(ABC)

Kiss with a fist

The Slap aimed to inject some controversy into the day-to-day conversations of middle Australian families. Is it okay to hit somebody else’s kid? Is it ever okay to hit any kid? You can imagine the show’s producers huddled together, gleefully imagining the arguments they were going to start in living rooms around the country. The Slap may well have started some of those arguments, but only because it’s so boring to watch that picking a fight with your family suddenly seems like a much more interesting proposition. When it finally happens at the end of the first episode, the slap itself is disappointing – the kid in question is presented as a cartoonishly bratty nightmare of a child for the entire episode, and even people who aren’t in favour of hitting kids like me wanted to belt him by the time it eventually happened. Each episode focuses on a different person whose life is affected by the slap, but often the effect is so trivial it undercuts the very nature of the show. Half the characters are middle-aged married couples contemplating having affairs – which is the least interesting plot in the world – and after the fifth episode the slap itself is basically forgotten in favour of the consequences of their tedious infidelity. Then every episode ends the same way, with a deep-sounding song playing over the final scene as if it’s trying to trick you into thinking that you watched something profound. You didn’t.

˝

JODY MACGREGOR

Be first to comment on this article

Write Comment
Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*