If we’ve seen it once, we’ve seen it a thousand times: a male character — protagonist or antagonist — in a movie or television show commits an act of either downright malicious or inadvertently hurtful buffoonery, and gets slapped in the face by a female character. The unfortunate trope has become so ingrained in us at this point that we really don’t even think twice about it. But in reality, especially in today’s modern society, slapping or hitting is never okay, whether it’s a man slapping a woman, a woman slapping a man, or even an adult spanking a child — which is the point this video sets out to make.
And while it may be easy enough to brush it aside as comedic or dramatic device, the woman narrating makes a point in an accompanying blog post that women slapping men for entertainment value points to an underlying issue of sexism, reinforcing the stereotype that women are the weaker sex. It’s totally harmless because a woman could never actually hurt a man, right? LOL!
Either way, is this something we really want to be teaching to our children? As the video also points out, many animated films geared to children, including the wildly popular Frozen, feature female characters socking it to their male counterpoints. Slapping is lazy and inherently harmful, so maybe it’s about time studios and networks put this one to rest.
(Via Reddit)
