January 2, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The year 2017 was, without doubt, the Year of the Male Feminist—or more specifically, the year “male feminism” was exposed for the trite fraud it is. It began when the New York Times broke the story that Planned Parenthood donor, Clinton supporter, and film magnate Harvey Weinstein was a serial rapist who had been cutting a sordid swathe through Hollywood’s women for decades. Not even Weinstein realized how big the tsunami was when the story first broke, until he found himself forced from his own company and under criminal investigation. Then, the dominoes began to fall. One after another, the celebrities of Hollywood and the media found themselves outed as petty sexual predators.
Gallons of ink have been spilled attempting to explain why it was the Weinstein story that finally began the male feminist implosion. It’s been pointed out that the decision of progressives to give Bill Clinton a pass on credible rape allegations may have emboldened dozens of predators everywhere, since it gave them a simple, toxic message: If you hold the right positions on progressive issues, then you can do whatever you want. One feminist famously said that as long as Clinton kept abortion legal, women everywhere owed him fellatio. A lot of male feminists apparently thought that virtue-signaling on feticide was a small price to pay to exploit the women around them for sexual satisfaction.
It should scarcely have surprised anyone that the entertainment industry was so steeped in sexual depravity. These are the writers, producers, directors, and actors who create grotesque horror films infused with sexuality and carnage and television shows depicting the near-constant rape and degradation of young girls and women. These are the comedians who create sitcoms which regularly feature “daddy issues” and lovable playboys preying on vulnerable girls as punchlines. And this is the industry, of course, that has been knowingly tolerating and covering up such behavior for decades.
Back in 2011 already, actresses were coming forward with horror stories about the men of Hollywood. Megan Fox reported being heartbroken at the number of prestigious directors who offered to boost her career in exchange for sexual favors. Gwyneth Paltrow recalled the same thing. Worse, Hollywood-based career strategist Suzannah Garland warned the media that she was hearing “horror stories” from top actresses who wouldn’t speak out publicly for fear of their careers being torched. These actresses confided to her that they had been raped by major male stars and other Hollywood heavyweights. It would be another seven years before people began to take the rumors seriously—and considering what we now know about many top media figures, that’s not so surprising.
The simple fact is that the film industry treats beautiful women, for the most part, like commodities—and only a few of them become powerful enough to reveal the compromises that were demanded of them if they were to “make it” in Hollywood. Salma Hayek wrote in the New York Times that her “monster” Harvey Weinstein was always demanding “more skin…more sex” in his films, and threatened to spike a film she’d been working on unless she agreed “to do a sex scene with…full frontal nudity.” Hayek had a nervous breakdown before the scene, shaking uncontrollably and sobbing “as if I were throwing up tears.”
Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence tells similarly revolting stories, recounting how women and girls are examined like livestock for physical attractiveness. “A female producer had me do a nude line-up with about five women who were much, much thinner than me,” she told Elle. “We stood side-by side with only tape covering our privates. After that degrading and humiliating line-up, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as an inspiration for my diet.” A male producer assured her that she shouldn’t worry—she was “perfectly f***able.” Lawrence said she felt “trapped” because she “let myself be treated a certain way because I felt I had to for my career.”
The humiliating and degrading experiences of being a female in Hollywood, it turned out, were just par for the course. In order to shoot her first sex scene (with married man Chris Pratt), Lawrence revealed that she had to get “really, really drunk. But that led to more anxiety when I got home, because I was like, ‘What have I done? I don’t know. And he was married. And it was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in my stomach.” She was told it was okay but, she said, she “couldn’t tell my stomach that.” If only audiences realized what was being done to create the films they purchase.
The only evidence needed to prove that the Hollywood entertainment industry was willing to cover for their own—specifically, members of their clique with power, talent, and “progressive” principles—is the case of Roman Polanski, who fled the United States as a young director in 1978 after drugging, sodomizing, and raping thirteen-year-old Samantha Geimer. Since then, he has been accused of sexually assaulting a ten-year-old girl and four other children. Polanski has written openly of going to bed with young teen girls—under the age of sixteen—as a full-grown man, and does so unapologetically. Even so, when he won the Oscar for Best Director in 2003, Meryl Streep led a standing ovation for the child-rapist, and Harrison Ford personally delivered the fugitive his Oscar. When he was arrested in 2009 in Switzerland and the US demanded his extradition for his sex crimes against children, Hollywood celebrities demanded his release, including Penelope Cruz, Natalie Portman, Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, Harrison Ford, and many others. As Whoopi Goldberg callously commented, Polanski’s raping of a thirteen-year-old was statutory rape, not “rape-rape.”
