OPINION: Will and Jada shouldn’t shut up just yet

I can already see the facial reactions from people seeing another Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith headline. The reaction is usually, “oh can these two shut up already”.

Will and Jada were once dubbed “couple goals” in Hollywood, an industry where long-term and successful celeb relationships are rare.

Jada’s Red Table Talk on Facebook has opened a can of worms for the family in the last two years. The illusion of what “a great marriage” should be fell apart when Jada detailed her “entanglement” with R&B singer August Alsina. 

Since then, Jada has become a villain among their many followers, especially black men who finally want to prove that women cheat and that they are worse than men when it comes to successful monogamy.

Despite Will speaking on his flaws and transgressions in his book, there’s an air that he can do no wrong and is still “Mr Hollywood”.

ALSO READ: ‘Psychosomatic reaction’ to an orgasm? We learn more about Will and Jada’s sex life

Did I need to know, in detail, Will’s plans in his head to kill his father because he hated him that much?

But that’s his story.

What has become more frustrating about the Will and Jada topic are the judgments and opinions based on small clips from Red Table Talk.

When Jada said Will had to “read her mind” when it came to sex in the earlier stages of their relationship, people quickly slammed the actress, and before you know it, there was a “Jada hates Will” tirade.

Critics said Jada was doing everything possible to make her husband look awful.

That he is bad in bed, he could never live up to Tupac – the legendary rapper was a close friend to Jada and her admiration for the man lives on even after his death.

If people bothered to watch the whole clip on sexual pleasure, they would have known that Jada said she had a perception that when you are in love, your partner should know how to please you in bed. It is an argument that is nonsensical but she admits she had grown out of this as she had communicated her needs and wants to Will. 

Both starred in a string of classic movies but Will has been made out to be a man who needs to be saved, and that he has to get out by any means necessary from this union.

Caring about context, something that is rarely important on social media, people conveniently forgot about Jada’s entanglement when she was separated from Will. There is no excusing the fact that she took advantage of a man’s cry for help during his mental health decline.  

That aside, Will has made it seem that pleasing Jada in their 25-year marriage was a mammoth task, and that he felt like he would never be good enough.

With all of this, the couple does see themselves as life partners and are making it work on their own terms. I genuinely feel a couple that is this honest and work through their issues should be applauded because they aren’t hiding the truth anymore. 

However, do we need this much information? If you think about it, the publicity works for Red Table Talk because numbers don’t lie and Will‘s autobiography is easily selling thousands of copies because of its raw honesty.

But in a broader context, we do need subjects that make people uncomfortable. Will and Jada have opened the conversation on marriages of today, open relationships, breaking family cycles, sexual consent, women and men’s health, and much more. 

So if you don’t like it, click on something else and let’s try by all means to refrain from making comments from 15-second clips! 

#ContextStillMatters