“The View” wasted no time in discussing the biggest moment of the Oscars on Monday, in which Will Smith jumped on stage and slapped Chris Rock for making a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. For the panel of women, it was nothing but “a show of violence.”
In kicking off the conversation, moderator Whoopi Goldberg turned first to Joy Behar for her thoughts. Behar admitted that she’s worried Smith’s outburst will set a dangerous precedent, saying it’s possible that now, “comedians are in danger everywhere.”
Behar added that she felt a better response would’ve been for Smith and his wife to simply walk out of the theater.
“That would be more appropriate, to me, a more appropriate response, if you’re upset about something, to walk off, as you and I did on Bill O’Reilly,” Behar said, referring to when she and Whoopi walked off the set of “The View” in 2010. “But to actually hit somebody was shocking, quite frankly.”
Guest host Ana Navarro agreed that the moment was shocking, and argued that even though Chris Rock’s joke was “in very poor taste,” it didn’t merit Smith’s response. You can watch the full segment from “The View” in the video above.
Sunny Hostin also agreed, calling Smith “immature,” “childish” and “violent.”
“I was embarrassed for Will, I was horrified for Chris Rock,” Hostin said. “I mean, Will apologized to the Academy, and he apologized to his colleagues and the other nominees, but he didn’t apologize to Chris Rock. And I thought Chris was the one who deserved an apology, for taking the high road.”
Hostin added that, considering how public Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have been about other aspects of their lives — including their marriage — and how they’ve handled previous jokes, the Oscars moment was strange.
“When you live publicly, you don’t have the right to all of a sudden decide to execute violence. And I have to say, that was a show of toxic masculinity,” Hostin added. “If he was offended and felt emasculated by Regina Hall’s joke, or by Chris Rock’s joke, you don’t act out in violence. That is not a show of love, that’s a show of violence.”
The latter half of Hostin’s comment referred to Smith’s own justification of his actions. During his acceptance speech for Best Actor, he state that “Love will make you do crazy things.”
Finally, the conversation circled back to Whoopi, who put it simply: “I think he overreacted.” That said, she later elaborate a bit further saying that Smith’s outburst was likely the result of things that had built up, and that she understood it, but still didn’t condone it.
“I get it. Not everybody acts the way we would like them to under pressure,” she said. “Some people just snap. He snapped. What I do wanna say is I think it’s remarkable and wonderful that Chris Rock did not take it to that other place it could have gone.”