Why can’t a man pay a woman a compliment?
Carey Mulligan has won a grovelling apology from the Hollywood bible, Variety magazine, after she accused its veteran film critic of patronising actresses.
He had questioned her performance in the movie Promising young Woman as a vigilante seeking retribution for the rape of her best friend by seducing men, then shaming them.
reviewer Dennis Harvey wrote that she ‘wears her pick-up bait gear like bad drag’. Having seen pictures of Mulligan in her fake nurse’s uniform with a pink, blue and blonde wig and Dracula make-up, i couldn’t agree more. a seductress? She looks ridiculous.
yet she interprets Harvey’s critique as saying she wasn’t ‘hot enough’ for the role, suggesting actresses should never be judged on their looks. Oh do get over yourself, Carey. Talented though you are, if you looked like a brick outhouse you’d never have had the career you’ve enjoyed.
Can i no longer say you were sublimely gorgeous as the dizzy Daisy in Baz luhrmann’s 2013 remake of The great gatsby? you know your beauty was key to the role.
While it may seem a minor squabble between luvvies, there is a broader, more important point here. Because her absurd kind of offence-taking is permeating our lives.
and if every institution buckles as Variety did with its apology (ruining Harvey’s professional reputation in the process) the situation will only get worse. The journalist has hit back saying: ‘ i’m a 60-year- old gay man. i don’t go around dwelling on the comparative hotnesses of young actresses, let alone writing about that.’
But Mulligan’s woke world in which looks cannot be commented on has led, perversely, to a situation where attraction to a woman becomes a distraction — a world in which chivalry, which has oiled social behaviour since Chaucer’s day, is wrong.
Does any man nowadays dare compliment a female colleague on her appearance? ‘i like your hair’ or ‘That red coat suits you’ are fraught with risk when everything is judged through the #MeToo prism of subjugation, objectification and victimisation.
a complaint of sexism to Human resources is always round the corner.
Compliments are prefaced by agonised contortions such as: ‘i’m not sure i’m allowed to say this, but . . .’ and if you dare suggest to someone they look tired, take cover.
it’s true, the workplace chauvinism and misogyny of old was often grotesque. But i miss the days when a colleague could casually say you look lovely or that he liked your shoes.
i happen to like it when a man notices and comments on my looks, Carey. although they shouldn’t overdo it — they might get a slap.