Body Language Analyst REACTS to WILL SMITH/CHRIS ROCK SLAP at 2022 Oscars. WAS IT STAGED?

oh wow that was a greatest night in the history of television what's going on guys welcome to the behavioral Arts my name is Spidey I am a body language and behavior analyst and in this video I'm going to talk about the thing that the entire internet is talking about from a body language and behavior standpoint so last night at the Academy Awards while Chris Rock was on stage doing his thing poking fun at some of the celebrities in the room Will Smith got up walked straight up to him slapped him across the face then turned around and went back to his seat and then yelled twice at him to keep his wife's name out of Chris Rock's mouth later in his acceptance speech we saw a lot of emotion coming out of Will Smith but which of these emotions are real emotions which of them are being played up or down for the camera what is happening here from a body language standpoint I'm gonna answer all these questions and break down what is going on with each of the people involved in this I want to begin by talking about the person that is being talked about the least right now but that think should be talked about the most which is Jada Will Smith's wife and I want you to look at what happens to her the moment that joke is told take a look GI Jane 2 can't wait to see it all right so there is a lot going on right there including the fact that a lot of people notice that Will Smith is laughing at the joke and we're going to circle back to that at the end and I'm going to tell you exactly what I think is happening but let's focus on Jada right now now as soon as the joke hits we see for a moment that she kind of politely smiles and laughs and then everything changes I think even people who don't know anything about body language can spot that there's something emotional happening with her and I'll give you all the details of exactly what's going on but the reason it's a little delayed is because I think it took her a minute to register the joke because when you're there and there's a comedian on stage at the Oscars and you're very aware that you're in the front row and there's cameras on you you're just laughing even if you don't get the jokes to sort of encourage the mood and you know that a camera might catch you so you're just trying to be encouraging and you're laughing which she was just doing but then the joke hits and there's a lot of stuff that happens with her body language first I want you to look at her hands she was sitting there very comfortably her hands were resting on her legs and the moment that happens they come together like this closing in always remember when we see movement in the fingers we look at whether they're going inwards or outwards and she was going inwards this is called digital flexion and this happens when we're stressed or unhappy and not only are her fingers going inwards they're also coming together so this is a massaging gesture that's known as pacifying or adapting there's different words for it but she's adapting to the stress and pacifying as self-soothing so our hands are coming together we're seeing that flexion also we close up right when we're stressed so this is all stress and look at her eyes we see something very telling her eyes go up and then they come back down as her head backs up a little and she just looks at him this is two things the first part is here we go again so this is something like so it's kind of like a slower eye roll and we do this when something that we're used to dealing with comes up again oh here we go again not this again we tend to go like this some people roll and the head goes with it but in this case it was just so I was going oh here we go again like she's dealt with this kind of joke before and then she comes down in the second part of that was disappointment she's looking at him like really Chris Rock like we're you're really gonna go there all this together for me if you look at her we're seeing a very vulnerable moment for her it's honestly heartbreaking it's not something I would ever want to see in my spouse or in a friend or in anyone really where we see this whole collapse of her body language as her eyes go to a place of like just not this again not now and and then that comes back settles on him like come on another really important thing about Jada's body language is her shift in posture At first she was comfortably leaned back and more importantly she had a head tilt her head was tilted to the side which is something we do when we're very comfortable because this is very vulnerable we're exposing our neck but as that joke hit and her body language crumbled you'll notice she sat more straight up and adjusted her head as those eyes went to those daggers that she was throwing at him so this went from comfortable to threatened so on the grand scheme of things you know there's a lot of people talking out there like was this planned is this a scripted thing as far as Jada goes it's pretty much impossible that she knew this was gonna happen there is legitimate shift in her entire emotional sort of character at this moment and it's pretty much impossible for her to have sat there anticipating that this is going to happen and to be able to go from that sort of laughter to oh no that's I get it that's not I can't I can't do this right now so as far as Jada goes as far as I'm concerned there's almost I mean nothing is ever zero percent with behavior and body language but there's a