It’s been a year, but the power of “The Slap” lives on.
At last year’s Oscars, Will Smith suddenly stormed the stage and smacked comedian Chris Rock, who had made an off-color joke about Smith’s wife, the actor Jada Pinkett Smith.
It was, of course, the talk of the town — and the world — in the days following that ceremony, and it returned to dominate the one-liners on Sunday at this year’s Academy Awards.
Photo: AFP
“If any of you get mad at a joke and decide you want to get jiggy with it -- it’s not going to be easy,” vowed host Jimmy Kimmel, referring to a classic line from one of Smith’s hit songs. The hypothetical perpetrator would have to get past a bevy of superheroes, Kimmel joked, including the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) and “the Fabel...man” (Steven Spielberg).
“There will be no nonsense tonight. We have no time for shenanigans.”
Smith still took home the award for best actor that night, for his starring role in King Richard, but has been banned from attending the Oscars for a decade as the result of his actions.
“If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech,” Kimmel quipped.
“Five Irish actors are nominated tonight -- which means the odds of another fight on stage just went way up,” the late-night funnyman said.
But a few minutes later, he got serious: “We want you to have fun, we want you to feel safe and most important, we want me to feel safe.”
Later on, he unleashed another zinger.
“The next movie is documentary feature, which is where we had that little skirmish last year,” Kimmel said.
“Hopefully this time, it goes off without a hitch. Or at least without Hitch,” he said, referring to a Smith film.
And then midway through the event, he launched: “This point in the show kind of makes you miss the slapping a little, right?”
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by