The World vs Jada: The Modern Witch Hunt

Sometimes, an outrage circus has me wondering whether Alex Jones was right about the water.

Normally, celebrity drama is overblown (if not staged) dross meant to distract the public from real issues. The recent debacle at the 2022 Academy Awards was no different, as a regrettable incident between two men now has the whole world talking.

I will strangely start with the conclusion: even if people dislike a public figure for justifiable reasons, it doesn’t entitle them to perform mental gymnastics, excreting any distortions and speculations to demonise that person. Basic reality is something we should all be able to agree on.

The purpose of this post is to have a look at the voracious, slightly deranged mob turning Jada Pinkett Smith into the proverbial witch. Nothing this woman can say or do can stop the deluge, and it’s disturbing to witness.

No one knows what really caused Will Smith to walk onstage and slap Chris Rock over a joke about his wife’s shaved head. His behaviour was sudden, unprecedented at such events, reportedly out of character and foolish, since it sent his career in a downward spiral within seconds. Given its absurdity, the issue rests with his state of mind at that moment, not with the joke itself or his wife’s much impugned failure to laugh at it.

In contrast with the hungry media, an actual psychologist approaches the event thoughtfully, considering all potential factors. Such analyses are drowned out however by hoards of sensationalist headlines.

One thing is for sure: if Jada drove him to assault someone without saying a word, by merely rolling her eyes for half a second, she must have paranormal powers!

The fainting couch is only a brief stop for the crowd, which bounces up, pitchforks in hand, looking to fuel the anger. It seems impossible to them that Will Smith may have dealt with, or is dealing with a mental health issue that wasn’t caused by his wife.

After making the choice/mistake of oversharing about their marriage on her talk show, Red Table Talk, Jada became fairly unpopular. This now entitles the crowd to hold her directly or indirectly responsible for anything her husband does, as if he had no mind of his own. In other words, they just saw a chance to get her and took it.

Female Derren Brown

Nowhere on this planet would failure to laugh at a joke and rolling one’s eyes constitute incitement to violence.

There was no indication that she intended to cause a disturbance, or for her husband to do so. Only in today’s world, with people being scrutinised by the second and from every angle, is it possible to take note of someone’s every facial expression and make headlines out of it.

You’d think she was a hypnotist or the Witches of Eastwick rolled up into one, for that discrete reaction to command an immediate violent outburst.

“If only she had laughed at that joke, her husband would still have a career!”

EXCUSE ME…?

I’m not even a feminist and I didn’t think this phenomenon was still possible in 2022. But there you have it. Jada should’ve been clairvoyant. She should’ve known this man, who had everything going for him and was about to win an Oscar, would throw it all away because she failed to find a joke amusing. It was her responsibility, not his, to control his behaviour. He had no logic or agency of his own.

Because when a woman remains silent and rolls her eyes, it’s a monumental motherfucking gesture, bound to have extreme consequences. Every time you roll your eyes, you expect slaps and punches to follow.

Unless Will Smith was some kind of psychopath prone to hitting comedians, there was no way to anticipate an assault, especially in that setting. It made no sense for someone in his position to behave that way; in fact, no one ever had. So how could she have known?

“She laughed after the slap! She’s evil!”

Actually, many attendees laughed at the same time, some thinking the scene had been staged. Does everyone who laughed, perhaps out of confusion, support violence? She could’ve been thinking the same. Even if she had a thoughtless reaction for a few seconds, it still doesn’t mean she had telepathically made him get up and do it.

These people clearly don’t understand the concept of time. Yes, someone can laugh stupidly in the moment, not having time to reflect. After they do reflect however, they can determine an event was not necessarily a laughing matter. Their initial reaction doesn’t mean their subsequent conclusion is disingenuous. It’s almost as if they didn’t know how humans function.

“She should’ve restrained him!”

First of all, she was sitting at a distance, with another person sitting between them, and the whole thing was so quick there was no way to know his intentions, let alone intervene. People are swift to theorise how others should have behaved in a perplexing moment.

It’s interesting to see how men and women react in their sanctimonious comments. Men tend to accuse her of causing the assault (the witch made him do it with one look) while women impugn her for not reaching out to calm him down, as they would’ve done. Sure, ladies, you try physically restraining a man twice your size from two metres away; see how that works out.

I wonder if these women ever calmed their men down in front of cameras, at an award ceremony being broadcasted live internationally. What was she supposed to do? Start shouting? Get up and cause a scene of her own? Not that she would’ve had the time anyway.

“She turned her back on Will by agreeing he had overreacted!”

This is the cherry on top and the full display of craziness, not to mention disingenuity, which prompted me to write this post.

Various outlets are now treating her supposed comment (put out there by a source), that her husband had overreacted, as if it were a betrayal, and not a neutral, accurate statement the world had already agreed upon. Saying you wish something hadn’t happened, which is a foregone conclusion in this case, is the tamest, blandest form of disapproval. It’s not even disapproval; it’s just regret.

In other words, the entire world, Will Smith included, can state this obvious fact – except for her. If she agrees with them, she’s a backstabber. This, when only days ago she was being lambasted for laughing, as if she supported violence. These folks are just vultures; there’s no other way to put it.

People react to the headlines, taking it for granted that she’s throwing him under the bus, and not to her actual words.

This is the same crowd calling Will Smith’s actions despicable, howling for apologies and asking for his head, metaphorically, as in asking for him to be ousted from the Academy. Imagine what would’ve happened if Jada had said a word in defence of her husband’s behaviour. They would’ve eaten her alive. But since it’s feeding time at the zoo regardless, they will do so for the exact opposite.

