The Slap

This semester I had the great pleasure of teaching a seminar on Don Quixote to ten bright and talented students. We focused our reflections on the topics of misinformation and disinformation, frequently relating the (mis)adventures of the knight-errant and his squire to contemporary issues. As a group, we thought deeply and critically about how we consume information, are influenced by it, and, at times, manipulate it in service of our own agendas. By mid-March, I began to believe we had established a reasoned perspective from which to consider Cervantes’s most famous novel and the world in which we live. Nonetheless, late March provided a wakeup call for the dreams of my hubris.

As many of you are likely already aware, on the evening of March 27, 2022, the movie star Will Smith assaulted comedian Chris Rock during the Academy Awards ceremony after Rock had addressed Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, joking that he couldn’t wait to see her in “G.I. Jane 2,” a reference to Pinkett Smith’s bald head. After being struck by Smith, Rock said “Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me.” It is still unclear, at least to me, if Rock was aware at the time that Pinkett Smith has a medical condition called alopecia that causes hair loss. In the following minutes, hours, days, and weeks, social media and legacy media outlets saw an explosion of posts and stories related to this bizarre occurrence during what is usually a fairly tame event. Great pieces were written in condemnation of Smith’s use of violence while other equally great pieces were written that condemned Rock’s joke for its possible ableist overtones or, at the very least, its gendered reinforcement of female beauty stereo types, especially among African American women; ironic due to the fact that Rock appeared in and narrated a documentary titled Good Hair (2009) that considered perceptions of hair and related issues among Black women. Beyond the great essays and op-eds written on both sides, there was also a massive wave of less researched and reasoned posts and responses that made the altercation a trending topic for weeks.

To be honest, I did not watch the Oscars that night. I became aware of the notorious slap the following morning just before walking into my 9am Don Quixote seminar. What I experienced and observed that morning was, in my opinion, much more interesting than the central question being litigated in the media at that very moment. We, my students and I, all felt the almost unavoidable need to take a side and align ourselves with either Rock or Smith and the plethora of voices that were lining up behind them with shows of support. I felt particularly uncomfortable; I had almost zero information about what had happened and I could tell that many of my students had strong opinions but that there was by no means a consensus. Although I am sure that my students approached the incident with greater aplomb than many talking heads in the media, there existed two gravitational forces that pulled all involved toward a specific side of the conversation. Thankfully we had Cervantes to help us look beyond the superficial level of the issue. What ensued was a conversation of how the media discourse, in which we are all involved, creates a desire—almost an imperative—to take sides despite the unknowns and complexities of such situations.

Cervantes’s El retablo de las maravillas provides deep insights into the slap in question and our reaction to it. First, Smith’s violent response to a joke mirrors the reaction of the quartermaster who arrives in the town during Chanfalla’s performance unaware of the spurious conditions under which the marvels of the show allegedly become visible (being of pure Christian blood and the offspring of a legitimately wed couple). After being called “one of them” for not seeing the non-existent marvels (either a Jew or a bastard—both harsh accusations at the time), he takes up arms against his accusers. Smith goes from laughing at Rock’s joke believing that he is still part of the dominant social group to a sudden realization that his wife has been othered, as has he by association. His, not necessarily his wife’s, honor must be defended to futilely attempt to reestablish the status quo.

Smith’s defensiveness is possibly exacerbated further by another topic familiar to Cervantes’s readers: fear of infidelity. Jada Pinkett Smith’s much-discussed “entanglement” with the R&B singer August Alsina has, fairly or unfairly, cast Will Smith in the role of cuckold (though the derisive nature of the term makes it a mostly unfair characterization). In the work of Cervantes and others from the Spanish Golden Age, violence appears as a possible answer to this disgraceful moral turpitude—Calderón’s El médico de su honra is an emblematic example. Yet, Cervantes turns these tales of honor killings on their head in works such as Don Quixote: specifically, the intercalated novel El curioso impertinente, the killing of Vicente by Claudia Jerónima, and the baroque entanglement between Dorotea, Fernando, Cardenio, and Luscinda. In each case the details around interactions between the characters and the complexities of the scenarios frustrate any socially satisfactory resolution. We are mostly left scratching our heads with the feeling that violence has done little to nothing to mask the truth of the situation. Smith’s slap, though lauded by some as a manly reclaiming of his authority, can easily be viewed as a desperate action by a confused and emotionally wounded man.

