Does the world need #Myturn?
Anything co-opted and endorsed by Hollywood is likely to get warped
‘Amessage from the President of the United States” flashed up on my screen last week. In the 12-second clip, POTUS – blonde hair coiffed to the point of absurdity – addressed the world from a throne-like chair.
“Happy Independence Day… to me,” dead-panned Robin Wright, the actress. Because this wasn’t Donald Trump at all, but Claire Underwood: the latest fictional female to assume the Oval Office, from the hit Netflix series House of Cards. And if the sentiment and those stony symmetrical features weren’t chilling enough, the words that filled the screen most certainly were: #Myturn.
Smart. Very smart. Since the airing of that season six teaser – the first of several that are planned around the hot new hashtag – #Myturn has been retweeted, “liked” and generally adopted in exactly the way the show’s promoters hoped that it would be: as the natural successor to #Metoo.
“It is our turn!” “Yes girl slay!” “#Myturn would have got Hillary so much further,” and “Get PAID, Robin!” were some of the euphoric responses online – this last one a reference to Wright’s public battle to secure the same salary as her former co-star, Kevin Spacey, when it emerged last year that he was being paid £60,000 more per episode. And with Spacey now ousted from both the White House and the show, after real-life sexual harassment and assault allegations, and Wright now top dog on and off screen, the teaser is a brilliant – if obvious – way of capitalising on both issues.
Maybe it was this obviousness that made me groan when I first saw the teaser. I do wish that every feminist hashtag didn’t sound like a five-yearold’s playground whine.
Also, do we really need #Myturn as a statement of intent, when that famous image of bandana-clad Rosie the Riveter flexing her bicep was first published at the start of the Second World War? Is anyone really still in doubt that “We can do it”?
We seem to have reached a low point in the world of facile feminist hashtags, what with #Nobra (by ditching our bras, in a way I feel certain I’ve read about before, who are we railing at exactly? Gravity and that misogynist dinosaur Isaac Newton?) and #Tweetyourperiod, where women are encouraged to “live tweet” their menstruation in a bid to “open conversation”.
Only I don’t want to have that conversation and I don’t know a woman
(IRL) who does. Possibly, we have more interesting things to discuss. Certainly, fourth-wave feminism is now confused about who or what to direct its unappeasable ire at.
But then I watched the Claire Underwood clip again, and if we are going to look to Twitter for our morals and ethics (and Love Island for our entertainment), then it could be worse than #Myturn.
It’s proactive, for one thing; moving away from the victimhood culture #Metoo has come to symbolise. Because, yes, as a movement founded by anti-sexual violence campaigner Tarana Burke more than 10 years ago, Me Too had the best of intentions, but anything co-opted and endorsed by Hollywood is likely to get warped. They are, after all, a uniquely selfish bunch. And although the hashtag has been a force for good in terms of fighting “toxic masculinity”, it has also highlighted the rise of toxic femininity – and the women who seek “empowerment” (usually of a monetary or PR kind) through victimhood.
Whether #Myturn gives House of Cards a bump in viewing figures remains to be seen. But as one LA scriptwriter friend points out: “It’s a risky hand to play since you’re actively not allowed to portray ‘evil’ women on screen in the weird current climate.”
So this means that, as a woman who is finally getting “her turn” as the 47th President of the United States, cold and scheming Claire Underwood may no longer be allowed to come out with lines like: “You don’t have to mean it, you just have to say it”; or, indeed, tell pregnant employees: “I’m willing to let your child wither and die inside of you if that’s what’s required.”
No, she’ll have to be a force for good, just as all women are; making reparations to the marginalised and stigmatised, and advocating the countrywide capital punishment of wolfwhistlers. And if the writers do go down that route, I won’t be the only one switching off.