Narcissistic abuse on camera or scripted promotion for a talk show?

No one knows, but let’s get hysterical.

Through the hard work of outrage archaeologists, a video from 2019 surfaced, posted on Jada’s social media, promoting an episode of her talk show, where she had invited a psychologist to discuss issues related to marriage. In the video, Will declares his annoyance at being filmed, though his demeanour reveals slight amusement.

She was not caught on camera; she was either filming or having someone else film.

Would someone in Will Smith’s position allow such a video to remain public for three years if the conflict had been genuine? Or is it likely a skit? These people are both actors and have a whole team around them curating their public image 24/7. Would an inappropriate video remain online for 3 years, for all to see?

It is far more likely that this is old scripted material, brought to the surface by internet sleuths and used by vultures to portray this woman as abusive.

Note to fellow humans: not all videos are spontaneous. Not everything you see is real. Jesus; it’s the Onision skits all over again.

“We see you, narc!”

Let’s clarify one thing – if someone is on social media bellowing that a public figure is definitely a narcissist, that person is 99% unlikely to have a psychology degree. Actual psychologists do not armchair-diagnose, especially in public.

Secondly, people with “full blown” NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) are rare compared to those with some narcissistic traits, or traits that in isolation, make them appear narcissistic. They are extreme cases. NPD is a devastating post-traumatic condition; it’s inadvisable to collect information about it from non-expert sources.

Don’t take it from me; take it from Prof Sam Vaknin, an expert on the disorder, who notes that most online sources about narcissism and personality disorders in general are utter nonsense.

Thirdly, when it comes to public figures, even those who overshare on a regular basis, there is no way to know a person well enough to infer what they may be suffering from, if anything. In a world of PR teams and publicity stunts, there is simply not enough information or a guarantee that what someone displays publicly is accurate.

According to Leah Remini, Jada was (or is) involved in Scientology to some degree, although this has been officially denied. There is no reason for Leah Remini to make this up, so assuming Jada did frequent the cult’s infamous Celebrity Centre, it might give some insight into the tendency to over-analyse and overshare private matters. Of course, this is only speculation; some people with large platforms simply enjoy hosting online talk shows and podcasts, something previously reserved for television. Gloria Estefan has a talk show in a very similar format.

In my humble opinion, it’s ill-advised to dissect one’s emotional life and dirty laundry for all to see; it also may affect people in your entourage, who might not want to participate or be mentioned. However, “diagnosing” someone with NPD based on that is a long stretch.

“She had an affair! She’s a wh***! She emasculated Will Smith!”

The reason scores of people hate her is that while separated from her husband, she had a relationship with a younger man (arguably a douche-bag, since he is now planning on publishing a book revealing intimate details, to capitalise on the fact that the Smiths are the in the centre of a scandal).

Some people spend years living completely separate lives, not having signed divorce papers yet. The term affair implies having an extramarital relationship behind your spouse’s back, while still being with them. Even if she had had an affair, this can happen at every street corner. I wonder if they would be so quick to disassociate from, or publicly stone a relative of theirs for being in that situation.

Couples separate, date others and get back together. It’s an everyday occurrence. Even if, out of an excess of openness to discuss life issues, she brought this up on her talk show, the issue described was not extraordinary.

It begs the question, as Dr Kirk Honda puts it, of who is actually emasculating Will Smith, affecting his mental health – his wife, or the masses of people incessantly calling him a cuck ever since? How much public mockery can or should someone take over their marriage?

“He would obviously do anything for her so it’s her fault!”

That is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard recently.

Someone can get this overly defensive behaviour even from a stalker they want nothing to do with. The fact that a man gets offended on a woman’s behalf and decides to become violent is not her fault.

“She planned this to ruin his career out of jealousy!”

How can they claim this woman planned a joke directed at her on live TV, that she barely reacted to, because her husband decided to assault someone a few seconds later?

The reason I’m wading through this malarkey is to prove the stupidity brought on by communal hysteria. Their rationale doesn’t have to make sense; to them it’s still valid. First they experience emotions (anger, disgust etc), and only then they try to rationalise them in absurd ways.

“She lied about embracing her hair condition!”

This really pisses me off. Some of these Einsteins didn’t just stop at blaming her for side-eyeing Will; they went into the reason she hadn’t laughed at a joke regarding her hair, which she had shaved off because of her alopecia. Her previous statemtent that she had embraced the condition and had proceeded to shave her head now comes under scrutiny. As if it were any of their business how she feels about it!

This seems to be their rationale: she lied about embracing the image, that’s how she ended up “disastrously” failing to laugh, and that’s how her husband committed assault. See? Her dishonesty caused the whole incident!

May I reiterate that the woman didn’t ask for any of this. She didn’t ask for the joke, nor for her husband to slap a comedian, nor for him to suffer severe consequences. Now there are Einsteins counting her hair follicles, as if they could augment her perceived guilt .

“Kudos to Chris for exposing her true feelings” about having alopecia. That’s a whole new level of insanity. Never mind that everyone is a hair loss expert now, but fails to spell the bloody word correctly.

“She’s evil!”

The inevitable result of a witch hunt is sheer demonisation. Gossip rags and channels may claim it’s entertainment, but at the end of the day, it agitates audiences with utter bullshit, generating a foul, hateful energy towards people who just happen to be imperfect.

To conclude this sad state of affairs, some questions need to be asked of this illustrious, sanctimonious crowd. Who keeps emasculating Will Smith by mocking his marriage? They do. Who put pressure on the Academy to punish him after the incident? They did. So why are they complaining now that his wife ruined his career by existing?