Don’t make promises you shouldn’t keep

Initially Will laughed, he was still smiling even in the second or two after Jada rolled her eyes. It could have been one of those I'm going kick your ass smiles when I see you. The camera then cuts away from them. I suspect in that moment he then looked at Jada saw her face, realised he had been smiling, saw she wasn't, and all the promises he made to himself, to her, to his kids about love and protection suddenly came back to haunt him.

He had a decision to make - humiliation at home if he doesn't do anything, or humiliation in public if he does. He had brought himself to this point where you must prove that your words mean something or forever be looked at differently by those you have made those promises to or in front of.

His son tweeted later something like 'that's how we do it' which could be an initial defence for the flack his father would receive but I suspect he has been an oft-recipient of the message of love and protect which means stand up and defend which is use violence if you have too.

Much has been written about Smith's childhood and his mother being on the end of his father's violence so you can understand if that is the message he has nurtured; it doesn't make it right, or wrong, it just makes it what it is.

Had Smith been smart he would have used his platform of winning his oscar to bring Rock down a peg or two but of course he didn't know he was going to win and therefore the opportunity to bring him down is gone, so in a millisecond he had to make a decision, based on all that he had led his family to believe in and then acted upon it.

I think he realised what he had done on the way back, but it was too late, cue the clear but not so logical musings - why not just say, 'don't insult my wife in that way, don't make fun of someone who is struggling' or something similar, but pointing out, ‘don’t you know what she’s been through?’ What he said didn't make so much sense even if we got the point, but he knew he had to let everyone else know why he did what he did, a bit like a kid who says 'you made me do it' after a school yard fight.

We all make promises to ourselves, sell our identity based on them, and when the moment comes to 'stand up' we are faced by a 'live or die by the sword' moment.

A lesson here is don't make promises you might be forced to keep......especially to yourself.

Alternatively, Smith could have pretended to hit Rock, put his arm around his shoulder and used the very thing both he and Rock are famous for, humour, to bring Rock down, highlight the joke was insensitive, if indeed Rock knew about Pinkett-Smith's condition, and that would have brought more learning to all about what is acceptable and what is not.

What has emerged from this is two camps, the right and the wrong, without a real examination of why.

Unfortunately, Smith made promises to himself, and he has passed that on, evidently to his son at least, and he has not reconciled himself with his past, knowing there is another way (other than violence) if you choose to accept it.

Of course, it's easy in hindsight to say this, but it's easier if you have not made those promises to yourself, and that you have discovered there is another way, and practiced it over time, which means he might have been better equipped to deal with. He could even lent over to Jada and said to her quietly, ‘don’t worry darling, he ain’t gonna get away with that.’

Smith might now have a lot of time on his hands to work out how in the future he deals with such provocations.