Opinion: No, We Don't Need To Cancel Will Smith

By now, everyone has thrown their opinion online about last night’s Oscars smack. This means in almost no time flat, there’ll be some whack social media campaign to “cancel Will Smith” because that’s what we do when we don’t agree with something someone else did. Before everyone gets out their hashtag frustrations, let’s try not to overreact with a knee-jerk reaction.

Looking back on the incident, yes Will Smith may have overreacted himself. On what should’ve been one of the biggest nights of his life, he might have stood up for his wife, but he also may have ruined his reputation as well. There are two sides to this debate and honestly, both are correct. While everyone is out here trashing Will for his reaction, try to remember, celebrities are human too. He’s faced plenty of criticism throughout his career, so why was this what made him snap? “He should just learn to take a joke”, right?

Isn’t there a gentleman’s understanding that family is off-limits? I guarantee every single person judging Will Smith right now has at one point in their life uttered the words “say what you want about me, but I’ll fight you over my family?”. Maybe he would’ve rolled with it a bit more had it been a joke about him. However, your love for your family and the struggles that they’ve gone through will make you do regretful things.

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Everyone can sit here, in your face, and talk about how we all need to be advocates for mental health in America and be understanding of someone’s insecurities. Now, now that a man stood up and publicly defended his wife for something she is insecure about and that’s where we draw the line? That’s where we have to be like “he needs to learn to take a joke”. You’re way off your rocker with that one.

But the sad part is, if it happened backstage no one would be talking about it. You’d get a small tidbit across your news feed and you wouldn’t even remotely care. Because it happened on a very public stage, that’s where people are outraged. Which, if that’s the only reason to make a big deal about it, it says a lot about us as a people. Defend someone’s honor, but don’t do it at the expense of our entertainment.

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Yes, it was a joke, one that maybe Will Smith overreacted to. Does he regret it? Probably. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t involve you. The two have apparently already worked it out amongst themselves and it’s said to be a non-issue. Save your hashtags and your cancel culture for something that actually matters. You can feel bad for Chris Rock because he didn’t deserve that outcome, but hating Will Smith is just as much of an overreact as his was last night.