Aurora Starchild
The View just made some very bizarre social commentary and now they’re being (rightfully?) blasted online. In a segment called “Boo Are You Wearing?” the hosts brought out children in costumes representing notable moments from the last year. One of those costumes was a kid dressed as an Oscar trophy with a red handprint on their face. They were, of course, dressed as the Will Smith Oscar Slap. And… it upset people.
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Boo Are You Wearing Started Out Happy
To start, all the hosts are sitting around in costumes. After all, it was Halloween. Then co-host Sara Haines introduced the segment. “2022 has had more than its fair share of horror stories and shocking moments,” she said, “so here to show off costumes inspired by this year’s hottest topics is our wardrobe supervisor Ashley Alderfer Kaufman.”
A series of adorable children walked out wearing some pretty funny costumes. There was a boy dressed as “The Raid on Mar-a-Lago Estates.” He was wearing a costume that looked like Trump behind a toilet containing a bunch of classified documents. Accompanying him were two children dressed as FBI agents. The boy dressed as Trump was smiling and being funny.
Next was a happy girl dressed as a Choco Taco. Then there was another jovial kid dressed as the viral video of Dr. Oz finding vegetables for his wife’s crudité. A boy and girl come out dressed up in hot pink Ken and Barbie outfits representing Margot Robbie’s Barbie film. A kid comes out dressed as a “car dealership inflatable green dancer guy,” weird, yes, but the kid is smiling and laughing. He represents inflation. It’s all super cute and jovial so far, right?
The Cringey Will Smith Oscar Slap Costume
Que the ominous organ music. Last, we have a child who comes out in head-to-toe gold. They are an Oscar award but really the costume is just a shiny golden hooded body suit. Peeping out from the hood is the child’s face, painted in gold. And on the side of their face is a large red handprint.
All right, so this year the Oscars made huge headlines,” says Kaufman. The Oscars music theme is playing in the background, getting louder as she speaks. “But it wasn’t about who won. It was about what happened to Best Actor, Will Smith, when he went up and slapped Chris Rock. Now we do not want to endorse violence of any kind. But we couldn’t help but talk about one of the hottest hot topics this year…. We call this the Oscar Slap.”
“Beautiful,” someone says. Hosts and audience members are clapping and laughing.
However, the child looks like they are about to burst into tears. At first, when they walk out on stage, they have what appears to be a faint, perhaps forced smile. But that smile quickly disappears and they’re standing there, looking terrified. Their bloodshot eyes are darting left and right and then their nostrils flare a bit just before they dart off stage as quickly as possible.
The View’s Segment Made Viewers Uncomfortable For a Reason
The moment is like a cross between a scene of spectators at a Hunger Games event and a bunch of people laughing at a minstrel wearing blackface. It’s obviously inappropriate, if only for the way that the kid modeling the costume looked so uncomfortable.
Further, the way that the hosts presented the costume just seemed so taboo. Yes, they gave a PSA that they don’t condone violence, but what they did was in fact violent. It wasn’t physically violent but appeared to be emotionally and perhaps psychologically violent for the child.
Equally important is the fact that this wasn’t in any way a funny memory for the people actually involved. Will Smith slapped Chris Rock after Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair, and that she has alopecia. Smith was emotional and overreacted, but the incident left his career in absolute shambles.
Smith was canceled after that. He was forced to resign from the Academy. He had project after project canceled or indefinitely postponed, including two stand-up comedies, one on Roku, and the other on Netflix. And though Smith issued a public apology, many people lost respect for him.
The slap was so wrong and taboo that it’s actually caused rifts in other celebrity’s careers when they mentioned it. Remember when Jimmy Kimmel asked, “Where is Will Smith when you need him?” That joke provoked a lawmaker to call the cops on Kimmel, because she thought he was threatening violence.
What Critics Are Saying About The Oscar Slap Costume
People have taken to social media to criticize The View’s choice to portray the Oscar slap moment in the form of a child wearing a costume. The show’s video of the segment on YouTube is flooded with comments.
“The Oscar Slap costume felt a little cringeworthy. It was in poor taste and the boy looked like he was in literal pain,” said one person. Many more comments agreed that the child looked uncomfortable. It was obvious. One person said that the child might get bullied going forward, which would be awful.
“I’m a long-time Viewer and did not enjoy this at all,” someone wrote. “I would not encourage anyone to do this to their kids… And the Oscar’s slap is just tasteless and lowbrow. Embarrassing that this segment was greenlit.”
“I Love The View. I never miss a show,” wrote another person. “Today, when I saw the child dressed as an Oscar statue with a slap mark on the cheek and saying that the slap is how the 2021 Academy Awards will be remembered. I was completely disgusted. That is nothing to be celebrated or chuckled at. We show our kids & others it’s ok to laugh at anger & slapping someone…”
