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It's an All-Hillary newsmix today, as Barack Obama's lead speechwriter gets his hand caught where it shouldn't have been, Kathy Bates seems to draw upon Mrs. Clinton for her portrayal of a Defense Secretary, and two women are frontrunners to replace Hillary in the Senate.
In his cups:
Hollywood director Jon Favreau's films, like Made and Swingers, often have a boys-will-be-boys attitude. Meanwhile, Washington-bound speechwriter Jon Favreau, no relation, has been caught in a boys-will-be-really-incredibly-stupid moment. The latter Favreau, poised to become President-Elect Obama's Sam Seaborn, was tagged in a facebook photo over the weekend cupping the breast of a life-sized cardboard Hillary Clinton. The photo broke in the Washington Post and has produced startlingly little commentary since then.
However, former Bill Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers has a few choice words on the matter.
My
friends from college and in the years just beyond can testify that I did some things then that I wouldn’t want to see on the Internet now. But I had a big job in the White House at a young age too; at 31—just a few years older than Favreau is now—I became White House press secretary. And I knew instantly that the rules had changed for me, that I could no longer go to all the parties of the people just a little younger than me, who had just a little less responsibility, and expect to be anonymous. Clearly, Favreau should have understood that too. If he’s old enough and wise enough and mature enough to write for the president of the United States—and not just any president but one who seems poised to take words more seriously than any since Abraham Lincoln—than he’s clearly old enough and wise enough and mature enough to avoid getting his picture taken behaving in a way that is embarrassing to him, his boss, the secretary of state–designate, his family, and, one hopes, a majority of 27-year-old males (though that may be too optimistic.) It’s indefensible. But that’s still not what’s bugging me.
What’s bugging me is his intention. He isn’t putting his hand on her “chest,” as most of the articles and conversations about the picture have euphemistically referred to it. Rather, his hand—cupped just so—is clearly intended to signal that he’s groping her breast. And why? Surely, not to signal he finds her attractive. Au contraire. It’s an act of deliberate humiliation. Of disempowerment. Of denigration.
And it disgusts me.
Oh, I know: If Hillary can get over it, why can’t I? Her spokesman, Phillipe Reinnes, tried to make light of the incident. “Senator Clinton is pleased to learn of Jon’s obvious interest in the State Department, and is currently reviewing his application,” he told the Washington Post in an E-mail. Obviously, she has no interest in making a federal case out of this particular incident, particularly as both the Clinton and Obama camps work on letting bygones be bygones. She has to pick her battles, and for her this ain’t a hill worth dying on.
But there is a larger issue at stake. At what point does sexist behavior get taken seriously? At what point do people get punished in ways that suggest this kind of behavior, this kind of thinking, is unacceptable? At what point do we insist there will be consequences? Clearly, that didn’t happen during the recent presidential campaign, when Hillary was—as I guess she is now—fair game. The press, the pundits, and the public could say things about her (“She’s a shrew!”) and to her (“Iron my shirt!!) that were over-the-top sexist—yet got almost no reaction.
Myers kicks it old-school, and rightly so.
Kliinton barada nikto:
Manchester Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw notes that in the new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, opening tomorrow,
The US government is represented by a badass secretary of defence, played by Kathy Bates, who does not believe in making nice with the incoming aliens, but rather kicking their little green butts. Very clearly, Bates's character is influenced by Hillary Clinton's tough act - the act she displayed in her notorious 3am Phonecall TV campaign and the interview in which she made a point of declaring that if the Iranians launched a nuclear attack