very low chance that Jada had any knowledge that this joke was coming okay now we're gonna move on to Chris Rock and Will Smith's body language which have some really really cool details that I think a lot of people missed but before we do do me a huge favor guys hit that subscribe button turn those notifications on for more amazing body language and behavior analysis also before we go on I will say this I am not going to be commenting at all on the morality of the situation who was in the right who was in the wrong because I am not a ethics analyst I'm a behavior analyst that's my expertise I've spent years studying body language Behavior emotion and that's what I have to offer to this world my opinion on the ethics of this is just one person's opinion and like I said I'm not an expert on that subject so I won't be really talking about that you guys can discuss in the comments I do look forward to hearing what you guys think of you know who was in the right who wasn't the wrong who should have done what but I'm just commenting on the behavior here all right now it's time for Chris Rock and I'm really interested in two parts when it comes to Chris Rock's body language one is the moment he notices that Will Smith is coming towards him and two is immediately after he gets hit what is happening there and I think the context really changes my interpretation of this because we're looking at a very seasoned comedian performer on one of the biggest stages of the year in Hollywood the Academy Awards and I think that plays a lot into this so let's look at the moment Will Smith is walking up to him or more specifically when Chris Rock notices that Will Smith is coming up to him oh oh Richard so he's there he's doing his usual Chris Rock thing making the jokes laughing with the audience then he notices we see him notice that and he says oh Richard he calls him Richard which is the role Will Smith is nominated for this year and he starts chuckling he starts laughing a little but let's look at the body language first of all we see his left foot slam down you could see that moment where his left foot goes right on the floor now there are two ways to interpret this one of them is as a seasoned Comedian Chris Rock often does use a stomp to drive his point home or as he's laughing in fact moments before this as he was talking about Javier Bardem he did it three times in a row as he was making his punch line he is praying that Will Smith wins like please Lord so this is a habit he has where he slams his foot down to drive a point home he does that quite a bit the second way to interpret this is you'll notice it's the left leg slamming forward as the right leg stays back this is something that we do when we're preparing for aggression often when we look at someone who's getting a little worked up if we see that dominant foot move back a little it could be the person getting ready to throw a swing but my issue with that is this the rest of Chris Rock's body language is very inconsistent with aggression let's talk about the hands behind the back this is something that we study a lot in body language there's quite a bit of research on it and there's two really main reasons you would see someone with their hands behind their back the main one and what I think is happening here is referred to as the Regal stance this is what Joe Navarro the author of what everybody is saying calls it one of the biggest experts on body language in the world and the reason it's called this is because a lot of royalty stand this way whether it's in pictures or at public events Prince Charles is very often standing with relaxed shoulders hands behind the back exactly like that and the legs a decent sort of shoulder width apart the reason this is called the Regal stance is because what it denotes is confidence and Status notice how when the hands are behind the back we're exposing our entire front and our entire side this is enormously vulnerable we are one of the only creatures on the planet whose reproductive organs and main organs are exposed which is why when we feel threatened we tend to close up or block these areas things come together as a result this Regal stance is something we see in people of High status once again we might see it in royalty we see it in high-ranking officers in the military like you might see a cap captain or Lieutenant walking around with his hands behind his back like this we see it in a school you might see the principal walking around the halls with his hands behind his back so it denotes comfort and Status it you it doesn't make too much sense for you to feel threatened and have your hands completely out of the way like this the other possibility of hands behind the back is withheld aggression so when you feel aggressive towards someone the hands are gonna be behind the back and there's going to be self-restraint so behind the back one hand is going to be gripping the other hand either at the wrist or if the aggression is a little more elevated over here at the arm we're holding ourselves back from doing something now there isn't really much evidence to show that Chris Rock is self-restraining in that moment we're not seeing tension in the shoulders we're not seeing anger we're not seeing like that sort of glare that you have when you're feeling aggressive he's actually laughing he's chuckling and yes there's a bit of nervousness to that chuckle I think he's not sure what's going on he's not sure what to expect but I don't really see too much