Fox Television
Oh, “Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra,” you tricky bastard, you.
I had originally intended this post as a fun, side-by-side comparison between each slap (one of HIMYM’s favorite long-running gags): which one was executed best, which one gave the best ratio of Marshall’s glee to Barney’s fear, etc.
But alas it isn’t to be so. Because of some egregious racism (and generally shoddy writing), this episode doesn’t even get on the board. No awesome slap countdown like in the original “Slapsgiving,” no well-deserved cathartic slap like in “Stuff,” nor the fateful double-slap of “Disaster Averted.” And it certainly can’t beat the clamor of Lily, Ted, and Robin for the honor of slapping Barney in “Slapsgiving 2: Revenge of the Slap.” No, the joke’s on you, How I Met Your Mother. Because that racist piece of crap was by far the least entertaining of the slaps we’ve seen so far.
I mean, come on, HIMYM. Did you really think it would be okay to doll up your main cast in yellowface? In this day and age? I get that it was part of a gag, but there’s really no excusing it, and the level of ignorance it takes for a whole writing staff to sign off on it is quite honestly kind of astounding.
And even if I wasn’t offended by it, “Slapsgiving 3” was a sad imitation of an already-racist Tarantino homage to a kung fu flick. Its parody game was weak, especially when compared with a show like Community, which consistently cranks out much funnier genre-twisting parodies (“A Fistful of Paintballs” and “For A Few Paintballs More” come to mind, a glorious pair of episodes which emulated both a spaghetti Western and Star Wars in (almost) the same breath). HIMYM has nothing on Community when it comes to parody game; what a waste of racism. (kind of like Avatar: The Last Airbender, a film so bad that no one bothered to watch it.)
The best part of the episode? The fact that it got #HowIMetYourRacism trending on Twitter.
