The indiscriminate hounding of men has gone too far
In a week that began with Blue Monday, reputedly the most miserable day of the year, those of us inclined to SAD (seasonal affective disorder) huddle around our lightboxes, soaking up rays that are “almost identical to sunlight”, in the way that marge is almost identical to butter.
Or we may lose ourselves in a box set. At Pearson Towers, the comfort comedy of choice is Parks and
Recreation. This blissful American masterpiece records the antics of a group of town hall officials in Indiana as they try to make their community a better place. Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) is the perky Democrat idealist while her boss, Ron Swanson, is a guns, whisky and red-meat Republican.
The cast of characters is diverse yet in no way worthy. Sometimes it seems there is an unwritten (and patronising) rule in British television to make supporting Asian characters into saints. But in Parks and Rec, Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) is a preposterous, under-achieving apparatchik celebrated (in his own mind) for unmatched entrepreneurial skill. That’s when the pint-size Indian Lothario isn’t making excruciating, gauche remarks to women. Think of whatever it was they accused Toby Young of, multiply the cringe factor by 100 and you get close.
Except that, unlike Toby Young, Tom doesn’t get publicly crucified for being a bit of a jerk. The word I would use to describe Parks and Recreation is merciful. People are deluded, the show insists. Sometimes they do and say stupid or hurtful things, but if they are fundamentally decent they will be forgiven and get another chance.
How unlike real life, where Ansari just became the latest male star to be accused of sexual misconduct.
The website Babe published an article entitled “I went on a date with Aziz Ansari. It turned into the worst night of my life”. A young woman given the alias “Grace” went to an awards ceremony in LA with her then boyfriend, but soon switched her attention to the “major celebrity”.
At first, Ansari ignored her but they bonded over a vintage camera. When they both got back to New York, Grace was excited to be invited on a date, but it didn’t go as she hoped.
Ansari offered her white wine (“I prefer red”). They had consensual oral sex, but she alleges that he ignored her requests to slow down. He called her a cab. Grace texted: “Last night might’ve been fun for you, but it wasn’t for me. When we got back to your place, you ignored clear non-verbal cues… You had to have noticed I was uncomfortable.” Ansari reportedly responded: “Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I’m truly sorry.”
It’s not impossible, I reckon, that Grace hoped to become the girlfriend of a celebrity. What she experienced was romantic disappointment, not sexual assault.
What happened to shouting: “Oi, get off me!”? This is no longer considered appropriate advice by a younger generation of women. The #Metoo movement believes in calling out men for anything from gross predatory behaviour to infringements so minor they are barely discernible to the naked eye. Grace felt entitled to shame Ansari, one of Hollywood’s few Muslim stars, a man who has repeatedly spoken out against creepy chauvinists, and quite possibly end his career. Her 3,000-word accusation is more akin to revenge porn than a plea for justice.
Replacing one kind of unfairness with another does not feel like progress. When a group of French women, led by Catherine Deneuve, wrote a letter to a newspaper claiming that men were becoming the victims of “media lynchings” and upholding male “freedom to pester… rape is a crime but insistent or clumsy flirting is not an offence”, they were furiously shouted down on social media.
“Their interiorised misogyny has lobotomised them,” claimed Asia Argento, an actress who was abused by Harvey Weinstein. Or maybe the Frenchwomen simply fear that the new “puritanism” will stamp out the dance of attraction between the sexes leading to the joyless, prescribed procreation we saw in the acclaimed TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Ironically, the feminist heroine and great novelist (Atwood wrote a book called Alias Grace, oddly enough) is the latest person to be excoriated by the Twitter mob for holding incorrect views on the potential drawbacks of #Metoo.
When Atwood speaks, we should listen. She has spent a lifetime writing about the insidious threat of tyranny. Her position is that “women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones. They’re not angels, incapable of wrongdoing. If they were, we wouldn’t need a legal system.”
And so say all of us. At least those of us who want our sex to be seen as fair-minded and capable of rational judgment. By joining in the indiscriminate hounding of men, we play straight into the hands of womenhaters looking for any excuse to deny us positions of responsibility.
Atwood’s critics claim she is letting down younger, less powerful women. On the contrary, she is using her formidable, fearless intellect to protect them from that misogynistic future foreshadowed in her darkest fiction.
Let the predators go to jail, but let Aziz Ansari keep his career. Let “Alias Grace” reflect on whether romantic humiliation really equals “the worst night of my life”.
In 2018, a spirit of vengeance is abroad and the quality of mercy is strained. But mercy, as Shakespeare said, is twice blessed. It blesses her that gives and him that takes. Me, I’m off to watch Parks and Recreation.