There's a term used by postmodernists, 'hyperreality' a state in which the real and the fictional are so entagled that it is impossible to separate them. This is in many respects the state of celebrity. Will Smith becomes the symbol for 'the ideal Black man' a sign with no referent in the sense that while he himself is a real person. what he is seen as is a fictional construct. All ideals are fictional constructs, after all, because as humans, we are all flawed.

But the nature of hyperreality is such that the very real and human story of 'Will and Jada', was played out in the media as if it was a fiction. So the ordinary human actions and reactions were intensified into high drama, and what for anyone else would be an upsetting but all-too-common relationship breakdown, with both partners wanting different things, became an abysmal failure of the dream for a generation.

Will Smith, partly by his own choice, was carrying a burden too great for him or any man (Black, white to any colour). That is what broke him, not Jada Pinkett.