Barbara Stowe is a writer with a background in dance and theatre.
In the matter of the slap heard around the world, the names of two men have dominated the conversation all week. One, Will Smith, gave the slap; the other, Chris Rock, received it. That action and reaction have become the focal point of this controversy, while Jada Pinkett Smith – the woman at the core of this controversial incident at the Academy Awards – has been rendered a background figure. And yet all this is about her – specifically, her looks.
Ms. Pinkett Smith made a brave decision to speak openly about her alopecia, the autoimmune disorder that was making her hair fall out and led to her shaving her head. Her hair loss is not a choice, and for a comedian to use a vulnerability caused by a medical condition to get a laugh is wrong. As a former cancer patient who lost my hair during chemotherapy, I can vouch for the fact that hair loss can be a chastening experience that changes everyone’s perception of you, as well as how you see yourself.
In Ms. Pinkett Smith’s case, she chose to show the world a beautiful scalp instead of the alternative: a wig, scarf or other head covering. Those were the choices she had. The choice she didn’t have is something most women take for granted: how to style her own hair – traditionally, “a woman’s crowning glory.” And on the one night of the year when beauty (especially female beauty) is publicly scrutinized to the nth degree, at a star-studded extravaganza televised worldwide, a woman who is hairless – not by choice – is vulnerable.
Patter at the Oscars is not stand-up at a bar in the boonies and should be held to a higher standard. It should take down the powerful, not the vulnerable. When Mr. Rock ad-libbed his joke about Ms. Pinkett Smith starring in GI Jane 2 (prefaced by an “I love you” – how could she object?), he broke that rule of classy comedic fair play. His careless remark turned him into a court jester gone wrong. And just to be clear, Mr. Smith’s violent response was also wrong.
Did Mr. Rock understand what he was doing when he delivered the line? He claimed not to know that Ms. Pinkett Smith has alopecia, though she’d revealed the condition publicly. And given Mr. Rock’s 2009 documentary Good Hair, in which he interviewed a Black woman with alopecia, he must have had a massive blind spot to not know that a woman’s shaved head might be due to involuntary hair loss. But I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because until I went through chemotherapy at age 28, I myself had a massive blind spot when it came to the power hair can have in affecting people’s perceptions of women.
Like Ms. Pinkett Smith, I know what it’s like to shave your head because you can’t stand feeling clumps of hair sliding down your back in the shower. I know what it’s like seeing strands of hair all over your pillow when you get out of bed or bald patches on your scalp. And when people say you have a nicely shaped head, I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and think: Who is that stranger?
I know what it’s like to get up to pee at night and avoid mirrors because that alien-looking being with her pale head scares you. To have friends beg you to keep your hat on because they can’t stand to see you like that, either. It was rare in 1984, when I had cancer, to see a woman with a shaved head. It still is. We all know why. And I have sympathy for men who go bald, even though they may look handsome. It’s hair loss, not a choice.
Before I shaved my head, a man on the other side of a glass door would open it if he saw me coming. After I shaved my head, I saw a man literally back away in shock. Then I got it on a deeper level – the privilege Nancy Huston nailed in her famous 1996 essay On Being Beautiful. Nancy and I won a genetic jackpot with our thick, wavy hair – in a culture that deems that beauty, it gave us power.
Ms. Pinkett Smith’s hair gave her power, too – a power she can no longer access. That doesn’t mean she’s not a powerful, beautiful woman, but it means she’s had to reinvent herself because of a disease that has taken something from her. Mr. Rock was standing in his power when he used her loss to get a laugh. That’s wrong. He should apologize to her.
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