Sensei with the reading-glasses stare.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Warner Bros., Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images
Did Sabrina Carpenter know she was creating the most culturally significant slap since Will Smith’s when she released “Nobody’s Son”? The sixth track on Man’s Best Friend, with its indelible “That boy is corrupt (POW!)” in the bridge, is a gift to fan-edit TikTokers the world over, who have used it on everyone from Jeremiah Fisher them Tony Soprano them George W. Bush. Skit queen that she is, it was only natural that Carpenter would apply some slap-happy physical comedy to her performance of the song on last weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live. But by giving the number a karate motif, she committed a big faux pas: shoes on the mat!
In the performance, Carpenter has styled the set like a traditional dojo and sings in a white dotted robe and black belt, all leading up to a literal punch line when she breaks a couple of wooden blocks and kicks a guy in the balls. Fellow icon and musical artist Rina Sawayama, who is Japanese and British, made a crucial observation about the set in her Instagram Stories: “big love to Sabrina <3 but fellow artists creative teams ... if we are clearly referencing a culture please can you do so with the research, respect and care it deserves," she wrote. "Shoes on tatami is jail." Sawayama zooms in on their feet, revealing that yes, the background fighters are wearing shoes on the tatami. The sport is typically practiced barefoot, especially when performed on tatami mats, which can be damaged by shoes. (For what it's worth, the footwear appears to be taekwondo shoes.)
It’s a fair point from Sawayama, and it’s also, weirdly, the second time in a 30-day span that a wise diva has told a lovable jester to take their shoes off on a dojo’s mat. This lesson was just taught to us by Benicio Del Toro’s Sensei Sergio, the best character in One Battle After Another, in a scene in which Leonardo Di Caprio’s panicked stoner, Bob, scrambles into his karate studio. “Shoes on the mat!” Sensei says, and it’s probably the closest he ever comes to raising his voice in the whole movie. It’s one of many small moments of clarity from the good Sensei, along with “No fear, just like Tom fucking Cruise,” “I’ve got a little Latino Harriet Tubman situation going on at my place,” and, of course, “A few small beers.” Carpenter’s easily avoidable slipup is an example of why we must all ask ourselves, every day, WWSSD: What Would Sensei Sergio Do?
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