by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Something that I could have predicted would happen, has happened –a growing number of people (at least on Tik-Tok) seem to think that The Slap was staged or pre-planned.
I find this totally bonkers for a number of reasons, even though I understand where these people are coming from. They think it was all staged because of how it helped the Oscars be relevant again. But that’s only part of the picture. Will Smith doing something so outrageous – especially for his career — is just not something anyone with as much to lose as he does would do willingly.
Or, put another way, sometimes a Slap is just a Slap.
All the quibbling and reconning of The Slap says more about the relationship a lot of people have with celebrity than it does any possibility the event was faked in some way. Rather than accept some shocking event, they process it through the lens of a conspiracy to blunt the blow on what they consider possible. It’s mental comfort food for people with a parasocial relationship to Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and their family.
We all saw what we saw and what happened, happened.
This story isn’t over yet and there’s a chance that things could get pretty dark for Will Smith. The future isn’t set and this incident hasn’t fully worked itself out yet.
Only time will tell.
