Member-only story
The Harvey Weinstein scandal was very profitable for news companies; similar scandals have raised the profiles of newspapers and journalists. The #MeToo movement — however noble its premises — is quickly devolving into a sham because of the logic of profit and power. Newspapers aren’t investigating, they are denouncing. Aziz Anzari, guilty of nothing more than being a bad date, has been denounced; others will follow. (And notice too that the Anzari story was ‘broken’ by a minor internet magazine: clearly trying to make its name).
#MeToo has become a new puritanism; indifferent to the moral ambiguities of eros; hypocritical in its willingness to divide humanity into the categories of fallen/unfallen; shallow its obsession with celebrity. It is a profitable puritanism: feeding the news cycle, and thus clicks: advertising revenue. Each public fall produces a round of commentary and counter-commentary (of which I feel I have no choice but to participate in — this instance).
The Anzari story should terrify us: it predicts a world in which all sexual disappointment and shame is categorized as assault; in which men and women no longer have to communicate, explore, or reflect — and simply have to accuse and then apologize; sue and counter-sue…
Meanwhile — what laws are being changed? Who is running for office? Who is on the streets actually trying to inscribe gender equality, tolerance, and justice into the fundamental structure of our society? I don’t know: because nobody talks about them.
