The Slap and the rest of the Oscars

By Carla López, 9th Grade

This past weekend, the Academy Awards presented ‘The Oscars’ honoring the motion pictures industries since 1929. These awards are considered the grand dame of film award ceremonies, claiming to reward members of the Academy, fairly, through the best work in technical, production and performance aspects from films. The honors are more likely to be given to projects that are highly esteemed rather than highly profitable, so if something is nominated to the Oscars it’s considered exceptional and totally a boost for someone´s career.

Highlighted guests

AMPAS sounds like such a prestigious event and it actually is. The nomination and selection of invited members is chosen with time and care so as you can imagine, the list of people attending is quite exclusive. This year, some of the people in attendance were:

Zendaya
Zoë Kravitz
Timothée Chalamet
Kristen Stewart
Billie Eilish
Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker
Nicole Kidman
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith
Andrew Garfield
Simu Liu
Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter

The Slap

The most memorable and controversial moment in the 2022 Oscars was what is now being referred to as ‘The Slap’. When comedian Chris Rock hosted, he made a joke about Jada Smith, Will Smith´s wife.

“Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can´t wait to see it. Alright?”, were Rock´s exact words. Jada rolled her eyes, as the joke is at the expense of her bald head, where she has openly explained is a cause of her autoimmune disease alopecia. Seconds later, Smith walked up to the stage and slapped Rock across the face. Will returned to his seat and shouted at Rock “Keep my wife´s name out of your — mouth”. Rock laughed and then promised not to mention Jada anymore.

Will Smith received significant backlash for what he did. Many social media users commented that were saying that it was just not the moment to do it and violence doesn’t resolve anything.

On Monday evening, Will Smith apologized to Chris Rock publically for what had happened on an Instagram post.

The Academy also publicly voiced their opinion saying “The Academy does not condone violence of any form. Tonight we are delighted to celebrate our 94th Academy Awards winners, who deserve this moment of recognition from their peers and movie lovers around the world.”

Winners

There were over 20 nominations at the AMPAS and some winners were already expected and some others were a total surprise. Dune won a total of six Oscars total, including Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Score, Best Production Design and Best Sound.

This year Will Smith won his first Oscar for Best Actor for his role in “King Richard”. This award is one that fans have been praying for for years. After ‘The Slap’ incident, many people criticized that it should not have been given to him. Nevertheless, Will proudly received his Oscar avoiding the hate.

Some other important winners were: CODA for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Jessica Chastain won Best Actress for her role in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”. Best Original Song was won by Billie Eilish and Finneas song “No Time To Die” featuring in her documentary “The World´s A Little Blurry” , this being the sibling duo’s first Oscar. As largely predicted, Encanto won Best Animated Feature and Cruella, won Best Costume Design.

This year’s Oscars were very interesting and competitive but we all enjoyed watching it and how happy the winners were while receiving their awards.

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