BEN SELLS JUSTICE LEAGUE, HIS OWN FEMINIST GROWTH
Ben Affleck stumbles with the best and worst of them with all the news of Hollywood groping, including his own. He’s currently out and about promoting Justice League. Affleck recently was on Colbert’s the Late Show. Stephen Colbert went right ahead and asked him about his ties to Weinstein and the problematic Hollywood’s predator challenges. He also asked Affleck about his own groping issues. This happens during the second half of the interview. Before we get to our Hollywood homeboy’s response, let’s chat about the feedback from the audience when Stephen Colbert brings up the topic of Harvey Weinstein.
PUBLIC GROANS OVER GROPING, BUT WANTS MORE AND MORE
People seriously groan. Perhaps they groan because Harvey Weinstein is abhorrent. That is probable. But it can also be absolute uneasiness. Like, hey uhh, yeah why the heck did Colbert go there? But isn’t that one of the challenges here? This anticipation of uneasiness? The safeguarding of hey let’s be cool and nice here, above all that develops the familiar carpeting that everything gets swept under? Affleck’s response is a likeness of that too. He starts with a light joke. A joke. Affleck says, “This is a comedy show, correct?”
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AFFLECK STUMBLES, BOLDLY ANSWERS COLBERT WITH CANNED RESPONSES
Nonetheless, to be reasonable, Ben does not scurry away from the discussion, but he goes on to talk about his own understandings of the dynamic, including male privilege, and he gets detailed talking about how male privilege disadvantages women in general:
“I didn’t understand what it’s like to be groped, to be harassed, to be interrupted, talked over, paid less, you know, pushed around, belittled: all the things that women deal with that, for me as a man, I have the privilege of not having to deal with.”
GOT PEGS HOLLYWOOD PERFECTLY, A GIRL HAS NO NAME
A lot of that quote from Affleck makes it sound like some people have been talking to Ben about this. Maybe they’re trying to teach him? Or maybe Ben’s is just getting prepped well for these sound bites when he makes appearances, especially for promotion. At least he knows how to do that right. We think. Until it comes out that he has an ear piece with an assistant feeding him his lines. You want to give someone the benefit of the doubt, for sure.
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