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Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/March 27 to April 2, 2022

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The Top 25 Report


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Prepared with commentary by TheJoebro64, Igordebraga, Benmite, YttriumShrew.

⭠ Last week's report Next week's report →

The smack heard around the world not only reverberated through Chris Rock's chompers during Oscars night, but it continues to shake the very foundations of society – AKA this list. The hand that rocks Willow (#31) and Jaden (#27)'s cradle (#1) exploded in popularity due to a hair-brained joke at her expense about a military movie no one has thought of since it first dropped (#23), thanks to her right-hand man (#2) swinging his right hand across the face of a beloved comedian (#4) and essentially slapping down any other coverage of this year's Academy Awards (#5). Meanwhile, Jada's former left-hand man (or "entanglement", as Pinkett-Smith tells it) also makes an appearance on the list (#21), as jokes about her own infidelity were abound in the wake of Will Smith's own showing of his extreme fidelity.

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 Jada Pinkett Smith 3,341,264 Oh, goodness. Where to start.

The 94th Academy Awards ceremony was looking to be just another year of the Oscars, for better or for worse. Unfunny comedians making "jokes" that denigrate the medium they're supposed to be celebrating. Disney winning another one of the animation awards that were specifically created just for them to win. Marvel fans getting upset because the Academy didn't nominate their favorite Marvel movie outside of technical categories. (It's worth noting that the Academy introduced two fan-voted "awards" this year that were thinly-veiled consolation prizes for the Marvel crowd, only for Zack Snyder fans to swipe both of them.) All of this is standard Oscars stuff. We'd forget about it in a week.

Then Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the face for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head. On live television.

It was the slap heard 'round the world, and it's completely overshadowed anything else that happened in the ceremony. Including how Smith, a longtime favorite to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, finally did it this ceremony (for playing the Williams sisters' father Richard in King Richard) after two previous nominations—but no one cares, because he slapped Chris Rock and shouted expletives on live television.

Rather than celebrating the winners, most of the discussion regarding the 94th Academy Awards has concerned the Smith Slap. Did Smith or Rock or both cross a line? Were Smith's actions assault, or did he have a right to stand up for his wife? Was Rock's joke inoffensive or was he unaware that Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, which is why she shaved her head? Or was he mocking her condition? Smith has apologized to Rock, who's declined to press charges, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is conducting an investigation of the matter and may suspend Smith's Academy membership. The moment is bound to live on as one of the ugliest and funniest moments in the history of the ceremony.

2 Will Smith 2,897,836
3 RRR (film) 2,745,183 Going from Hollywood to Tollywood, as our Indian friends break up the top 5 with a hit movie about revolutionaries who took on the British Raj.
4 Chris Rock 1,945,132 Sunday was a whole new episode of Everybody Hates Chris, this time a crossover with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (#2). All this for a G.I. Jane joke! (namely, #1 could star in a sequel)
5 94th Academy Awards 1,887,050 On less violent events of Oscar night, which was disjointed but still better than the trainwreck of last year, CODA is the first film by a streaming service and starring predominantly deaf actors to win Best Picture, Jane Campion is only the third woman in history to win Best Director for The Power of the Dog, and Ariana DeBose is the first Afro-Latina woman to win Best Supporting Actress.
6 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine 1,795,209 It has been over a month since Russian troops entered Ukraine, beginning the largest war in Europe since 1945. Ever since that day, it’s been on the list, and on one report, it and related topics occupied 20 out of the 25 spots. However, over the next few weeks, its views declined and it mixed in with the other topics normally on the report. In the last two reports, there was no dominant topic, and I couldn’t write the usual abbreviated summary of the topics without writing in too glib a tone about a war that has killed thousands of people. I eventually gave up and wrote “This one is a difficult one to summarise well.”

In their summary of the December 1 to 7, 2013 report, the week that saw the death of both Nelson Mandela and Paul Walker, Serendipodous wrote the following:

When one edits this page for too long, one is tempted to appoint oneself as the psychoanalyst for mankind, or at least the English-speaking portion thereof. Since nearly everyone uses Wikipedia, the constant stream of TV updates, pointless celebrity scandals, and inquiries after who has died can seem like a dreary peek into humanity's surprisingly banal collective consciousness. So when two notable deaths occur in the same week, one a treasure of the world widely regarded as a true Great Man in a time of comparative minnows who died peacefully in his sleep after a long life; the other a mid-tier actor who died in a speeding car, the cynic can smugly note that the latter got nearly twice as many views as the former, and that humankind once again rushed to scandal, while ignoring the passing of history.

Over the past few weeks, watching the stats and writing for the Report, it has been hard not to feel a similar way about the invasion’s decline in views, especially this week. Here it seems people are more interested in a single act of violence between two celebrities that happened to be on international television than the thousands of far more heinous acts of violence that make up this invasion. One could, from this high horse, chastise humanity for caring more about “the Oscars slap” than the invasion of a nation, or for caring more about this invasion than the countless other wars of the modern era.