Chris Rock can also be viewed through the Cervantine lens. The tradition of comic relief during award shows such as the Oscars, normally centered upon lampooning the celebrities in the audience, feels Cervantine at face value as truth is spoken to power. Nonetheless, Rock’s ties to Chanfalla run much deeper than originally meets the eye. Unlike the child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who innocently speaks truth to power, both Chanfalla and Rock are part of a much less innocent game. Economic interest is central to each in their performative endeavors. While Chanfalla’s subversion is less visible and his economic interest is patently clear, Rock participates in an attempt at being subversive with regard to the excesses of Hollywood while also being a participant in them; the whole game is in his economic interest and the interest of the status quo. He, like Chanfalla, must sharpen his tongue and not overdo it so as to help Hollywood show that it has a sense of humor. But as we can see, Rock did overdo it for Smith and by extension reveals the artifice behind Hollywood’s attempt to control its image through carefully choreographed illusions of subversion.

While Cervantes has something to show us with regard to Smith and Rock, we must not forget that his true genius is when he reflects the critical lens back upon the reader/viewer. While we lionize one and demonize another, we slip into Benito Repollo’s shoes (or gregüescos at least), the town official who makes the most concerted effort to show that he sees the non-existent marvels Chanfalla purports to present. Nonetheless, our choice when it comes to the slap is slightly but meaningfully different. While the townspeople have a choice to participate in Chanfalla’s deception or be ostracized, we find ourself caught between two camps—those who defend comedy and those who deplore insensitive and hurtful statements—that are not very different because they attempt to defend an ideal by reducing a complex and opaque situation into incontrovertible evidence of their take on reason. In either case, we like Benito et al. consciously or unconsciously see, or neglect to see, what we want making Chanfalla and Hollywood’s problematic narratives come to life in our own minds.

Cervantes presents us with another option, though it exists only partially realized in the text. Following the media coverage and listening to my students debate the slap, I felt much like I imagine the Governor felt in the Retablo—he quietly admits to the audience that he sees no marvels. My internal monologue, like his various asides, was full of doubts; how did everyone know so certainly who was right and who was wrong? I must admit that I was nervous about getting it wrong. I was looking at the issue as a choice between two options that would say something about who I am and to what group I belong. In the end, I decided that the framing of the question was flawed and I admitted I had no clue who was in the wrong and who was in the right. Now, my choice was not heroic because the stakes were low and, if I were ever in the Governor’s shoes, I cannot say that I would act any differently (he played along), but by considering this third option we open a door to a different type of thinking, a type of thinking that does not limit itself to the “either/or” but instead gives us the opportunity to say “yes and.”

As I wrote this piece, another comedian was attacked while performing onstage. Dave Chapelle was assaulted by a man armed with a knife disguised as a gun (what would Don Quixote have thought?). Chapelle was shaken up by the altercation but sustained no lasting damage. The attacker’s motivations are still mostly unknown. This incident is one more in a troubling trend of attacks on comedians and other public voices. As a reaction, many have brought up Chapelle’s ever-increasing animosity toward the trans community in his comedy seemingly making the argument that he deserved to be attacked. Again, we are faced with an artificial either/or that fails to address the various issues at hand and instead provides us, the paying audience, the chance to reinforce our identities. And yet again, Cervantes makes this clear and reveals that the only way to deal with all the issues wrapped up in this case (transphobia, racism, a manipulative media marketplace, attacks on free speech, etc.) is to give voice to our doubts and recognize the messy complexities of the world in which we live.

All of us stand upon rickety soapboxes, myself included, and it is only when we step off our own that we begin to see the nature of the game. The Governor had it right, there were no marvels to be seen, but fear and his damn honor stayed his tongue. We find ourselves also tempted to pick a side and be welcomed into the warm embrace of one group or another but each are predicated upon the delusions of identity. Perhaps instead we should condemn both the use of violence (by Smith and Chapelle’s attacker) and the hurtful language that can cause real-world damage through normalizing dehumanization and indirectly prompting self-harm (Rock’s alleged ableism and Chapelle’s patent transphobia) while understanding the desire to react to a slight (perceived or real) and defending the human right to free expression. None of these issues is simple and none will be addressed by simple answers, but we should remember that simple sells, and in order to change the profitable status quo we must understand the true parameters of the game and point out the images and social conventions that keep us entranced make about as much sense as Chanfalla’s game.