Clearly assaulting Chris Rock was an attempt by Will Smith to reclaim his masculinity shattered by his adulterous wife. Rock was a substitute for the black community as a whole and black men in particular who derided his cuck status. "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth!" is not really directed at Chris Rock but rather the men of his community who continued to use his wife as a means to humiliate him. I think that Smith's rage is indirectly directed towards his wife who had betrayed him. As you can see in the video he was laughing at the joke before he saw his wife's expression which is when he felt his role as a black man was being challenged AGAIN. He could not stand a second public strike to his image so the slap that he subconsciously wanted to deliver onto his wife's face ended up on Rock's instead.

I think he ended up looking like an out of control bitch and failed to reclaim his masculine persona. No way in hell he would have hit a white man or a larger man both in popularity and in size. He tried to take Chris Rock's manhood to childishly restore his own but failed miserably. A truly Shakespearean Tragedy.