aggression enough to believe that the reason his hands are behind him is because of self-restraint especially because he's also leaning forward with his head forward like this a few people online have commented that it seems like Chris Rock is leaning forward expecting to be hit like they had this big plan where Chris Rock agreed to get slapped in front of millions of people for some reason but I'll tell you exactly why I think he's leaning forward do you have any idea how bright that stage is there are dozens of lights shining right in his face and the number one most common thing that we see in performers on stage when they're trying to see someone in the audience or trying to see something in front of them is that they lean forward and put their hand over their eyes like this to block the lights so this is a very common thing we see while performers are looking out into the audience now Chris Rock doesn't do this it's very rare that his hands come up to his face probably because of his experience at high-end events he likes to keep his hands downwards but this despite that he needs to do something about these lights to try to figure out why Will Smith is coming towards him so this is why he stalls he nervously laughs and he's looking at it he honestly does not know why Will Smith is walking towards him he's really trying to figure it out then comes the hit and this is so fascinating to me as soon as he's hit he takes the hit and his reaction is that his left hand comes up to block Will Smith away from him it doesn't come up enough to hurt him comes up enough to like just block him as we see the right hand come out and it's forming into a fist he doesn't make a fist but there's a moment where it's sort of like he's getting into that posture where he's gonna grab on and hit him but way before he even makes it to that point it's kind of like he realizes what's happening and honestly props to him like he's got a quick mind and you know the guy goes on stage and he's quick-witted we know that but that is a really quick mind because he realizes what's happening and immediately the hands go right back behind him so that is a really quick reflex the hands go behind him and I think that this time it is self-restraint because as he's trying to figure out what to do he is extremely aware of the fact that he's at the Academy Awards that this is Will Smith in front of him and he is really quickly in his head trying to figure out what to do the thing that I've spent the most time thinking about since I saw this video is how he was able to bounce back and get his composure that quickly we're not seeing any like looking around for help is someone going to help me we're not seeing any like that face touching we typically get after somebody gets smacked or punched in the face there is a side glance he looks to the side as he's trying to figure out what to do but it's amazing how quickly he bounces right back and this I believe is the result of years decades of experience as a stand-up comedian on stage because he probably has never been physically assaulted like this on such a big scale I don't know if he's ever been physically attacked by an audience member but definitely not on this scale but I can promise you the guy has Decades of experience of heckler's sort of verbally attacking him and he's trained himself to be able to take that immediately bring the confidence up because this is something that performers really work on to not let those affect your body language so bring that confidence up and just throw some humor at it deal with it be a pro and that is the reflex of a seasoned professional comedian kicking right in now the reason that I do believe that there's a bit of self-restraint to this is not just because of his body language but also because of his words listen to what he says okay he goes I could uh okay like the comedian in him is filtering through his head to find the comeback here and there's a few in there that are nasty I think because this is Chris Rock again he probably has a thousand comebacks that he could say right in that moment ranging from really funny to nasty and he's going I could oh and he stops himself like I I could I can ruin you with my words right now and then he just goes okay and he tells himself don't do that it's self-restraint vocally non-verbally he's just holding himself back and saying keep going we even see an eye flutter and I've said this on the channel before I flutters and we're having a hard time processing information and this is a great example of that he looks to the side we have that eye flutter as he's trying to figure out what on Earth is happening here and the biggest clue to this is what he says next that was a greatest night in the history of Television okay that was the greatest night in the history of Television think about that he's talking about what's happening now in the past that's because in his head he's not thinking of now he's thinking of the consequences what's going to happen later what are people going to say about this his mind is so quick that it's skipped forward and it's filtering and processing what the scoop is going to be the next day that's why he's saying that was the greatest night he's thinking what are the headlines going to say tomorrow and what do I need to do to come off as classy so to sum up with Chris Rock we are seeing a confident comfortable High status posture uh trying to lean forward to figure out what's going on trying to size up the situation we're