On March 10, prosecutors allege, a 26-year-old woman named Lauren Pazienza, of Port Jefferson, New York, quickly shoved Barbara Maier Gustern, 87, to the ground on West 23rd Street in Manhattan and then took off as the older woman lay bleeding on the sidewalk.
Gustern, a renowned Broadway vocal coach on her way to watch one of her students, died of the needless injuries. Pazienza, whom prosecutors allege had just argued with her boyfriend and was upset, then allegedly deleted her social media, turned off her phone and tried to go on the lam at her parents’ home.
Alas for Pazienza, cameras in the area of the incident picked out her face and she was recognized. And, on March 25, she appeared in court, charged with manslaughter. One day later, Gustern’s friends and former students filled a New York church and agonized over her death.
We point out this shove, which became a horrible crime, not to say that it is unique. Random attacks of all kinds are a terrifying reality of urban life. We bring it up in the context of an incident that occurred Sunday night at the Academy Awards, when actor Will Smith slapped the face of comedian Chris Rock. That aggressive act generated so many hot takes as to provoke nausea, most of which were designed to promote the agenda of the commentator.
Rock was not seriously harmed by the slap. Indeed, tickets to his upcoming concert tour have been rising in price, reflecting the uptick in his fame. And Smith didn’t suffer that much either. He was immediately surrounded by friends and his publicist, seemingly forgiven by Hollywood in an instant. Smith’s act was foolish and hubristic, but he’s apologized and both men will survive and prosper, we wager.
Not so Gustern, a fellow artist but not a celebrity. She died in the hospital in what was still her professional prime. There have not been so many hot takes on that.
Both incidents, it appears to us, were examples of people letting themselves get out of control, a single act of unpremeditated violence that spoke of extraordinary self-absorption. We cannot see inside the heads of either perpetrator, of course, to know fully what was going on. And opinions vary as to the validity of Rock’s joke on the Oscars stage.
But we cannot go around shoving or slapping people, either because they said something we did not like or were walking in our way. The person committing the assault rarely thinks of the potential consequences for the victim.
Both incidents are horrible. Only one of them, though, utterly destroyed two lives.
Smith and Rock remain very lucky men.
