Hyderabad: The organisers of the 95th Academy Awards have put together a new "crisis team" in response to the 2022 incident at the award show, where Will Smith walked on stage and slapped comedian-actor Chris Rock for cracking a joke about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
In an interview, Academy president Janet Yang revealed that their response to the incident was not swift enough. The Academy has a whole crisis team, something they've never had, and many plans for multiple scenarios. According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chief Kramer, the Academy hopes to be prepared for anything they have not anticipated and planned for it just in case it does happen.
Because of last year's incident, the Academy has opened its mind to many things that can happen at the Oscars. These crisis plans, crisis communication teams and structures are supposed to gather very quickly, to provide a statement in case of emergency. The Academy does hope that something doesn't happen, but they already have frameworks prepared, revealed Kramer.
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars while Rock was presenting the award for the best documentary feature category. Rock made a controversial joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head due to an alopecia diagnosis. After slapping Rock, Smith returned to his seat and repeatedly screamed at Rock.
The Academy took the flak due to its lack of immediate action and issued a statement later the same night stating it "does not condone violence in any form," Will Smith apologised to the Academy the next day and resigned from the Academy a few days later. Oscars 2023 is scheduled for March 12.