seeing after the hit confusion trying to collect his thoughts an eye flutter which denotes trying to get his thoughts together we are seeing uh him holding back whether it's physically or verbally and we are seeing him reflecting on the consequences okay now we're going to talk about the man of the hour Will Smith and what is going on with him and we're going to look at two moments the slap and then his acceptance speech for his Oscar which actually ties in a lot to the slap so he's sitting there uh Chris Rock is telling jokes and and I want to start by addressing people anyone who thinks that this was staged that Will Smith knew this was coming I am pretty certain that he didn't know that this joke was coming and the reason I'm certain of that is that look at the position in which he's sitting he's got he's sitting back pretty relaxed his legs are crossed one leg over the other and he's got his hands between the legs like this that is pretty much the emblem of the way people sit when they're not expecting to go anywhere legs crossed is like I'm locked in uncomfortable and he looks like he's just sitting there enjoying the show no part of his demeanor suggests that he's expecting something or that he's getting ready for something now he is as of yesterday an oscar-winning actor so can he fake that Comfort yes he can he knows how to but I don't see a reason that he would it's not like he was trying to fool body language experts he's just sitting there comfortably laughing along now the next thing a lot of people noticed is that he laughed at the joke and he did it's undeniable when the joke hits he's laughing but again this goes back to what I was saying about Jada Will Smith is one of the most famous people on this planet he knows that he's sitting in the front or at the Academy Awards that all these cameras are pointing directly at him and he's being talked about his wife is being talked about so he's just sitting there politely nodding along I bet that these guys have a lot of stuff going on in their heads and a lot of the time they're just sort of in autopilot just laughing at the jokes it's Chris Rock up there he's cracking jokes so just to look like he's having a good time you know it's a pleasant evening we're all having some laughs he's just laughing that's the default go-to response at an event like this with a comedian so he's laughing and I kind of wish that the camera stayed on him because I would have wanted to see what happens to his body language the moment that laughter goes away because one of two things caused it one is either you know as a reflex he's laughing then the joke registers and he goes oh I don't like that or it could be a combination of these two things but the second thing is he looks at his wife who he loves and he sees that collapse that we saw and this is a woman he knows well this is a woman that he knows the things she's dealt with especially when it comes to this particular topic her hair and he sees her crumble and this is not something anybody wants to see with someone they love so it could be that it could be his own realization or most likely a combination of both but regardless of what it is he gets up and starts walking towards Chris Rock now this is an entirely emotional response it has to be because he's a rational person and any rational person goes to words first or gestures first he might stiffen up he might look at him with anger he might yell something say something that's not what he did he got up and headed straight for him I think there's a deeply deeply rooted emotional thing here maybe he's talked to Jada about this before maybe she has some really deep insecurities about this maybe there was something in the past that happened about this and he didn't like the way he reacted or she didn't like the way that will himself reacted because he didn't jump up to protector so this is him either correcting something or really understanding the pain that she's going through so he gets up he walks towards Chris Rock and again notice how in that entire walk he had multiple occasions to just stop and do something else walk back go up to Chris Rock whisper in his ear like dude that really wasn't cool grab the mic say hey guys that's not funny but that that's not what he does he slaps him across the face that is pure emotion there's no rationale to that I don't think even Will Smith today thinks back and says yeah that was the right move as much as he disagrees with what was said I don't think he thinks violence would have been the right answer and then we have the walk-off back into the audience and this is I think the main reason so many people were like oh well obviously this is fake look at his smirk he's smiling really think about that statement really think about it if the guy who won an Oscar award yesterday for acting in a lead role wanted to convince you that he's actually pissed or angry or he was scripting this whole thing with the intention to sell it to you you would not be able to spot it he would be able to do the tears and the anger he would know exactly how to play to the camera that he's actually pissed in that moment so it is mind-boggling to me that people think that that little inconsistent smirk is a plus one on the side of this being staged whereas to me it's a giant plus one on the side of things that make this very real because he is not acting or playing the way a grumpy or upset or sad person would be for the cameras or for the audience or for you sitting at home trying