Source: Myung Chun / Getty
Will Smith was recently spotted in India, apparently letting some of the drama over his Oscars slap die down. Meanwhile, Rosalie Rock, Chris Rock’s mother, had some stern words of disappointment for the Fresh Prince. “When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us,” she told South Carolina’s Live 5 News.
But now, one more unusual name can be added to the list of people slapped by Smith: Russian president Vladimir Putin. Thanks to Los Angeles street artist 1GoodHombre, whose real name is Todd Goodman, pedestrians strolling by Melrose Avenue’s Fame Yard can see his mural wherein Smith cracks Putin across the face while telling him to keep Ukraine out of his bleeping mouth, too.
Goodman wanted to lampoon the Smith-Rock incident but also take it as an opportunity to get more people talking about the conflict in Ukraine. There’s even a QR code next to the mural that takes people to the website for GlobalGiving’s Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund.
“Given the proximity to Hollywood, I wanted to use this moment, this town, this ridiculous situation, to draw attention to the war, with the hopes of not only raising awareness but also to raise money for humanitarian aid,” he told Huffington Post. “Make art, not war,” he added. “My paintings, like a comedian’s words are not violence, they could never hurt another person, only maybe a person’s feelings, and we have ways of dealing with hurt feelings that do not require violence.”
Goodman is actually an ESL teacher during the day. He says he first became more proactive with his street art two years ago, in response to the killing of George Floyd and the restlessness of the 2016 presidential elections. In fact, his handle is a play on words that was inspired by Donald Trump’s “bad hombres” remark about Mexican immigrants in the final 2016 presidential debate.
“I was thoroughly insulted by that, as a human being, but also as the husband of a Spanish-speaking immigrant,” 1GoodHombre said. “To counter that kind of hate or evil in the world, I hope that this moniker inspires people to understand that all it takes is one good hombre, one good person to stand up against evil, against hate, to create a better world, and any one of us can choose to be that person every single day.”
