Will Smith sir,
You are an amazing father, you continue to inspire and encourage people. Thank you, for proving that we don’t have to end up like our parents.
O.K. yeah not like I needed to keep my feels in tact tonight or anything.
well shit
Hey look guys it’s my husband Will Smith yes I have a husband SURPRISE! Don’t worry my wifey knows already.
That awful moment when you learn that this wasn’t scripted. That Will Smith’s character was actually supposed to brush off the whole thing, but Will’s father actually had left him when he was younger and he just fell apart on the set and the hug at the end was from one actor to another, not one character to another.
Always reblog, because powerful moments on screen don’t just effect us, they effect the people behind the camera lens.
The build up to this moment is painful to watch, because before this moment his dad was spending time with him, and Will thought he would go move out and be with him. Uncle Phil tried to warn him that this man was no good, and Will was basically like, “you’re not my dad.” Which, if you’ve been watching the series, that sucked, because Uncle Phil has always treated Will like a son.
So eventually, Uncle Phil gives in, and starts believing too (for Will’s sake really but he’s still cautious). Maybe Will’s dad has changed, and if this is what Will wants, he’ll support it. Then the asshole goes to Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv like, “Oh I got this thing going on I can’t take him with me,” and even has the audacity to ask them to tell Will for him. They refuse, and he starts to leave and Will walks in. He gets to listen to his dad tell him that he can’t come with, and it really, really sucks. He doesn’t even call him dad (and he shouldn’t), he calls him by his name.
Then this scene happens.
When his dad left before he was a child, so he wasn’t quite aware of the situation. Like he knew his dad was gone, but he was too young to really grasp the fact that he walked out for no good reason. Now he’s old enough to see that, because he walks out again, for no good reason. I remember watching this scene, and this was one of the most serious moments in the series, and in sitcoms in general. And yeah like most sitcoms this had serious moments throughout (Ashley wants to have sex, Carlton gets a gun, Hilary’s husband dies, ect.), but for the most part you remember the laughs, but I can never forget this episode. Even when I’d watch the reruns there was this feeling of, “Shit it’s this episode.”
There’s no upbeat music afterwards (you know, when a series has their sort of closing music to end an episode), it was just quiet, except for Will crying. And I think I always had a feeling that there was more to this scene, because there’s this look on Uncle Phil’s face, like maybe there’s something on the script he’s supposed to say but he can’t make himself say it. Because Will’s just yelling yelling yelling, then he says that last line, and I was fairly young when this aired so I just sort of stared at the T.V.
And thanked whoever I could for having a good dad.
Also, I don’t quite remember if there was another series that actually showed this issue back then: kids’ parents just up and leaving. I mean if this aired today it wouldn’t be a big shock. We’ve discussed this several times: the single mom, the deadbeat dad, the men who steps up, ect. And also, as I write this I realize that this might have impacted me so hard because THIS is my family. Me and my older brother don’t have the same father. His father walked out on him when he was 6 months old. He never came back. It was the 70s and my mom was 16. However, my dad stepped up when him and my mom were together and helped with my brother (before that my aunt and grandmother helped). But my dad stepped up in such a way (even after they got divorced when I was about 5) that I didn’t even know we had different dads, not until I was about 10 years old.
When my brother died, my dad took it real hard. Because my brother was essentially his son, too. I remember my mom calling our house, and talking to my dad, and my dad telling me. And he cried just as hard as I did, because that was his son. And he also understood how I felt because he lost his brother when he was 13, too. In my brother’s obituary, my dad is named as his dad, because who the hell knows where that guy is. Who the hell cares. It makes me sick knowing that this man is out there somewhere and he doesn’t know that his son is dead, that he had two kids, but you know what? Whatever. It’s his goddamn lost and my dad’s gain, because he got to have a great son in his life.
… this rambling brought to you by Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the fact that my brother’s birthday is in a few weeks and I’ll be weepy as all hell.
