This blog is 12+ years old, from 2009 with President Obama's first term. The focus has been eclectic ...focusing on the ways and directions of American politics and culture and occasionally new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted.
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'The Slap,' 'The Slap.' No doubt this new meme will fade from the public mind, but not soon … and maybe America will find some deeper meaning in that 'Event' than prurient headlines. But not now.
The Hollywood Academy Awards is literally the biggest American cultural stage which has become, naturally, the most coveted hosting gig for any American comedian.
During the 2022 Hollywood Academy Awards (the 94th), Chris Rock, the comedian-host, made a joke about a relatively famous actress that apparently distressed her more than usual and motivated her husband (after a moment's hesitation that was later noticed to be an 'Event' itself) to rush from his audience seat onto the stage and slap said comedian-host…in the face. Hence, 'The Slap', the 2022 Academy Awards' Event'…. which 'Event' generated gasps, hollow silences, and endless discourse from the Awards audiences, in the live audience-pit and at home watching from television sets, and later viewers of videos replayed in many venues, e.g., Twitter, Youtube, TikTok, etc.
From the days of the greatly esteemed self-parodying comedians such as Richard Pryor, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Abbott and Costello, Red Skelton, Martha Raye, and others, Americans turned to greatly enjoy making fun of others. Still, this outward-turning of American comedy is rarely addressed in scholarly America and is even less often processed in public discourse. Since 'The Slap,' and the rules of the comedian-audience dance are now a hot topic. Maybe some good will result.
'The Slap' has led some to see that targeting and making fun of the 'other' is maybe not so funny. The outward targeting by 'modern comedy' is a kind of post-modern '-osis' displacement that is unhealthy and harmful to its targets… and to audiences.
After the fact, one senses that 'The Slap' had to happen somewhere, probably sooner than later and to someone who would get our attention. One would not have expected Will Smith to deliver 'The Slap' but in retrospect he was an ideal candidate. But there was a long line of other prominent names who could have 'delivered" as well as Will.
Maybe outward directed comedy that makes fun of others is a 'displacement' syndrome that has been escalating to higher and more cutting levels much like an addiction (neurologically valid) that leaves Americans with a good degree of cultural angst — an angst that is usually subliminal but surfaces in times of social stress, such as what happened at the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony.
(America's comedy angst, like an addiction to a drug, is abated only by higher and higher doses of insult-comedy, but it is only a temporary fix…like a drug.)
From this historical-cultural perspective on American humor and comedic stage performance, one might value The Slap because it helps clarify (frame) for future America the modes and boundaries of acceptable comedic and audience-responsive behavior, i.e., less culturally and individual-level stress.
As with many hallmarks of America's voyeuristic culture, The Slap will linger in the public mind for a while and make many of us amateur psychologists, juries, and judges — with almost as many different perspectives on The Slap as there are people in America.
Insulting others is now big business in America. Comedic targeting is now directed at anyone or group of notability, or notoriety, in any area of American culture. (The preferred targets are actual, 'deliciously' controversial individuals who occupy center stage in any area receiving fame or notice (and whether legal or not).
Nit-picking and laughing at the failures of others (Chris Rock, Andrew Dice Clay, Don Rickles, etc.) has replaced seeing and laughing at ourselves through the comedic geniuses of self-parodying (e.g., Richard Pryor, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and others).
The Hollywood Academy Awards' Event' (The Slap) has divided America…but it is a division of opinion not yet so severe as to become one of America's favorite pastimes, public and individual violence….at.least not yet.
One might appreciate the Slap because it helps to clarify and define (frames) for future American socially acceptable modes and boundaries in both the comedic delivery and audience response … will America progress to its own 'Kabuki-style' entertainment formulations?
In promoting public discourse and collectively stretching our minds as Americans, the Slap has a positive value — it might be described as an Event of cultural coming-to-terms, and maybe it had to happen….sometime sooner than later.
But one feels sad that Fate chose two iconic, well-liked African-American men, who, as a group, could benefit from less public spectacle of that nature to figuratively and literally play their parts on center stage.
As 'stage play,' which it was scenic-wise, the Slap might further be framed as an iconic Shakesperian moment in American cultural history to be written about and acted out in future stage plays as 'plays about a play on a stage, etc. …' and from many different perspectives.
Days later, from the intensity and breadth of public discourse about it, one senses that the Slap has brought America to be new and deeper thinking about its principles … in this case, 'freedom of speech. (It seems a rare moment when America must face itself and what it truly believes in and think about anything beyond momentary media glitz — but that is what America is doing now in the wake of the Slap.
The significance of the Slap goes beyond race. A personal observation is that the emotions raised by that well-acted Slap script are resonating (and being discussed) universally, beyond race. So for some time more, America will hold discourse with itself about the Event (Slap), pro and con each actor and in between, and one thinks we will come out of this a more mature and better culture.
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