‘The View’ Thought Will Smith’s Oscars Slap Would Make a Good Halloween Costume for a Kid

The View, that always reliable bastion of daytime television excellence, reached a new peak Monday, Oct. 31, by trotting out a child dressed as Will Smith’s infamous Oscars slap for Halloween. 

The “bit” was part of the show’s “Hot Topics” segment, during which The View‘s wardrobe supervisor, Ashley Alderfer Kaufman, narrated a little Halloween pageant with kids dressed in costumes inspired by various newsworthy events during the year. Most of them were pretty innocuous: two FBI agents and a pile of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago; Dr. Oz shopping for crudités; Margot Robbie and Ryan Gossling in those stills from the Barbie movie; and an inflation monster.

But Kaufman really did save the absolute wildest costume for last: A young boy dressed as an Oscar statue, full gold body suit, face painted gold, except for a bright red hand-print across his cheek to commemorate Smith slapping Chris Rock at this year’s Oscars.

As the costume was trotted out, Kaufman insisted, “We do not want to endorse violence of any kind but we couldn’t help but talk about one of the hottest topics of this year.”

Now, look, we’re not gonna get all preachy and pretend “The Slap” wasn’t the insane, kinda terrifying, kinda hilarious moment that makes for a pretty solid pop culture Halloween costume — for an adult. And in fact, if you were a grown-ass person, and were going do it, dressing up as an Oscar statue with a hand-print is probably the least offensive way to do it. But boy, it seems like the folks at The View should’ve at least given a second thought to putting a literal child with a fake slap imprint on his face on national television as a bit.

Or, maybe they did and still “couldn’t help” themselves.