used to be. In fact its TV viewing figures dropped from 26 million in 2020 to only 10 million in 2021; well under half of the previous year. That is a cataclysmic loss of interest in the space of just twelve months. The Academy must have been terrified by this and would have been tempted to take desperate action to lure the public into watching again. This is why they staged this altercation. Smith and Rock are good actors, but they're not quite that good. Scandal, drama and controversy is a cheap and easy way to draw attention to yourself, as many internet celebrities know all too well. Do you really think that the professionals in showbiz haven't learned that too? The organizers of the BRIT Awards, the UK's top music prize, did the exact same thing years ago. At every ceremony something would "go wrong". One year it was a water fight started by Chumbawamba; another Robbie Williams threatened Noel Gallagher. One year they got Bill Drummond to pretend to shoot the audience, without real bullets of course. I'm pleased to notice I'm not the only person who has seen through this rather tenuous veil of sensation. Now, let's get back to the important subjects...
See here for more information: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/10/ive-recently-written-here-about-fake.html.
And: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-paul-mccartney-dead.html.