We have all seen the scene. Will Smith takes the stage and slaps Chris Rock, comedian and Oscar host. Like Sinéad O’Connor tearing apart the photo of the Pope or Kanye West tearing the Grammy from Taylor Swift, at that moment his career is shattered, but he does not know it yet: he is the greatest trainwreck of the last years.
What is meant by trainwreckoriginal title of the essay by feminist Jude Ellison S. Doyle, now a trans man and a non-binarythe translators of the Italian edition explain it Break up. Because we love it when women are wrong, just released by Edizioni Tlon: «Literally it indicates the railway disaster, combining two main aspects: the exit off the rails and the morbidity with which everyone observes the devastated remains of an accident». Yes, because this interesting volume does not just tell the cases of celebrities trainwreckand in particular those of women, but also us who watch and read the media that talk about it: which, explains the author,
“They wouldn’t exist without a bloodthirsty public.”
Let’s clarify it immediately: it is an essay on the sexist attitude of the tabloid press, social media and TV, so for Doyle “the trainwreck they are womenbetter if famous, whose life has derailed from the “normal” course, ending in a disastrous way due, for example, to alcohol or drug abuse, or to a sexual conduct deemed intolerable ».
It is not that men cannot be shattered “but to become trainwreck they have to sweat more: Chris Brown nearly beaten Rihanna; Mel Gibson has had to repeat any kind of ethnic and sexist offense for years ”. And, looking closer, Will Smith, in fact, had to lead his hands in worldwide and live. “Instead, try asking someone why they ‘hate’ Katherine Heigl, Kristen Stewart or Anne Hathaway,” Doyle wonders. “She is arrogant, unpleasant, she seems to want to please at any cost.”
The US edition of his book came out shortly before Trump’s election. What has changed today?
“At the time there was not even the debate on how women were represented in the media, then there was the tearful face of Hillary Clinton and everything has changed, now there is more attention. But we are still calibrated on the twenty-year cycle ».
In what sense?
“When my essay first came out in 2016, we admitted 90s-related errors, such as the cruelty to Lorena Bobbitt or Monica Lewinsky. Today, it is very fashionable in the United States to revisit things we did wrong in the early 2000s, such as the media crusade against Britney Spears. It is easier to recognize those mistakes, because they are distant: we do not remember who made them, we may have been children, so we do not feel responsible. Or we have changed, and we no longer feel the person we were when we saw the sex tape by Paris Hilton spread illegally. If our mistakes remain remote and in the past, they do not threaten our image today ».
Five years after Trump there is Biden, and a woman like
vice president. Is this also the sign that women always remain second?
“Hillary Clinton was unfortunate in many ways: in the early 90s she became the symbol of the ‘new woman’, who worked outside the home, who was ambitious, who had a career, who earned more than her husband, who kept his last name maiden. When she ran for the election, she really paid the price for voters’ anger at feminism or women. Kamala Harris is another policy that people have fair and bad criticisms about. Operating as a “black woman”, she too is flattened to a symbol. However, I don’t think she is the sign of the sexism of the times. Instead, it is the fact that in America we are about to lose the right to legal abortion. That there are many politicians who have histories of violence against women, not just Trump anymore, and that is considered normal. That feminist magazines and blogs have shut down, the movement has been wiped out. It’s really scary. ‘
Why do we keep tearing women apart?
“We grow up in a misogynistic environment. The behavior of women is always subject to judgment, they all shouted in the street, right? Your body is assumed to be there to be commented on, which is not the case with men. And what’s inside is also wrong: too many emotions, too much sexuality or, preferably, both. Do you have an addiction? Are you depressed or just sad for a man? Did you sext or are you a victim of revenge porn? It’s always the women’s fault. “
She cites many famous women, from Lindsay Lohan to Britney Spears, from Taylor Swift to Miley Cyrus. Who is the woman most abused by the media today?
«Very difficult to say, the“ bad guys ”of today are the heroes of tomorrow and vice versa. In the book, I spoke highly of Caitlyn Jenner, who later turned out to be terrible to the transgender community. Taylor Swift was considered treacherous, now everyone hands her back. The problem is not the famous, who have teams of press officers capable of fixing their lives. Every day we all expose ourselves on social networks: a tweet taken out of context can be used to ruin someone’s life, preferably a woman “.
At the Oscars Jada Pinkett Smith was mocked by Chris Rock: years ago for betrayal, now for alopecia. What is the line between satire and sexism?
“The funny thing about this story for me is that we all immediately talked about her husband and the comedian, and Jada immediately became the least important person in the story. I also fell into the trap: I was angry that Will Smith was suffering the consequences of a slap while some men in that room had never faced one for their sexual abuse. I was looking at the two men, not the woman who had been humiliated for a laugh. However, I don’t think we can establish rigid rules for jokes, it’s really very complicated, it always depends on the cases ».
How is it possible to trigger a real change that finally stops misogyny?
“Compassion is only possible if we have self-compassion. Only when we learn to accept ourselves as we are can we truly extend the same grace and understanding to others. “
How do you exercise the indulgence?
“It helps me to have a five-year-old daughter. I know that her heart is good, pure and wonderful, and I also know that she sometimes hits the dog or paints the walls. So I sit down with her and ask her how she made the wrong decision, because I know she didn’t mean to hurt, and then I talk to her about how she could do differently next time. As adults we are not treated like this, it is all punishment and guilt. But women are imperfect because they are human. This means being strong: being afraid, having defects, being weak or even, in the right conditions, capable of performing acts of extraordinary stupidity. And then, as if nothing had happened, go out into the world and act, in an attempt to be, every morning, the woman you want, without giving weight to the distance that separates us from our expectations “.
Source: Vanity Fair
