Even days after the 94th Oscars, Will Smith’s onstage physical assault on Chris Rock over a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head remains to many surreal — but the headache it poses for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is very real.

With the general public and Academy members alike clamoring for the Academy to take action beyond saying that it does not “condone violence,” as it did in an initial statement March 28, the officers of the organization’s board of governors had an emergency meeting a day later, after which they released a statement saying: “The Academy condemns the actions of Mr. Smith” and has “started a formal review around the incident.” Shortly thereafter, the full board was asked to convene March 30.

The Hollywood Reporter began seeking the views of governors immediately after the Oscars ceremony ended, when the Governors Ball began. Documentary branch governor Roger Ross Williams — who is Black and who infamously experienced someone, an estranged producer, aggressively entering his personal space on the Oscars stage in 2010 as he accepted the best documentary short prize — said: “I’m really upset. I was in tears after what happened. It reinforces stereotypes about Black people, and it just hurts me because this is what some people want to see. Work it out someplace else, not on the stage.”

The day after the Oscars, producers branch governor Lynette Howell Taylor, who co-produced the ceremony in 2020, said, “I woke up so bummed this morning. I was like, ‘Oh, God, did that all really happen?’ ” She continued, “Everyone’s going to have to assess the situation. You know, it’s not going to end today. Everyone’s going to collect themselves, and it’s going to go through an official process.”

Rank-and-file members have their own views about what should have happened that night and what should happen moving forward.

Sid Ganis, a former Academy president, said he feels it is not the board’s place to sanction Smith. “I think those are two men who had a real disagreement and it’s up to them, not to the Academy, not to any of us,” he argued.

But actors branch member Rutanya Alda disagreed. “I think security should have escorted him out immediately instead of letting him sit there spewing unacceptable language at Chris Rock,” she asserted. “Someone else should have accepted his award. Why did he get a pass? Is the Academy frightened of celebrities? He came off as a guy with no class and made me wish I hadn’t voted for him. It changed the whole tone of the evening. I will never, ever vote for anything Will Smith is in again. He set such an awful example for people watching, and he degraded the Academy.”

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