I was surprised, and I will admit I was relieved, to read about Will Smith’s resignation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. I had been sure that Smith would follow in the footsteps of Jussie Smollett and Alec Baldwin, two criminals who cried large crocodile tears and blamed everybody else for their wrongdoings. True, Smith did start out with exercising his tear ducts and he did apologize to everyone but his victim, Chris Rock, until public outrage forced an empty apology to Rock, but with his Academy resignation, I believed he had finally come to his senses. That’s because I assumed that, by resigning from the Academy, Smith was making a genuine gesture of contrition.
