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“Love will make you do crazy things.” That’s what actor Will Smith said during his Oscars acceptance speech at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony.

That shouldn’t include resorting to violence, said Joel Wong, professor and chair of the counselling and educational psychology department at Indiana University Bloomington.

Smith rushed the stage and slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars for making a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and she closely shaved her head. Not long after the incident happened, Smith was back on stage accepting the best actor award and attempted to justify his actions by saying love made him do it and that he was protecting his family. Pinkett Smith suffers from hair loss due to alopecia.

When a man who embodies unhealthy masculine behaviours like violence sees a family member being attacked, he often takes it as a personal affront to his honour, Wong said.

“Family, especially your spouse, is seen as an extension of yourself, so therefore insulting your wife or insulting your children would be viewed equally as threatening as insulting yourself,” Wong said.

For someone with this mindset, the only way to preserve your honour is to react in a way that is public and social, he added. The event needs to be available for viewing so people know his honour was restored.

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In Smith’s case, 15.3 million Oscar viewers, along with millions more on the internet saw his response.

Shame may have also played a role, said Wizdom Powell, director of the Health Disparities Institute and associate professor of psychiatry at UConn Health in Farmington, Connecticut.

Smith may have felt shame at originally laughing at the joke before seeing his wife’s displeasure, or vicariously felt her shame, she said.

It’s less socially acceptable for men to be vulnerable, so they may try and regain control in a violent way, Powell explained.

Love as a scapegoat for violence

For domestic abuse survivors, Smith’s rhetoric was all too familiar. When some men act out violently, they claim it’s in the name of true love, according to a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

People who engage in bad behaviour often have a vague sense that they are conducting themselves in a way that may not be consistent with who they are, Wong said.

They have to find a way to justify what they’ve done and make the decision look righteous, he explained.

“I think it’s important for people to call it what it is and not let Will Smith sort of get away with saying it’s all about love,” Wong said.

Throughout our children’s lives, we teach them that love shouldn’t hurt, Powell said.

“Anytime we equate love with physical violence or aggression, there is a danger that those lines can be blurred,” she said.

Those facing domestic violence have resources available for support from organizations like the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

“Violence is never okay. If anyone impacted by domestic violence was triggered by (Sunday) night’s events at the 94th Academy Awards.

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