With so many people reacting to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, some of the takes in question were bound to be overwrought. The fact that all anyone can talk about is that one moment during the ceremony, rather than celebrating Questlove’s win for Best Documentary for his directorial debut, Summer Of Soul, is pretty much proof that all the backlash is pretty overblown. Fortunately, the agent of good chaos, Lil Nas X, had just the remedy for all the self-serious, tough-guy talk, and faux handwringing on Twitter, checking in to remind everyone just how silly all of this really is.
“y’all sitting here laughing,” he wrote. “but imagine if will smith was an average kid that no one understands mom and dad and vicky always giving him commands (bed, twerp) doom and gloom up in his room.” This is, of course, the opening of the theme song from The Fairly Oddparents, the Nickelodeon animated series in which 10-year-old Timmy Turner gets up to all sorts of magical shenanigans with his fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda. The non sequitur just throws light on how goofy it is for us all to still be talking about this 15 hours later.
y’all sitting here laughing but imagine if will smith was an average kid that no one understands mom and dad and vicky always giving him commands (bed, twerp) doom and gloom up in his room
Is broken instantly by his magic little fish who grant his every wish cause in reality they— MONTERO (@LilNasX) March 28, 2022
Nas also took a swipe at one of the more obnoxious takes, which came from a user who somehow inserted Betty White into a hypothetical situation in which Smith smacked her or Bob Saget instead of Chris Rock. Needless to say, that account is on private now, but screenshots last forever. Lil Nas riffed on the hypothetical turning the late comedic actress into the abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman (since we’re resurrecting dead people to make doofy points now anyway). “Just a reminder that if Will Smith had built a time machine and went back in time and slapped harriet tubman as a baby for a joke she made (however insensitive), she easily could’ve fallen backward, cracked her skull and never freed slaves,” he joked. “Violence is NEVER okay.”
you’re laughing? will smith hypothetically killed betty white and you’re laughing? pic.twitter.com/jXQ5SegSos
— Dr Bitchcraft (@blow__hole) March 28, 2022
Just a reminder that if Will Smith had built a time machine and went back in time and slapped harriet tubman as a baby for a joke she made (however insensitive), she easily could’ve fallen backward, cracked her skull and never freed slaves. Violence is NEVER okay.
— MONTERO (@LilNasX) March 28, 2022
It’s important to remember here that not only is Chris Rock fine, he also declined to press charges and made up with Smith just hours later, according to no less a source than Sean “Diddy” Combs. The moment also may have saved the Oscars, so I’m sure even the Academy isn’t complaining too hard. Also, Harriet Tubman toted a shotgun (this is canon), so we’re sure she didn’t have any problem with violence at all.