#MeToo: My story (ies) of sexual harassment

October 19, 2017

I once had a movie producer kiss me on the neck.

How’s that for an opening sentence? Pretty good, huh? Got your attention, right?

It was at the end of an interview when, shaking my hand goodbye, he suddenly lurched forward and kissed me on the neck. (It may have been more of a bite than a kiss, but I don’t actually remember and don’t want to overstate what was a pretty bizarre sendoff.)

Afterward, the embarrassed publicist apologized, concerned that I would be writing about this. But I was a young journalist and had, as a woman, been raised to soldier on. So I said, wrote and did nothing about this. And I hadn’t thought about it until Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual harassment of, well, just about every woman on the planet opened the floodgates of ew-ness. ...

Men at deuce

October 10, 2017

In Anna Ziegler’s new play “The Last Match,” opening in Manhattan Oct. 24, she uses the rivalry between two male tennis players – think an American Roger Federer and an early Novak Djokovic – to tell the story of life at deuce, never advancing without retreating, never retreating without advancing.

Perhaps the reason the world is at deuce is because the people who created it – primarily men – are at deuce. (It’s the score in tennis, at 40-40, from which the player must win two points in order to win the game.)

Think about it: Most of the world’s great creations were made by men (as men like to point out as a way to explain their superiority to women). All but 49 of the 923 Nobel laureates have been men.

And yet – you know there’s always an “and yet” – they have consistently destroyed the worlds they have created. You could say that this is the human condition, but in fact it’s the male condition. ...

The good girl and the bad boy: King vs. Riggs in ‘Battle of the Sexes’

September 19, 2017

There are few more individualistic activities than tennis and few more fiercely individualistic people than tennis players.

“Battle of the Sexes,” which opens Friday, Sept. 22, gives us the iconic clash between two such individuals – tennis star Billie Jean King and former champ Bobby Riggs – in a 1973 match that was both a media event and a cause célèbre in the then-rising women’s movement. (King would win 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.)

At that time, there was no LGBTQ movement, and tennis players did not make the lavish livings they do today. The men were still something of barnstormers earning little more than beer money, and the women – whom they did not necessarily treat well – made squat. ...

The beauty trap, continued

September 18, 2017

Amanda Hess’ Sunday New York Times Magazine piece about our ambivalence toward anti-aging is but the latest commentary about the disconnect between ourselves and our bodies, and by “ourselves” I mean women and their bodies. It is a disconnect that affects men as well – though not to the extent that it does women.

Hess describes how Allure magazine has declared war on “anti-aging,” featuring Helen Mirren on the cover, draped in a boy-toy – the same Helen Mirren who played Cleopatra, of whom Shakespeare wrote, “Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.”

And yet, Hess notes, the same issue of Allure carried an ad for the new L’Oréal Paris moisturizer, part of its Age Perfect brand (of which I’m a big fan), featuring – you guessed it, Helen Mirren. ...

Trump’s endless blame game

July 27, 2017

How bad have things gotten?

So bad that people are now feeling sorry for Jeff Sessions.

The attorney general is the new President Donald J. Trump whipping boy. If only Sesh hadn’t recused himself from the Russia investigation, Trumpet wouldn’t be in the fix he’s in – so the twisted thinking of the president goes. In the world of the narcissist, the context has to keep changing to ensure that the narcissist is always right. Trump’s feeling the heat of Russkiegate but can’t blame himself for it and so has to find a vehicle, and a diversion, for his anger. Thus, Sessions is suddenly no good. I’m no fan of his, but how was he supposed to know when he recused himself that the Trump Administration would be investigated for its Russian ties? ...

He just can’t quit him: Trump, Putin and ‘Brokeback Mountain’

July 7, 2017

A shout-out to Frank Bruni of The New York Times for a truly terrific column about President Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin and the bromance of the century (although French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may yet give them a run for their money).

Brilliant though the column is in comparing Pump (Putin-Trump) to the great love stories (“Romeo and Juliet,” “Casablanca”), Bruni missed one, “Brokeback Mountain.” When the haunting movie of Annie Proulx’s sparely beautiful story came out in 2005, much was made of the gay love story. ...

The wayward gaze: Trump and the ‘other’ perspective

July 6, 2017

It’s interesting – and not entirely coincidental that Mika-gate exploded right at the end of Pride Month and in a summer that has seen the release of “Wonder Woman” and “The Beguiled,” a movie told from the female viewpoint. Culture continues to consider women even if President Donald J. Trump rarely does (though he did take a shine to blond Irish reporter Caitriona Perry.)

That he fails to take a shine to blond journalists who challenge him like Megan Kelly and Mika Brzezinski is more the material point. ...