#slapgate

El: Mike, You and Will have literally been married for 8 years.

(late reply, sorry, i had to sleep the election off before making an attempt at being articulate)

the slap itself was anecdotal in that afaik it doesn't belong to a wider pattern of interpersonal violence and abuse, so unless it comes out that he hits people on the regular, while i don't generally condone slapping comedians for making tasteless jokes about your significant other, it's kinda whatever -- he handled the aftermath fine, did the apologizing, resigned from the Academy to show he was sorry, and as far as i'm concerned everyone is allowed to fuck up once in a while.

the ten years ban from the Academy seems kinda excessive tho, especially, as many people have pointed out already, when contrasted with the Academy's history with some other holders of or nominees to an Oscar whose violence is well-documented, non anecdotal, and on a whole other level. and while the Academy ban letter tiptoes around saying 'we're trying to do better' (calling the ban "a step toward a larger goal of protecting the safety of our performers and guest and restoring trust in the Academy", yadda yadda), that'd probably have gone down easier with a more honest assessing of like, why that trust needs to be restored in the first place. even then, a ten years ban for a Black man over a slap after decades of looking the other way when white men were doing worse (Polanski won his 2003 Oscar while a fugitive, decades after pleading guilty to something much, much worse than a slap, for fuck's sake), from an institution whose history with racism is what it is (i've seen Hattie McDaniel's name come up quite a bit)? maybe not the best way to start restoring trust.