Page 57 - Will Smith: A Biography of a Rapper Turned Movie Star

Six Degrees of the Fresh Prince
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Male rap music artists have an image of toughness.
Because of that image, Smith was not sure at first if he
wanted to play a gay man in Six Degrees of Separation. The
script called for Smith’s character to kiss another man,
something Smith refused to do. During interviews, Smith
publicly discussed his hesitancy about the role. As a result,
some gay rights activists accused him of being homophobic,
or prejudicedagainst gays. Smith saidhewas not homophobic,
but that not being gay made him play the role differently.
Later, he admitted that he had been overly concerned with
what his friends would think about him if he kissed a man
on screen. He said, “It was immature on my part. . . . I wasn’t
emotionally stable enough to artistically commit to that
aspect of the film.”12
Meanwhile, Smith kept busy with The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air, which continued to do well. The news at the end
of the 1992–1993 season was an addition to the cast. Aunt
Vivian gives birth to the Banks family’s fourth child, a son
they name Nicholas but call Nicky. That season, The Fresh
Prince of Bel-Air finished as the nation’s sixteenth most
watched television program.13
The next season, 1993–1994, brought further changes to
the show. The producers wanted to keep The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air truly fresh in more ways than one. The characters
of Will and Carlton graduate from high school and enroll in
college at the fictional University of Los Angeles. Then Will’s
old girlfriend from Philadelphia moves to Los Angeles,
bringing all sorts of complications into his world.