When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage on March 27, the supposedly dead Oscars sprang back to life.

The ceremony has suffered greatly during recent years, with viewership hitting an all-time low last year. Even with the 58 percent increase attributed largely to this incident, the 2022 numbers still indicate second-to-lowest viewership ratings in the history of the ceremony, possibly due to a shift in its selection criteria with a tiresome focus on “mostly white casts, actionless plots and artsy camera work.” Jennifer Maas, a Variety reporter, wrote that “[viewership] for Sunday’s Oscars on ABC grew by 511,000 viewers during the 15-minute time span that featured Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, according to Live + Same Day Nielsen data.”

When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, the supposedly dead Oscars sprang back to life, because finally something with a plot dropped. Something dramatic. A Shakespearean moment that reminded us of the famous words “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”.

Because what else would we make of it?

Immediately, accusations and defenses flooded Twitter. While some argue that violence should not be tolerated in any case, others express unease about how many framed Smith’s reaction as a stereotypical incident of Black violence. However, in my opinion none said it better than this statement from Hollywood Reporter critic Eisa Ulen: “In Will’s initial laugh, the weight of always needing to be affable, especially in white spaces, even when the joke’s on him. In his sudden decision to rise and approach Chris, the patriarchy’s compulsory performance of strong manhood. In the slap, a hyper-masculine response consistent with America’s punitive justice system. In “Take my wife’s name out your fucking mouth,” the release of suppressed anger in the form of toxic masculinity.”

I empathize. There seems to be a constant weight of performance on the shoulders of those made aware of themselves by circumstances — without the blissful ignorance coming from a background of allowance, one becomes hyper aware of their own place and the societal roles that they are supposed to play. Like Cinderella’s sisters, people are assigned glass slippers that may not necessarily fit them, which results in suppressed anger when they cut their toes trying to put the slippers on. Chris Rock is a performer, albeit not a very good one in his jokes, but wasn’t Will Smith also performing according to the expectations and labels — black, masculine, punitive — that he internalized and reinforced in his life, over and over again?

It was not the slap itself that interested me. It was the constant weight of performance that I relate to so much. That, and our own subjectivity in the face of comedy.

When the slap took place, I had just walked away from a huge argument with a close friend over Dave Chappelle. I argued that Chappelle’s stance on The Closer greatly insulted the Asian community and modern feminism by labeling Covid-19 as Chinese — never mind that this narrative echoing Trump’s “Chinese virus” tweet has given rise to anti-Asian hashtags on Twitter — comparing himself fighting Covid-19 with anti-Asian hate crimes on the streets and saying that the feminist movement just needs a male leader to succeed. My friend defended Chappelle and claimed that they did not see his stance as anything problematic,and he had a right to say what he would.

Despite the anger and hurt that my friend did not seem to empathize with, or his inability to understand the traumas of my people and why Chappelle’s categorization of people into mere labels is alarming, it began to dawn on me that when I get offended by comedy, I may have taken the whole idea too seriously. My aggression towards Chappelle was not so much due to his rhetoric, but more about my own anger towards “people like him”, towards the prevalent male chauvinism and anti-Asian hate crimes “people like me” read about and experience on a daily basis. I understood the power dynamics and social structures in which I have a role and may fit inside a group, and so when I placed myself in the labels that Chapelle created — Asian and feminist — my reaction became a performance of these labels instead of my own, much like Will Smith. In that way, I let Chappelle win over me, as he easily turned me into a part of his simplistic narrative.

This thought continued after I binged my third Netflix special by Ali Wong. A brilliant Asian-American standup comedian, her acerbic jokes on masculinity, sexual racism and parenthood are so scorchingly accurate that I marvelled at her honesty and her ability to break the rules —- the silent Asian stereotype, the submissive politeness expected of Asian femininity and the great expectations for modern women to manage both family and career. Upon reflection though, I began to question whether my acceptance of her performance indicates that her jokes were inherently much better than that of Chappelle’s, or that I did not see the potential offense because I agree and identify with her. Am I in a sense labeling myself with the same community she is in, and thus performing the role of a community member agreeing with another member, with less critical thinking than I would have in the face of someone with a different racial and gender background, such as Chappelle?

There seems to be an echo chamber that gradually envelopes my reactions towards comedians. The phenomenon of echo chambers is of course not new; with the increasingly accurate recommendation algorithms on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, we begin to only see content that they calculate we will like before we even look at it. Only opening our ears to those that we agree with is pleasant, but it is also dangerous because in that way we close ourselves off to potential connections we could have. We have less tolerance and flexibility when it comes to different opinions and we render ourselves fragile in terms of personal growth.

Will Smith performed his anger because it was in his character. I performed mine because I wanted to break my character. But we share a common fear in this age of exhibitions: if we do not stand up for ourselves, our family and our community, nobody will stand up for us. If we do not perform our anger somehow, we will be considered submissive and easy to bully. But shouldn’t we have a right not to be bullied in the first place, without needing to act a certain kind of toughness that proves otherwise?

This structural, collective feeling of insecurity and anxiety that compels us to perform is the real issue. Of course, comedy can be very offensive; even if comedians frequently exhibit a different persona on stage that does not necessarily relate to their actual selves. Bad jokes can still provide platforms for hateful comments, give rise to bullying and shame victims for feeling hurt. However, by reacting to comedies in a violent way — such as a slap — we further condone the narrative that we need to prove ourselves tough to be considered worthy of respect, while restricting the freedom of expression and limiting ourselves more in our respective echo chambers.

Offense is a test. We have every right to be angry. Nevertheless, we should neither let our anger block us from listening to different opinions nor allow it to fuel our performance in the rigid system of expectations. Instead, the system that demands us to fulfill our roles, discourages our individuality and sensationalizes our anger should be the ultimate target.