The Will Smith slap and the slaps of history

From the outset, many thought that the aggression was part of the show and that they were simply following a previously prepared script. Nor would it have been so strange, because the cinema has filled the big screen with slaps. They have received Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones, Pierce Brosnan embodying James Bond or Rita Hayworth in Gilda. This gesture has even been the subject of one of the most popular ‘sketches’ of ‘Land as you can!’. At one point in that crazy 1980 comedy, a woman has a fit of hysteria and to calm her down she is assaulted by countless passengers, including a nun. The gag is an exaggeration of what was considered common since the 19th century when people began to talk about an alleged disease called ‘hysteria’, which actually does not exist. It was the way that doctors and psychologists (men) had to label a behavior considered out of place by certain patients, obviously all women. In fact, ‘hysteria’ is still a derogatory term thought more feminine than masculine. Well, the medical tradition of that time defended that the best way to put an end to an episode of hysteria was by slapping the affected person. A measure that was still considered admissible in the 80s of the last century, when we all laughed with ‘Land as you can!’

Maybe that’s why the concept “slap in the face” it has the connotation of realizing reality, or perhaps because, as the anthropologist Desmond Morris says, it is the reaction that is usually expected from a woman when faced with an unwelcome action on the part of a man. On this point, it is worth recalling the legend collected by the Aragonese monk Gauberto Fabricio de Vagad about the slap that King Pere el Cerimonios received from Santa Tecla.

According to that story, in one of his last days of life, the monarch of the Crown of Aragon had a dream where a resplendent woman crossed his face. He then woke up with a start and his health condition worsened. After studying the situation, the doctors and priests of the court came to the conclusion that the saint had appeared in a dream to punish the king, who had appropriated the ecclesiastical assets of the Camp of Tarragona. Keep in mind that at that time, there were many disputes between bishops and kings to control the territory, because each power had the power to establish the rules (and taxes) that it considered appropriate. In the years of the reign of Pere el Cerimoniós, the archbishopric of Tarragona was one of the areas where there was more tension. Hence a monk would have written a text like that. Now then, apparently the saint’s slapping was coming from afar. According to the medievalist Eduard Juncosa, who has studied the legend, he has located other hagiographic texts in which Thecla smacks.

more real was the one received by the Minister of Grace and Justice Francisco Tadeo Calomarde from Luisa Carlota de Borbón in 1832. Ferdinand VII was beginning to have health problems and the politician had managed to get the monarch to back down from designating his daughter as heir Isabel, because the minister considered that a woman could not sit on the throne. Knowing this, Luisa Carlota, who was the future queen’s aunt, gave Calomarde a slap. The man, undaunted, replied “Ma’am, white hands do not offend & rdquor; and undid their conspiracies.

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Some historians question the veracity of this story, which would have been inspired by the play of the same name written by Calderón de la Barca in the 17th century. It is a comedy of palace entanglements where nothing is what it seems, as it happens in our time where everyone is very tolerant until they are offended and justice is taken into their own hands.

Viral slap videos

The scene starring both artists has reached every corner thanks to social networks, where videos of competitions where you can see two opponents slapping each other in the face have been viralized for a long time. The objective of these tests, especially popular in Eastern Europe, is to put the opponent out of action.