Fournier: Violence no surprise for disingenuous Hollywood

Eleven years ago, my wife crashed her motorcycle riding to work. After surgery fusing seven vertebrae and years of intense physical therapy, she graduated from a wheelchair to a walker and finally a cane.

Today she is unsteady, and her walk is conspicuously duck-like. Nonetheless, over these years no one has openly ridiculed her walk.

What would I do if someone joked about her ailment? I don’t honestly know, but I do know they would deserve a slap.

This week the media is roiling with righteous indignation aimed at Will Smith. Perhaps they are just slap happy at getting a break from reporting the real violence in Ukraine. They express disgust over Will’s slap of comedian Chris Rock for ridiculing the hairless condition of Will’s wife, Jada, due to her autoimmune disorder.

They dissect Will’s subsequent apology as if it were dead on arrival, and they speak of the need for him to reform his character. Yet, there is surprisingly little talk of Chris Rock owing an apology to Jada.

I suspect most Will Smith detractors were dismayed — as was I — when our prior president aped the awkward disability of a reporter suffering from arthrogryposis. Somehow that sort of righteous dismay is not being channeled toward Chris Rock. Why not?

Is Hollywood genuinely shocked by the violence of a slap in the real world? If so, that seems a ludicrous double standard for the violent film production capital of the world in which so many film plots are resolved through punches, kicks and bullets.

Hollywood is often labeled as phony, but that’s too simple. Somewhere in between self-exaltation and self-debasement is the virtue of self-reflection.

Perhaps Hollywood and its slap happy media pundits could use the Will Smith affair as an opportunity to self-reflect.