Carlson
No doubt you recall how the media hailed Gretchen Carlson as the proverbial Joan of Arc of the #MeToo movement. This, after she forced serial abuser Roger Ailes to resign as CEO of Fox News.
I joined the chorus of those hailing her in “Women Complain Fox News Head, Roger Ailes, Has Dick for Brains,” July 20, 2016, and “This Hurricane Harvey Harassed Hollywood Hotties for Decades,” October 6, 2017.
But I sensed something was amiss when Carlson emerged as the self-righteous chairwoman of the Miss America pageant. Because she promptly announced the abolition of the swimsuit competition, the most titillating part of the annual pageant.
I joined the chorus of those protesting in “No More Swimsuit Competition for Miss America? WTF!” June 6, 2018.
That’s why this comes as no surprise:
Last week, current Miss America Cara Mund alleged in a letter to former winners that the current chairwoman [Gretchen Carlson] and CEO Regina Hopper ‘systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis.’
[Suzette] Charles, former Miss America 1995 Heather Whitestone McCallum and 11 other former Miss America winners have called for Carlson, Hopper and the current Board of Trustees to resign.
(ENews, August 20, 2018)
In fact, as of this writing, 19 former Miss America winners have joined in calling for Carlson and Miss America’s new all-female leadership team to resign. And here we all thought men were the problem.
Not to mention that Carlson herself led the MeToo mantra “Believe the women!” Therefore, taking her by her word, we’re obliged to believe her accuser. Which of course means that the only right thing for Carlson to do is resign … NOW.
Argento
Frankly, I never found Asia Argento a compelling MeToo victim. What’s more, I found Rose McGowan far more so as the movement’s femme fatale – a role both women seemed to be actively vying for.
Mind you, this is not to say I did not believe Argento’s claim that Harvey Weinstein raped her. It’s just that I got that politically incorrect feeling we all get when we hear a prostitute was raped.
Then came credible reports that she was cheating on her crazy-in-love boyfriend, Parts Unknown host Anthony Bourdain … when he committed suicide. This made the grief she serialized on social media seem all the more contrived.
That’s why this comes more as a comeuppance than a surprise:
[I]n the months that followed her revelations about Mr. Weinstein last October, Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser: Jimmy Bennett, a young actor and rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. She was 37. The age of consent in California is 18.
(The New York Times, August 20, 2018)
Sadly, nothing puts her hypocrisy and betrayal into perspective quite like giving even the predatory Weinstein just cause to call her out. Sure enough, he pounced, albeit through his pit-bull lawyer Ben Brafman:
This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy. … What is perhaps most egregious, is the timing, which suggests that at the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein.
(Variety, August 20, 2018)
Come to think of it, it would not surprise me if her hypocrisy and betrayal (of #MeToo and her boyfriend) did not drive the notoriously depressive Bourdain to kill himself …
In any event, these developments compel me to note that, in some truly exceptional cases, women can be every bit as abusive and predatory as men.
As it happens, I have lamented as much in such commentaries as “New Normal of Female Teachers Risking Prison to Have Sex with Students,” June 28, 2017, and “Sex Scandals? Hot Teachers Just Helping Schoolboys Think with Their Heads,” June 24, 2005 … when I still thought young boys would find these hookups more beneficial than harmful.
UPDATE
Sex, lies, selfies, and texts
August 22
Asia Argento says she did not have sex with then 17-year-old Jimmy Bennett, but a photo and various text messages between Argento and a friend tell a very different story … she flat-out says she had sex with him. …
Sources tell TMZ the [incriminating selfie] was taken after the 2 had intercourse.
(TMZ, August 22, 2018)
How’s that for a smoking gun! This clearly vindicates my damning assertions about Argento.
Moreover, I don’t see how anyone can have any respect for her given the way she’s now throwing her dead boyfriend under the bus. Specifically, she’s telling the world that it was Bourdain’s idea to pay this kid $380,000 in hush money because Bourdain feared the impact disclosure would have on his career. She’s a friggin’ sick psycho!
That said, am I the only one who sees the mocking irony in selfies?
People seem to take them only to share with the world on social media. But a selfie by definition would seem to be a photo you take to keep for yourself; you know, to capture yourself showing off in ways you’d only want intimate friends to see. But perhaps the more incriminating they become, the less narcissistic fools will impose them on the rest of us.
Related commentaries:
Gretchen Carlson…
Female Teachers…
Sex scandal…