Perhaps what’s most useful to note about the scuffle heard ‘round the world at the 2022 Oscars is that it all could have been avoided were it not for some shitty, tired joke. One that, yes, Will Smith could have let slide if he was a “bigger” person and somewhat aware that we’re not in the same century as when The Last Duel took place and a woman’s “honor” needed to be defended by her husband. Alas, he was seemingly not aware.
Nor was Chris Rock “big” enough to comprehend that jokes about women’s bald heads should have been made off-limits long ago. Namely, after the 00s era when Britney Spears was ceaselessly mocked for shaving her own head. It’s a meme-worthy series of images still referenced to this day, even in spite of the public being well-aware of the trauma she was undergoing at the time and the fact that it led to an unnecessary and dehumanizing thirteen-year conservatorship. In other words, the head-shaving moment made her fodder to be preyed upon by the media and branded as “crazy.” All to the benefit of the Spears family and Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group.
The one minor difference in Spears’ case (versus Jada’s) that made it “okay” for comedians and plebes of every color to make fun of Brit was that she did not shave her head due to a condition she couldn’t change (unless one counts her constant objectification and sexualization back then—ergo desexualizing herself by removing a long-standing emblem of femininity. Then there was the rumor that she was shaving it for the purposes of a drug test). And the only rule that comedy tends to offer is the guideline that you should not make fun of people for something they can’t actually change about themselves. Pinkett Smith cannot change the fact that she has alopecia. What she could change was the manner in which her hair is presented. In Rock’s eyes, evidently, as a “G.I. Jane look.”
And yes, more people have been just as shocked that Rock could suddenly make a generally panned movie from 1997 relevant again. Perhaps no one being more shocked than Ridley Scott himself, who was also mocked more directly when Regina Hall held up a screener during the ceremony and said, “Now, I’ve got the screener for a never-before-seen film… not even by the director. The Last Duel.”
In any case, Jada’s eye roll at the joke was powerful enough to speak for itself without Will needing to get up and make it way more of “a thing” than it needed to be. Her eye roll was the defense. Will’s slap was the offense-on-steroids. But perhaps not more than Chris Rock feeling the need to comment on a woman’s bald head, the circumstances surrounding it being out of her control. What’s more, Rock’s intent to demean a woman for not catering to an antiquated perspective on what femininity “should” look like is a symbol of his own dinosaur humor. Of many men’s belief that a woman should still look a certain “conventional” way.
Last year, the buzz cut was called out as a major trend of the 2021 summer season, with hairstylist Hannah DiFolco commenting in said Nylon article (one in which both Jada and Willow are mentioned in for fashionably sporting the cut), “I think this [lockdown] time allowed people to really look at themselves and see what was important. And honestly, our bodies and hair are the least interesting things about ourselves.” She also added, “Femininity comes from within, regardless of gender. It’s so powerful and wonderful to feel so feminine on the inside and look however you decide on the outside.” Something the likes of everyone from Sinead O’Connor to Gossip Girl’s Jordan Alexander has also made clear with her own signature buzz cut.
And something that maybe Chris Rock ought to understand before he goes making another shoddy jibe directed at a woman’s hair (or lack thereof). Especially if the style is spurred by something out of her control. But even if it wasn’t, a woman shouldn’t be poked fun at for not conforming to a gender norm that has been wielded for centuries to make her seem “unstable” if she does not adhere to it.