Meryl Streep and others are angry and offended when people point out that it is nearly impossible that they didn’t know about serial rapist Harvey Weinstein, who now appears to have been some sort of grotesque Hollywood inside-joke. But they defended Polanski—who pleaded guilty—because he was a member of their set. Polanski was so pro-choice he reportedly demanded his young wife Sharon Tate—who was murdered by the Manson maniacs when she was eight and a half months pregnant—get an abortion, after forcing her to participate in unwanted sexual activities. None of this, apparently, was enough to get him condemned by the celebrity set.
The list of Hollywood celebrities and media luminaries who used their impeccable progressive credentials to prey on women and girls stretches for miles. Ben Affleck, a vocal liberal who is now facing multiple accusations of groping (including one instance he apologized for because it happened to get caught on tape), has bragged about raising his daughters as feminists, joking that “they’re a little young for a Gloria Steinem doctoral thesis” but that he’s doing his best anyway. (Presumably by protecting them from the news reports.)
Renowned TV anchor Charlie Rose held solemn roundtables with prominent feminist thinkers who gushed over his willingness to host such discussions as he nodded along gravely. In the meantime, of course, he was attempting to use his power and celebrity to harass young women into sleeping with him. Matt Lauer, who went after disgraced FOX News host Bill O’Reilly with ferocity, was outed as a serial predator who aggressively propositioned colleagues, had a button under his desk that automatically locked his office door, and came onto young women in an extraordinarily rapey way. Everyone pretended to be shocked—but reports of Friar’s Club roast of Lauer from nearly a decade ago, which included nearly every big name in the media, revealed that Lauer’s behavior was common knowledge.
Comedian Louis CK has spent much time talking about how awful men are and trumpeting feminism, even talking about how women have the right to abortion even though it “definitely kills a whole baby.” And then, of course he was caught sexually harassing women—although his calling Sarah Palin a “c***” among other things had done nothing to budge his popularity among feminist progressives before this.
Former comedian Al Franken, who stole a Senate seat in 2008, was a male feminist and even called himself a “champion” of women, and supported the abortion industry in gusty, sanctimonious tones—the tones of a man who simply cannot fathom the Neanderthals who do not support the rights of women. Then women began to come forward to accuse him of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior—including one instance with photographic evidence. He has now said he’ll resign, although he seems somewhat bewildered that everyone is making such a big deal about everything. He, like many others, apparently thinks male feminists are entitled to a few free gropes as long as they remain loud backers of Big Abortion.
None of these male feminists, when the year 2017 began, could have suspected that their careers would implode overnight. Many more are certainly beginning 2018 wondering when it will be their turn to be outed, and frantically thinking of ways to fend off the exposure of their fraudulent feminism. The old tricks—trumpeting the right causes—didn’t work for predators this time, and that means men who took advantage of abortion culture and progressive credentials to prey on girls and women will no longer be able to rely on the conspiracy of silence that enabled them for so long. Harvey Weinstein’s last, desperate attempt to virtue-signal came in the form of his promise to go to war against the NRA, and Kevin Spacey responded to revelations that he sexually assaulted young boys by belatedly coming out as gay. Weinstein was met with scorn, and Spacey was berated by gay rights groups. The old rules are no longer in effect.
Of course, the rules before the old rules, which demanded sexual fidelity, chastity, and chivalry, were mocked as restrictive and misogynist. They were trashed to make way for the Sexual Revolution and feminism, which — conveniently for men who wanted to sleep with dozens of beautiful women — showed up right around the same time. These men loudly supported the tenets of feminism while quietly practicing the more nefarious tenets — take what you can get, it’s free! — of the Sexual Revolution. And the abortion industry was right there to take care of any unfortunate offspring that showed up. As our society relitigates the Sexual Revolution and strains about for some way to force people to behave, perhaps we could give the rules we abandoned a second look.
