There seems to be racial undertones in the reaction to Smith's Slap
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/29/white-outrage-about-will-smiths-slap-is-rooted-in-anti-blackness-its-inequality-in-plain-sight
"Most people agree the slap shouldn’t have happened," says Tayo Bero. "But there’s something that feels precious at best, and downright racist at worst, about white people’s reaction to the now-infamous smack. The Hollywood director Judd Apatow declared in a deleted tweet that Smith 'could have killed' Rock (seriously?), calling it “pure out of control rage and violence”. Apatow later confirmed he wasn’t even watching the show when he made the remarks. The radio host Howard Stern compared Smith to Donald Trump, while white women on Twitter somehow decided that Smith’s actions meant he must be beating his wife. It would seem that there’s a layer of hyper-violence that’s being projected on to Smith simply because he is a Black man who was defending his Black wife. While it’s justifiable – important, even – to interrogate his motives for delivering the slap (was this really all about defending his wife or more about his own ego?), it’s clear that the backlash against Smith is rooted in not just anti-Blackness, but respectability politics as well. It’s also not just about what Smith did; it’s where he did it and who was watching. Anyone who has been following these shows can see that Smith is being held up to much stricter standards than white men who have behaved just as badly or even worse in those settings."