to figure out if this is staged he is having an emotional experience and that smile that smugness that he has is him turning around walking away for from this thinking to himself he did his duty as a man and he protected his family he protected his wife that's the emotion he's actually I think in that moment proud of what he just did as a protector and then he sits down and twice he yells at Chris Rock uh about not using his wife's name to not say his wife's name I'm going to and what we're seeing is pure anger once again if you think this is acted or if you think that this is something that he's doing as a display to put on his show he is not looking around for support he's not playing to the cameras he's got his eyes dead focused on Chris Rock they're glossing over a little out of pure emotion when we get angry when we get sad with anger we have that focus with sadness not so much but that glossiness in the eyes that's pure emotion and his nostrils are flaring this is one of the biggest signs of anger because when we're angry when we're stressed the body needs more oxygen when we're in fight or flight response so and this is fight response so his monsters are flaring to get more oxygen we see he's sweating and we see tension in the jaw this is classic and there's tension all around the jaw all around the face over here and this is classic anger and look look at the Cadence at which he's pronouncing his words there's a breath between each word like that and every word is important making sure to get this message across he is spitting those words he this is anger and again can an actor of his caliber fake that absolutely do I think it's fake absolutely not so now Will Smith is back in his seat uh there's a commercial break so he has a chance to talk to Denzel Washington we could see him during the commercial break talking to Denzel Washington uh he talks to Bradley Cooper he probably talks to his wife he has time to rationalize this think about his actions and then with what I can only describe as the biggest Twist of irony in Oscar history he wins lead actor of the year and he comes up to give a speech and I think this speech has two themes the First theme is justification and the second theme and this is perfect is acceptance It's called an acceptance speech and I think it's social acceptance a lot of what we're seeing in this speech and let's look at it right from the top body language choice of words there's a lot going on Richard Williams um was a fierce defender of his family I'm being called on in my life to love people and to protect people I got to protect Andrew new Ellis I got to protect Sanaya and Demi so first of all right in the beginning when he starts talking look at his lips and listen to what you're hearing we see one of these and this is so we talk a lot on the channel about lip licking so people do this as a grooming gesture because it brings more moisture to the lips and make us seem more appealing it corrects stress but some people who are very used to being on stage tend to not do that because they know it looks bad and get used to doing it a little more like this so it's a more inwards lip licking so not only do we see that quick gesture which I wouldn't classify as lip compression I know a lot of body language guys are going to say it's lip compression lip compression is held a little bit longer like this and wouldn't be done right in the middle of that speech so he does it he starts talking and then we get that quick like this at the same time listen we're hearing these little clicks clicks was a fierce this is dry mouth and it happens when we're very stressed and he's sweating which happens when we're stressed so obviously this is a man who's accepted a lot of the words a great public speaker one of the best actors most accomplished people in the world he doesn't have stage fright this stress isn't coming from him being on stage at the Oscars he was there moment ago slapping someone he was fine it's coming from this whole scenario this whole situation he knows the world is listening and he's stressed about it and we're hearing these clicks throughout the speech and we see more than once that's sort of bringing moisture to the lips so let's look at the words of his speech the first few sentences and what the message is so he starts by saying that Richard Williams which is the role that he's receiving is the word for was a fierce protector of his family so we have protector then he talks about the the intention that God has for him and he goes on to say that he got to protect the actresses in this movie he got to protect the two young actresses he got to protect Angel Ellis so again protector of family protector of three actresses so God needs me to protect them that's my purpose then he goes back to saying how it is his per god-given purpose to love and defend people to again protect his people so the entire beginning of his speech is about protection that's what I do and the message that this is sending whether he's written this down and thought about it or it's subconsciously expressing himself is what I did there was to protect my family this is my god-given mission to protect the one I love then as he keeps talking and I'll come back to the non-verbal stuff in a second but he keeps talking about protecting and defending and loving and we hear an off voice and I can only assume it's Denzel Washington saying some words of encouragement because Will Smith stops and says thank you D and then he says you