Yesterday I posted a satirical editorial about TASM 2 actress Shailene Woodley. To me, it was pretty obviously satire, containing sentences such as: "See? The fictional, ink and pencil MJ is SMOKIN, while the actual human being just doesn't match up! WTF??" and "Don't let her walk around all normal looking between takes where she can be photographed, and fans can see the pics plastered all over the net, giving them a [frick]ing aneurysm!", as well as suggestions that Woodley get breast enhancement surgery in the middle of filming and so on. But some - actually quite a few - people didn't "get it".
Maybe this is my fault. I thought I had made the article disgustingly misogynistic enough that even the disgusting misogynists that prompted me to write it in the first place would know something was up. I was wrong. Sure plenty of people understood the context, but those that didn't blew a gasket, actually believing that I meant the things I wrote. It led to quite a bit of backlash, and although some re-read the piece after initially seeing red and changed their views, others - such as the lovely Katey Rich of Cinemblend - who I believe is far too clever not to have spotted the satire but chose to put a little question mark over it to add fuel to her rebuttal - continued to believe it was written in complete sincerity, and I was apparently the stupidest, most sexist human being walking the Earth. Then there's the worst part: Some believed it, and AGREED with it. That's pretty depressing, but is it my responsibility? Well, yes, but more on that later. It also spawned a few crusaders among our community, many of whom I suspect had never even heard the word satire until it was pointed out to them, and rushed to Google, desperately trying to match up the Wikki definition with the article they saw before them. Poor Ijack is still writing bless him! I see a lot of "oh, he's saying it was a joke now!" type comments. No, it's not a "joke", I didn't write it for shits and giggles - learn and understand the difference. It was written to highlight a disturbing problem, and one way or another, despite some controversy, it has done that.
Anyway, here's the part where I take some responsibility. I will not apologize for the content of the article, as I, and anyone who knows me even a little (I have actually always been a supporter of Woodley in the role for one), know the intention behind it. The thing is, I didn't think about WHERE I was posting it. Here on CBM, to put it bluntly, any idiot with a keyboard can, in theory, get his stuff on the main page through our "likes" system. Now I'm not suggesting that all of our contributors are idiots - on the contrary, we get some fantastic, well thought out submissions. But we also get the other stuff too; stuff not too dissimilar (believe it or not) from my editorial. So when it appeared on main I can understand how some, initially, thought it might be serious. I will also cop to perhaps making it a little on the nose. In hindsight (a great thing) I probably should have chosen a completely different subject - Paul Giamatti as Rhino for example - and put them through the same faux scrutiny. But, what's done is done, and like I said, it has actually opened up a discussion about how we view and speak about actresses in this manner.
You are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts, and the fact is, it was a satirical piece. Did it work as one? Obviously that's debatable, but even if you despise the article, I want you to know why it exists. I didn't bother responding to the various hate mails (and TWO death threats) I received last night, so I guess we'll call this one. Let's try to put this to bed, and for God's sake stop writing articles defending Woodley against and article that was defending her anyway! Try to be nice in the comments, try to be nice in general.
Tsíocháin a bheith in éineacht leat.