Or I could decide that that would be insensitive, and instead simply say that after six weeks, it continues to be awful.

7 2022 FIFA World Cup 1,774,649 Everything is almost done regarding who is playing on the Qatari football fields in November. This week had Canada earning their return after 36 years, with Mexico and the United States coming along (right before the three teams host a bloated 48-team Cup); the African spots went to Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco and Cameroon; and both the Portugal of Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski's Poland got in. The groups of the tournament were also sorted, even if some teams aren't yet set (See #12).
8 Taylor Hawkins 1,516,566 The surprising death of the Foo Fighters drummer is still being mourned. Here's to him.
9 CODA (2021 film) 1,447,820 The first Best Picture winner that was primarily a streaming release (Apple TV in the US, Prime Video internationally) is the remake of a French movie where Emilia Jones (pictured) is a Child Of Deaf Adults who is coming of age and clearly wanting to live her own life without aiding her family. CODA won all three awards it was up for, which also included Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur. This here writer was one of many who liked CODA, but felt it only won the top category in another case of the Academy playing it safe.
10 Bridgerton 1,319,496 The Shonda Rhimes series and its actors (#15, #20) continues to hold the attention of many people, in the second week since the second series landed on Netflix. Production of a third season has been confirmed apparently.
11 Bruce Willis 1,298,808 Kim Newman of Empire recently wrote "The meaning of 'Starring Bruce Willis' has shifted from promise to threat in the last few years", given the once-star of Die Hard, The Sixth Sense and Moonlighting was now showing up in numerous crummy streaming releases for just a few scenes - eight of them were listed by the Golden Raspberry Awards this year in a "Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in 2021", with the "winner" being Cosmic Sin. And now it's clear as for why he was tarnishing his reputation for easy paychecks, as his daughters announced Willis is retiring due to an aphasia diagnosis, so he was getting enough money to retire comfortably while he could still work.
12 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification 1,236,290 The final spots yet to be filled in #7 are three: the winner of Costa Rica-New Zealand, Peru against whoever wins in United Arab Emirates-Australia... and in a complication caused by #6, Wales is waiting for the winner of Ukraine-Scotland.
13 Liza Minnelli 1,158,889 Best Picture was presented to #9 by Lady Gaga and this fellow music and screen legend with quite the troubled life, who was wheelchair-bound and having some trouble reading her cue lines.
14 Morbius (film) 1,098,605 The Spider-Man spin-off featuring an obscure vampire villain that was delayed seven times (it was supposed to come out nearly two years ago!) finally came out on Friday, and I'm not lying when I say that Morbius was one of the worst movies I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in theaters. The third Sony's Spider-Man Universe film is the perfect storm of a nonsensical story, Jared Leto, generic characters (aside from Matt Smith's wonderfully hammy villain, who was the lone bright spot), Jared Leto, bad CGI, and Jared Leto. Audiences are probably going to eat this garbage up; I just want my two hours back.
15 Simone Ashley 1,076,457 One of the stars of #10. She'll be seen next in the live-action version of Disney's The Little Mermaid, Coming Soon™.
16 Moon Knight (miniseries) 918,424 Disney got a parental lock just in time for the arrival of the violent Egyptian-themed vigilante Marc Spector, played by Oscar Isaac.
17 Moon Knight 914,046
18 Deaths in 2022 846,260 Our version of the in memoriam of #5, only without unexplainable dance performances.
19 King Richard (film) 844,443 #2 won Best Actor for playing Richard Williams in this movie which underperformed at the box office back in November due to a simultaneous HBO Max release, but continues to bring in viewers given its success in the awards circuit.
20 Jonathan Bailey 828,886 Another star of #10, where he ends up marrying #15.
21 August Alsina 821,674 Alsina, a New Orleans R&B singer, is probably on this list due to his former relationship with #1.
22 Richard Williams (tennis coach) 803,180 As documented in hilarious detail in #19, this hardheaded man's plan to make tennis players out of daughters Venus Williams and Serena Williams resulted in both becoming among the greatest to ever hold a racket - and in a Best Actor Oscar for our #2.
23 G.I. Jane 793,247 In 1997, #11's then-wife Demi Moore starred in this Ridley Scott-directed film about a woman who joins the U.S. Navy SEALs. A well-publicized thing in the movie was Moore shaving her long hair into a military buzz cut, hence #4 making a joke out of #1's baldness referencing this movie - "Jada, I love you, G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it" - and being slapped by #2 for it. For what it's worth, the guy who helped with Moore's hair thought it was an overreaction.
24 WrestleMania 38 791,939 A big wrestling event headlined by Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns (pictured).
25 Aphasia 787,068 #11 is retiring because he was diagnosed with this brain disorder that causes an inability to comprehend or formulate language, something essential for an actor.

Bonus ten, if only for completeness' sake:

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