The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did the sensible thing last week when the organization banned Will Smith from its events for a decade. For all the handwringing about whether the penalty was too much or not nearly enough, Smith’s case was simple, an open-and-shut exception to our culture’s quickly crystallizing rule: It is hard to develop new social norms and the means to enforce them on the fly.
Not every controversy is as easy as banning Will Smith from the Oscars
After Smith charged the Oscars stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock for making a joke at Smith’s wife’s expense, the immediate official response seemed to be paralysis. This shock was understandable, given the unprecedented nature of the event; it’s hard to plan for a possibility that is unimaginable until it happens. Fortunately, the Academy recovered from its early floundering and levied a punishment that was both severe and tailored to the offense.
Smith foolishly ruined the most important night in many people’s careers, including his own. Given that, he won’t get to come back for a very long time — or to move beyond the slap quickly. It will be revisited next year when Smith is not on hand to present the award for best actress, or any time he attends a different awards ceremony, or when he’s nominated — or not considered — for another Oscar. The 10-year duration also pressures Smith to prove he has everything under control, and fast; it’s a long time for producers and studios to be wondering whether he is too mercurial to work. And the ban is a strong deterrent for anyone else tempted to indulge themselves in an outburst during future Oscars ceremonies.
Other penalties would have made less sense, both for the Academy and for Smith. Making Smith ineligible for future Oscars would set the Academy up to issue future moral judgments it might prefer to steer clear of. Forcing him to return the Oscar he won for “King Richard” would be silly, too. The award was given in recognition of Smith’s professional accomplishments, not his behavior.
The Academy made the right call — in part because it faced a simple problem. Not all the incidents that invite public outrage are so easily resolved.
First, there is the problem of getting people to agree on what constitutes an offense. That’s especially true amid a raging culture war in which the sides are divided not only about key issues but also about the appropriate ways to debate them.
In Texas, helping one’s own transgender child obtain medical treatment can mean being placed on administrative leave from one’s job and investigated on charges of child abuse. According to one federal judge, law students should be ineligible for clerkships if they disrupt events by speakers with whom they disagree. A new Florida law empowers parents to turn curriculum disagreements into firing offenses for teachers.
Trying to resolve these differing convictions is hard enough without also debating whether people deserve grace periods to get used to new norms, or whether there should be statutes of limitations on old offenses — especially those committed by minors.
Then there is the problem of consequences. There is no moral equivalent of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and no parole examiners whose judgment would be universally accepted if they declared a former offender had earned forgiveness.
Career death — the harshest penalty typically applied — is both easier to impose on ordinary people than on celebrities, and more likely to affect them severely. Disgraced comedian Louis C.K. may not be employable by a television network or a movie studio. But he has the money and experience to film his own comedy specials (and win a Grammy), and a fan base who will find any material he distributes himself. If Smith never works again, he will still be wildly rich, if perhaps at loose ends. Most people don’t have those reserves of reputational and financial capital to protect them if they become unemployable.
And lots of intermediate penalties feel ramshackle rather than authoritative. Is a college applying clear standards against the use of racist language if it rescinds an offer of admission over an old video, or is it trying to avoid a one-off PR nightmare? Is making Twitter unusable for someone with whom you disagree really an effective sanction, or will it just contribute to their sense of martyrdom?
Maybe these dilemmas are inevitable in an era of declining religious observance, increasing personal mistrust of others and rapidly mutating social norms.
In that sense, there is something old-fashioned, maybe even a little reassuring about the aftermath of Smith’s unprecedented meltdown. A bad thing happened. Everyone agreed it was bad. An institution was available to intervene. Order has been restored. The rest of us should be so lucky.
Source: WP
