To Slap or Not to Slap?

The Slap!

As I mentioned I’ve recently started re-watching old movies and tv shows. And this has caused an inner debate with myself and to some extent with D.

I grew up in a different time with different standards and different acceptances of those standards, one of which is what women considered abusive and what they accepted as something they had to tolerate if society thinks they deserved it.

Back when I first watched James Bond, I actually never thought anything of it when he gave a woman a good whack across the face. I don’t remember ever being horrified about it, or even put off by it. Now if he’d punched her, then I felt sick, but a slap was shrugged off as “she asked for it”. 

As recently as the 80’s I watched Scarecrow and Mrs King and never thought a thing about it when he gave her a little cheek smack. It was not a hard smack and not given in anger, and I don’t recall ever being shocked or shaken by that show. 

The first time I can remember a slap actually gave me pause on a film was Tequila Sunrise, Mel Gibson’s character is fiddling with the machinery on the boat while arguing with Michelle Phiffer’s character, something jolts him back and he ends up slapping her by accident. 
Yes I know it was an accident, but honestly you usually apologize when you accidentally smack someone, you don’t use it as an example of what you are capable of or to prove some point... BUT it’s still one of my favorite films and I still watch it over and over. So while it gave me pause it didn’t enrage me or even take any of my enjoyment of the film away.

Times change, and boy have they changed. While re-watching James Bond a few years back I was taken back by my reaction to Sean Connery’s and Roger Moor’s face slapping . So much so that it really did take away from my enjoyment of the films. I still watched them but not with the same joy I did before that.

What does it mean, have we become more emancipated? Have we realized that our lot in life is not to be punished like children when we screw up? Or have we become a little too full of ourselves? (I hear my inner feminist screeching obscenities in my head just writing that)

But before I try to rip my own head off I had better explain. My horror at watching a female getting slapped was of course mitigated by the fact that I am a female and having in the course of my life received one or two face slaps I can with all honestly say, they fucking hurt! I think Julia Roberts says it best in Pretty woman, 

Why do guys always know how to hit a woman right across the cheek ?

Wham ! And it feels like your eye is gonna explode.

And it does, though it’s not always the guys that do the hitting. Which brings me to my point. 

How do I react when the tables are turned? 

If she slaps him back I think, “You wimp, don’t slap him! Punch his bloody woman abusing lights out!”

If she slaps him first, my reaction is mostly satisfaction, (depending on the reasons for the slap which in most cases is him being a man and doing what men do best... say something stupid). 

If she up and punches him, I’m filled with respect and awe, “Dude I wanna be able to do that!”

If it’s two women slapping each other I tend to roll my eyes, because hollywood normally puts some man there to either fight the male baddy or have our hero enjoying the show in typical male asshole fashion. 

Men slapping other men? “Gay.” 

But bottom line, if a woman abuses a man with a running bitch slap my reaction is not a lick of horror or disgust, not even a twinge or a shudder, it’s normally..”go you!”

Double standards? Could be.

Or perhaps it’s that women are about a stone or two lighter in the muscle department, and at least a foot in arm reach shorter than most men... which makes it a very unfair fight. 

But... to turn it around again, that could be why it’s a slap and not a punch that the penis head’s throw? 

Sean Connery’s has always been very open on his opinion on the subject, he feels if the argument has escalated so far that he as a man has no other option, a firm flat handed (never with a fist) slap is warranted. 
Barbara Walters the woman interviewing him was not impressed with his stand on that, then nor twenty years ago when he first said it. She did however at the end of the interview point out that Mr. Connery has been married for 37 years and there has never been a breath of scandal or problems in that marriage. If anything his very tiny wife seems very much in charge of the house and him. 

So maybe she likes a little slap with her tickle, who knows. Personally I believe the last person with the right to slap me in the name of discipline was my mother before I turned 18, the police and judicial system are the only ones who have any say in punishing me after that. 

I’m far more likely to respond to a “you hurt me and I’m upset” from my significant other than I am to a sudden explosion of pain to the face, all that awakes in me is the urge to give the slapper’s internal organs, breathing holes, with a carving knife. 

But, I also don’t think its right to rip an 80 year old man to shreds in an interview for his beliefs, he’s lived in a time where those beliefs were acceptable, and they have harmed no one, why keep slapping at him ?(I know I know, it’s puny!) Just to show what I mean here's another little clip. And we might note an ex president of the USA, being a happy slapper too.

The Golden Age of Broad Smacking from Leecher on Vimeo.

Food for thought and plenty of it. 

On a more sober note any form of abuse is never a mater to take lightly, nor in jest, and I would never do either, it’s a nightmare without end for women all over the world, and it’s something that we need to find a way to stop, not just the physical abuse, but also the even more insidious physiological abuse, which in many ways is so much more destructive, but that is another blog for another time.