Last week on Steve Reacts, I mentioned why I haven’t watched an award show in its entirety since September 1999 (MTV VMAs) before making a segue into Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the 94th annual Academy Awards.
Of course, the segue was a very brief one, as I want to have my viewpoints of both that on-stage assault, along with what I think of both Smith’s marriage to Jade Pinkett Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith herself, in an entry (this one) where they won’t be overshadowed by what I think of award shows in general. Okay, let’s begin.
So when it comes to Smith’s slap of Rock, I thought that the former of the two could have handled that entire situation better, with talking to the latter privately about that G.I. Jane joke after the ceremony concluded. And while alopecia (what Jada Pinkett Smith has been dealing with) is a touchy subject, I personally thought that that aforementioned G.I. Jane joke was clever, given that it was an award show for movies after all. But no, The Fresh Prince instead had to kowtow to his wife’s reaction to that joke, which of course led to the most talked about slap in the history of slaps. Alright, now onto the marriage.
So for those of you who don’t know, I used to live in a state (New Hampshire) where my middle school bus driver had Boston’s number one hip hop radio station, JAM’N 94.5, on for all of us kids to listen to. And while it was cool to occasionally hear the 2Pac song “California Love” on that station, I also got fatigued listening to that station overplaying songs such as “Too Close” by Next, “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” by P. Diddy and “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’ It” by The Fresh Prince. And speaking of The Fresh Prince, that radio station and pretty much the rest of the hip hop media (MTV Jams included) all fawned over Will Smith being romantically linked to Jada Pinkett (now Jada Pinkett Smith) as if they were both members of a royal family. And when I mean fawned, I mean when they first began to date one another, when they got married and when she had the first (Jaden) of their two children. And not only did pretty much all of the hip hop media obsessively fawn over all of that because in addition, the rest of the entertainment media did as well to the point that all of that fawning got annoying almost immediately. And with most of this paragraph being said, I started to feel at that time (late ‘90s) that Will Smith was losing some of the swag that he had amassed in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air/Bad Boys era, along with the fact that I was in no hurry to go see any other (see the next paragraph) Jada Pinkett Smith movie any time soon. Alright, now for the segue of what I think of Jada Pinkett Smith herself.
So back in the mid ‘90s, I learned who Jada Pinkett Smith was via a rental guide of the popular movies (Jason’s Lyric and A Low Down Dirty Shame were movies of hers in that guide) which were available or about to become available for rent from a movie rental place called Video Update. However, I didn’t see a movie of hers for the very first time until the summer of 1996, when I went to go see The Nutty Professor with my mother and younger biological sister. And as to what I thought of that movie, well go read my review of that movie here and look for my mention of her in the second-to-last paragraph of that review.
Anyways, seeing additional movies where Jada Pinkett Smith is either the main love interest or the object of someone’s attraction and how such a dynamic in additional movies (the aforementioned A Low Down Dirty Shame, the aforementioned Jason’s Lyric, Collateral) felt very stale to me, I didn’t care much for her as an actress, despite the fact that she has/will have 10 other movies in the Two ThouCentennial rankings when that project is all said and done. And given what has since come to light with her toxic personality, I’ll simply acknowledge that she is in those 10 other movies, along with not letting the staleness nor toxicity overshadow them. But what I both think and re-think of her could hurt the stock(s) of her movies that are pending Two ThouCentennial enshrinement.
Well, that wraps up this two-parter of the hip hop media hype couple that myself and many other content creators have either blogged or vlogged about. I’m not sure if I’ll ever cover this particular topic again, but I will have polls where you all can vote on whether the slap was warranted or not, what you think of the marriage of the aforementioned hip hop media hype couple and what you think of Jada Pinkett Smith herself.
Alright, happy voting and blog to you all again via this page on May 13, 2022.