Last night’s drama at the Academy Awards was supposed to be about the potential for a largely deaf cast winning the first Oscar for a production from a streaming service.  Instead, it’s about The Slap Seen ‘Round the World.

First things first:  both Chris Rock and Will Smith were wrong.  There’s enough blame to go around for that debacle.  Rock should not have made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s medical condition (without clearing it with her first).  Was it distasteful?  Yeah.  Was it insulting?  In context, no, and no reasonable person can believe Rock intended to insult JPS.

But Smith’s actions were far more egregious.  He knew exactly what he was doing.  Video shows him laughing at the joke prior as Jada rolls her eyes before he got indignant and marched onto the stage.

What happens next was simply unnecessary escalation.  Had Smith approached Rock and put his finger in his face or even poke him in the chest while issuing the verbal warning to leave his wife alone, Smith today would be hailed a hero and a family man.  His point would’ve been made, and the world would not have seen him as an unhinged violent man.

Smith’s actions will have a ripple effect:  now, men who question their own “manliness” at comedy clubs has an excuse–albeit a poor one–to attack comics who make a comment about them or their dates, because they feel they must be “manly” and defend their woman.  How long before something like this escalates to someone pulling a gun?

Perhaps unintentionally, Smith also justified everything Donald Trump has promoted over the past six years:  when someone insults you, hit them.  Smith made violence the acceptable answer to his fans, just like Trump has encouraged in his crowds.