How Can She Slap?

About

How Can She Slap?! is a catchphrase stemming from an incident that occurred during the shoot of Dadagiri: Beat the Bullies, an Indian reality TV show that claims to be the "meanest TV show" on Indian television. In the show, contestants were instructed to withstand verbal and physical abuse. In one such episode, a "bully" Esha, the Goddess slapped television actor Ravi Bhatia. He struck Esha across the face and yelled, "How can she slap?"

Origin

The slap production began on June 9, 2008, with the first season being similar to college hazing routines, "where four daring students revisit the horrors of being bullied on the first day of college by surviving three quintessential Dadas in three rounds and compete against each other for a winning sum of Rs. 50,000 in cash." The four students basically had to endure abuse and Fear Factor-style stunts to win.

That year, an episode Dadgiri: Beat the Bullies aired in September. In the episode, one of the bullies Esha told contestant Ravi Bhatia to "go fuck off." He responded, "You go." Angered, Esha made an unscripted slap across Ravi's face, and he responded with an unscripted slap across her face. The show crew appears from off the sides of the set and then began beating him up, all the while he yells his now-famous phrase, "HOW CAN SHE SLAP?!?" Ravi was later hospitalized (shown below).

Spread

Although the incident happened in May of 2008, on September 3rd, 2008, TMZ^[1] published the video in the article "When a Man Slaps a Woman -- The Indian Edition." The clip of the fight never aired on television. Within days of the clips release, remixes started appearing online. One of the earliest, posted on September 9th, 2008 by EvilDaedalus, was "How can she BONK." The post received more than 757,000 views in less than 13 years (shown below, left).

Less than one month later, on September 20th, Urban Dictionary ^[7] user Flipyoutoo defined the phrase as "The appropriate verbal response after bitch slapping a chick who hit you first." The post received more than 13 years (shown below, right).

Over the next few months, the video started going viral, with people creating remix videos and YTMND sites about the incident. For example, on December 19th, 2008, YTMND^[2] user kuonji posted a page based on the "How Can She Slap?" line. The following year, YTMND^[3] user mucho posted a version on October 31st, 2009, which received more than 39,000 views in less than 12 years. Others soon followed.^[4][5][6]

Ravi Bhatia's Statement

Following the leak of the video, on September 3rd, 2008, Ravi Bhatia spoke with the Times of India^[7] about the incident. In his statement, Bhatia explains that while there was an agreement for improvisation between hosts and contestants, physical altercations were not included in the contract. He states:

This incident occurred four months ago. The participants of the show had to pass through the litmus test of abuses and spats. And it was all scripted! We were all given our parts, where 70 percent was to be said as is and 30 percent would be improvisations.

There was this girl called Isha opposite me who was supposed to abuse me, and I was to retaliate, but calmly. After a while, when it came to improvisations, I presume she was out of words and came and slapped me hard. I was shocked, and in the heat of the moment, I slapped her back. That led to the entire unit of about 70 people jumping on me beating me black and blue. It was a miracle in itself that I managed to escape from there.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References