know Denzel Washington during the break told me such and such and what I loved thank you Dee Denzel said to me a few minutes ago he said at your highest moment be careful that's when the Devil comes for you so there's a lot going on in that moment even just that acknowledgment so the fact that he stops to address that you know thank you D like you know thank you for those words of encouragement is basically a signal that says hey everyone listen Denzel Washington just gave me words of encouragement he's on my side on this it's almost like he's recruiting a little he's recruiting the actresses that he defended now he's recruiting Denzel Washington and it's not Denzel Washington by the way it's D like we're so close that we call each other that so he's creating this Bond there and he's saying I don't think there's anything wrong with that a lot of the time when we know that something's going to polarize people we try to recruit people on our side and that's what we're seeing here these on my side I believe it's a genuine message I believe he is genuinely emotional in this moment um there's a bit of eye blocking at certain moments but this also happens with sadness especially because he's on stage he doesn't want to show that he's sad so this could be a lot of you know if I saw this without that emotion I'd be like there's a bit too much eye blocking for me but here it's consistent with that emotion so I think we are seeing a lot of genuine sadness this year with a bit of a message of trying to justify through acceptance his actions there's another really significant moment in the speech and it's when he says now no to do what we do you got to be able to take abuse to do what we do you have to be able to take abuse first of all there's a really interesting pronoun shift he goes from we to you so to do what we do you have to be able to take abuse and pronoun shifts are always significant for me so it's not to do what we do we have to take abuse it's not to do what I do I have to take or you have to take abuse he's not staying in that singular pronoun he's going from group to singular so basically the message is for everyone but it's about one specific person and I think that one specific person is Jada because the moment he says abuse we see a couple of really interesting things we see the nose crinkle like this as the jaw comes out and he spits that word abuse and this is classic disgust he is disgusted by this notion of abuse and I think the abuse he's talking about is the joke that Chris Rock made I think to him that was an abusive joke and he's directly referencing that because he's saying with what we do you have to be able to take abuse and to me it's pretty clear that that's a very specific scenario that's being sent as a message to a broader demographic so at the end of the day what is my personal opinion let's make a quick pros and cons list for like this being real versus this being staged so when it comes to being real Jada didn't know the joke was coming it completely got her by surprise um Will Smith did not know the joke was coming according to me he was comfortable he was enjoying his evening there was obviously a shift there Chris Rock's genuine confusion while Will Smith is walking up to him uh trying to figure out what's going on leaning forward trying to see what's going on here that nervous kind of chuckle oh like what what what's happening uh that's on the side of things Will Smith's very improvised acceptance speech that kind of seems like he's trying to tie in things that happened with that slap and he's trying to connect the two so and kind of like a lot of hesitation a lot of emotion so yeah that really doesn't feel planned to me so there's a lot going on for me on the side of this was not staged but to play Devil's Advocate let's look at what would be on the other side of like okay if this was staged what evidence would we have well Chris Rock's initial body language can be interpreted as self-restraint like he's he's holding back because he knows this thing is coming as Will Smith is coming up to him could be interpreted that way um the speed at which Chris Rock recovered from the slap and went right back into that confidence yes there's self-restraint but it's also very exposed posture so what's happening there and also the fact that there's no like oh what you know like sort of that real moment of what we do after we get hit but again as much as it can be seen as a he knew this was coming I still am going to stick to my guns and say this is a seasoned Pro who immediately knew how to bring that confidence up and was very aware of the repercussions of everything that's about to happen so there was guys that was my breakdown I hope you guys learned a couple of cool things here about genuine emotion and Body Language let me know in the comments what your takeaway was from this and what your opinion is on this whole situation I'd love to hear from you guys I know a lot of you guys that follow the channel are really really good at spotting the body language tells so I'd love to hear from you guys let me know in the comments and I will see you on the next one

Channel: The Behavioral Arts

Views: 13,647,810

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Id: _Qo0SkwMPlY

Length: 33min 40sec (2020 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 29 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/morphotomy]

Unless Smith and Rock have humiliation fetishes I see no reason for anyone to have faked this.