Oscars 2023: How will the Academy Awards address the Chris Rock, Will Smith slap?

In anticipation of the 2023 Oscars, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, people are wondering how the Will Smith, Chris Rock slap from last year's ceremony is going to be addressed.

“We’re going to acknowledge it, and then we’re gonna move on,” executive producer Molly McNearney stated. "We don’t want to make this year about last year."

"It’s certainly something we can and will address in a comedic fashion."

Last month, in an interview with TIME, executive producer and showrunner Ricky Kirshner revealed that for the first time a "crisis team" has been assembled in the event of another surprise incident.

"We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place," Kirshner told TIME. "We’ve run many scenarios. So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we’re planning for just in case it does happen."

"Because of last year, we’ve opened our minds to the many things that can happen at the Oscars. But these crisis plans—the crisis communication teams and structures we have in place—allow us to say this is the group that we have to gather very quickly. This is how we all come together. This is the spokesperson. This will be the statement. And obviously depending on the specifics of the crisis, and let’s hope something doesn’t happen and we never have to use these, but we already have frameworks in place that we can modify."

Last year's incident, which resulted in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science banning Smith from the Oscars, and any other Academy events, for 10 years, means there will be another change in this year's ceremony.

The tradition is that the previous year's lead actor winner presents the award for Best Actress during the ceremony. With Smith's mandated absence, we're not sure who will take on that responsibility.

“I came in and everyone says, ‘This is what we used to do.’ And there is no more, ‘This is what we used to do,’” Kirshner said, according to the Los Angeles Time.

“We rethought the show and we put presenters together in ways that make sense for the category and you’ll see on Sunday night.”

With the ceremony coming just one week after Chris Rock's Netflix stand-up special, people have opinions on how they think the Oscar should address this incident this year.