Oh brother, the Academy president is still hung up on last year

Perhaps Adele Dazeem put it best at the 2014 Oscars when she sang: “Let it go!” Unfortunately, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did not take that message to heart, and instead are still hung up on an entirely different Oscars performance. Yeah, you know the one. We’re speaking again of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock during the 2022 ceremony. Brace yourselves.

This thoroughly dead horse is being beaten once again by Academy president Janet Yang, who brought it up once again at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon, to a crowd that included the likes of Tom Cruise, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, and more (per Deadline). “I’m sure you all remember we experienced an unprecedented event at the Oscars,” Yang said, as if it was possible for anyone in the entertainment industry to forget. “What happened onstage was fully unacceptable, and the response from our organization was inadequate.”

Truthfully, anything more than the ten-year ban Smith received from the event would have seemed excessive. (Smith himself resigned from the Academy before the institution made its ruling, thus forestalling one avenue of punishment.) Yang perhaps refers to the response of the Academy in the moment, which was to allow Smith to remain at the ceremony and eventually accept the award for Best Actor.

Whether or not you think the punishment fit the crime, the Academy is now totally prepared if and when some other Oscar nominee should slap a presenter in the middle of the proceedings. “We learned from this that the Academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis you must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively for ourselves and for our industry,” Yang assured the industry’s best and brightest. “You should and can expect no less from us going forward.”