You probably heard about this awful interview with the cast of the upcoming Fantastic Four. Within a short space of time, it got incredible horrible.
As The Mary Sue reports:
If you don’t want to sully your day by watching the clip, it features the interviewers being intentionally ignorant about Sue and Johnny Storm’s familial relationship (“you’re black; how does that happen?”); berating the actors for not watching the movie, and criticizing [Kate] Mara’s short hair cut (apparently she was “way, way hot” before). The clip ends with Mara being asked if the hair comment made her uncomfortable, and Rickman assuring her, “I’m a toe guy, and your toes are fine.”
The cast were, to say the least, unimpressed. The boring “shock jocks” are shrugging at people’s responses, naming the film “hipster” and displaying all other manner of fratjock bullshit a lot of us are used to.
But one of the station’s hosts issued this statement to Buzzfeed in response (at bottom of article). In particular this part made me tilt my head. (My emphasis because goddamn.)
My partner’s (Southside Steve) [Rickman] conversation about Kate’s hair is something that came up while Michael B Jordan took a phone call so I think they were kind of just going back forth in a playful way. As for him complimenting her toes and why people are upset about that…sorry…no idea. Steve likes girl’s toes. People should be appreciative when they get complimented. Those that are upset on Twitter I guess don’t get enough of them. Who knows?
Oooooh boy.
First, notice assertions of it being “playful”, that it was just “complimenting” – downplaying the impact it had on both Mara and anyone else. Their feelings and interpretations are dismissed or awfully labelled as some kind of weird grudging response to not getting “compliments”. Because, yes, we all want creepy men telling us how toes makes their boners happy.
Dear cis dudes: Detailing what makes Captain Boner stand at attention is pretty much the least interesting thing in the world to strangers; it’s especially not interesting, at best, or horribly invasive, at worst, to the people you’re attracted to. “X attracts me” is like an unsolicited dick pic. Stop doing that. No one asked.
This is made worse when the person you’re telling this to can’t really leave the room and can offer no response, other than be a sexy* blank canvas on which you feel entitled to smear your boring boner details all over. No one is saying you’re not allowed to find different aspects of people attractive; but, holy fuck, maybe consider the context in which you discuss that? I know a lot of men feel the world is their playground and waiting with bated breath to hear about their latest boner escapades, but I assure it is not.
Please, cis dudes. Stop.
But now we come to the real killer sentence: “People should be appreciative when they get complimented.”
Yes.
People should be appreciative when they get complimented
Yes, he said that.
People should be appreciative when they get complimented
He really said that.
By “people”, he means “women”, more than likely. Notice again that by merely asserting it is a compliment, it just is one. Fuck your views or how you took it; Mr Man intended it as compliment and, regardless of time, delivery, context, words used, it is damn well a compliment. And if you don’t like it, you’re being uppity!
Please note: This is the exact same mindset that goes into catcalling and street harassment. “But she’s hot!” comes the excuse, as if it’s a woman’s fault you’re attracted to her and you have no willpower that you just have to become a jackass. It’s as if being attractive (to you) is a natural law that dictates men must dismiss decency and reduce women to fuckability. Notice agency is removed when men treat women this way: “She’s no longer a full being, she’s an entity that I want to fuck.” (Sometimes we do want that from our partners or certain people; but it’s contextual and still premised on respect for the other person. Even when we are “reduced” to fuckability, we can, and should, do so with respect.)
This removal of women’s agency, of personhood, is clearly on display in this entire response, as any thought to what other people were experiencing – notably what a woman was experiencing – is shrugged off as irrelevant or mistaken because a man says so. Because a man intended otherwise.
This is nothing new. Women experience this every day. Women and those of us who are tired of our loved ones experiencing this aren’t shocked by it, we’re bored of it. And we want it to end. “Shock jocks” aren’t shocking; they’re so, so boring. I’m tired of people using “edgy” or “shocking” as an excuse to perpetuate bullshit so many of us are trying to erase as acceptable; the irony is we know this is status quo, even if these boring shock jock types and their audience think otherwise – after all, we’re not the ones with the big radio show interviewing Hollywood stars.
Nobody’s impressed cis dudes. Nobody cares about your boner.
The best response I ever heard to, “It’s a compliment!” was, “If the target of your ‘compliment’ feels threatened, you’re doing compliments very, very wrong.”
Nobody cares about your boner.
I feel like this needs to be an animated and flashing banner.
Yeah, not going to damage my brain any further by watching that clip. (Thank you, Carolyn Cox ) Because, as you note: Goddamn.
In culture X, when you decline lovely gift Y, it’s an horrible insult.
“Hey, you’re face is really punchable. It makes my fists tingle when I see it. Oh, I’m a boxer, right? I love punching things. It’s a compliment! Don’t worry, I’m not going to punch you, heh, unless you really want me to, I’m always down for a bit of Queensberry Rules after I’ve had a few, know what I mean? I’m complimenting you, Jesus! No need to get upset or anything!”