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Scandal at the Oscars 2022: The actor Will Smith slaps the presenter and comedian Chris Rock
Photo: Chris Pizzello/AP
The slap is a special means of communication.
A special effect that should be used sparingly.
Recently, however, they seem to be on the increase.
In the age of cameras everywhere, the slap in the face is apparently the current means of choice to finally settle differences of opinion.
Actor Will Smith apparently felt that a joke by Chris Rock, who was booked for jokes, was not appropriate.
In allusion to his wife's pathological hair loss, the comedian had mentioned the quasi-feminist film »GI Jane« (1997), in which Demi Moore, it's hard to believe, also has short hair.
Tired gag.
Zack.
Not a few viewers initially believed to have witnessed a production.
Shortly before this slap in the face in front of a worldwide audience, the joker Oliver Pocher was hit in the face by a speech-singing artist on the sidelines of a boxing match.
In both cases, it was about women, that is, "honor," any open scores.
The school courtization of the public is progressing.
A setting that actually seemed to have gone out of fashion.
Like the war of aggression.
A slap in the face, in affect or planned, is easily missed.
But it is very difficult to put in or even put away.
You don't see them coming, that's usually the problem.
It rarely announces itself, perhaps as a flicker in the aggressor's eye.
After the whip-like crack, the pain subsides very quickly.
Only an afterglow remains on the cheek.
It's all about this.
The attacker accepts that the attacked either falls to the ground or counterattacks.
Then we would have a fight.
Chris Rock provided a taste of his presence of mind.
Keeping his hands behind his back and staying in character, he announced in disbelief, "Will Smith just beat the shit out of me!"
A sublimated gauntlet
That's only natural.
The slap is aimed at the face and thus at loss of face.
This skipping action has its origin in the duel, so it is a sublimated gauntlet.
Therefore it is partly actual physical violence, partly only symbolic.
Beate Klarsfeld knew that in 1968 when she slapped a former NSDAP member, the CDU Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger.
Here not only a woman hit a man, but also a younger one an older one - and also successfully aimed at his honor.
Just as little as one can tickle oneself, so little can one slap oneself.
Unlike this planned and political slap in the face, the slap is usually a male thing.
Will Smith lashed out to defend his wife's honor, which is somehow—and this is where it gets problematic—his own as well.
A toxic post-show tweet would have done the trick, too.
Or just not.
In the show itself, the slap was not an issue.
A glitch in the matrix, so to speak, didn't actually happen at all.
In any case, the fact that Will Smith used “the F-word” afterward caused similar outrage.
Suppose instead of Chris Rock a white comedian, perhaps Ricky Gervais, had made fun of a black woman's hair loss - the slap Will Smith gave him might be judged differently in some places.
And Jada Pinkett Smith?
Perhaps she found her husband's physical exertion touching, perhaps she found him embarrassing.
You don't know, everyone's talking about chivalrous or toxic men who "protect their families" (Will Smith) again.
In any case, what was seen was a form of violence that is apparently endemic in its domestic variant.
It is well known that the hand »slips out«.
But that's not an issue.
