Is Will Smith too toxic to be taken seriously?

After 9/11, comedians found themselves in a tricky situation. Make fun of any of the usual standbys of their trade — politicians, authority figures, Rudy Giuliani, anyone who wore a badge for a living — and they were liable to be shouted down in an angry chorus of “Too soon!” Yet if all the jokes they could tell were sanitized and tame, their reputations would decline in an instant. It was a bold comic who tried to argue that telling jokes was a natural human response to disaster; many audiences simply refused to find things funny.

Will Smith now finds himself in a similar position. The one-time Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has been a Hollywood pariah since he assaulted Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars earlier this year. His expulsion from the Academy for the next decade has meant he will not be allowed to attend the Oscars next year, or for many more years to come. Which is why his presence in Apple’s big Oscar-bait drama Emancipation, due to be released theatrically in December and then on the streaming service shortly afterwards, can only be described as problematic.

Under normal circumstances, Smith’s performance as a 19th-century slave who escapes from a Louisiana plantation and heads north to join the Union army, evading his captors and bounty hunters, would be a frontrunner for Best Actor. It ticks off most of the categories that Academy voters like: real-life character (just as his Oscar-winning performance as Richard Williams in King Richard was), period setting, lots of suffering, and (presumably) a redemptive ending. Smith has always done well playing real-life characters and is seemingly drawn to a masochistic side in them. So this seems tailor-made to draw awards attention. Yet its release also raises a simple question: is Will Smith, once the biggest star in Hollywood, now too toxic to be taken seriously?

Smith’s assault on Chris Rock is certainly not something that Rock has forgiven or forgotten. In a recent stand-up show, Rock derided a cringeworthy public apology that Smith made by saying, “Fuck your hostage video.” After comparing the actor to the imprisoned record mogul Suge Knight — “Suge Smith” — Rock suggested that, after pretending to be the model husband and citizen for 30 years, Smith had revealed that he is “just as ugly as the rest of us.”

Few have been clamoring for Smith’s unhinged public outburst to be excused away, which means that Antoine Fuqua, director of Emancipation, has a public relations nightmare on his hands (assuming Smith is kept well away from the publicity campaign). In a new interview with Deadline, Fuqua was reduced to saying, “Will Smith is a great guy. I was with him for a couple of years, making this movie. He is a wonderful person, an amazing partner and he did an amazing job on this movie. Chris Rock’s a good guy, I know Chris as well…and I just pray it works out for them as friends, and we can move forward.” Few would share his optimism.

Perhaps there is another, more high-risk strategy. The existing trailer for Emancipation shows Smith’s character being pursued and harried, but it is very low on the scenes of whipping and torture that audiences might expect from this kind of picture. Perhaps the marketing department has missed a trick. The preview could begin with the footage of Smith hitting Rock at the Oscars, and then Trailer Voiceover Man could say, “This year, the actor Will Smith made a terrible mistake. Now, he is paying the price.”

There could then follow quick-cut footage of all the indignities and horrors visited upon Smith, followed by the final question to the audience: has this redeemed him? If so, then perhaps Emancipation will release this talented, if clearly troubled, actor from Hollywood jail in double-quick time. But if not, this well-intentioned film seems fated to become a bizarre postscript to a once-glittering career brought down by an uncontrolled outburst of rage. Too soon, perhaps, but arguably not soon enough.