It’s funny when “girls who hate other girls” for “acting like girls” co-opt the aggro stance of feminism and then fail with spectacular fanfare trying to convince the rest of us that they are, indeed, great lovers of women. Helen Mirren, ladies and gentlemen.
“I actually won my first Golden Globe for something called Losing Chase. Kyra Sedgwick and me fell in love with each other, and it was a lovely piece about women loving women. In my heart of hearts I love women more than I love men. I mean sexuality aside — I’m heterosexual.” She pauses to rewind.
Moments later,
“In a rape case the courts in defence of a man would select as many women as they could for the jury, because women go against women. Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don’t know. But other women on a rape case would say she was asking for it. The only reason I can think of is that they’re sexually jealous.”
I wonder if it ever occurs to “feminist” misogynists that if almost every woman they interact with responds to them with similarly raised hackles, it might be prudent to examine oneself rather than make sweeping pronunciations on the nasty nature of female communion. It’s you, sweetheart. Not the rest of the world.
The writer at Jezebel, Jessica, relays with understandable horror how the interviewing writer finds herself hypnotized into complacency rather than apprehension by a bizarrely seductive Mirren. It’s this hypersexualized exchange neutered of any real eroticism, which ultimately leaves you with only this little performance of power play that feels sorta filthy from a journalistic and humanistic standpoint.
When Mirren remarks that she prefers her interviewers to be male because of the “mean-spirited bitches” she finds typical to their lady counterparts, she may as well be stroking the broad’s face and cooing, “but I can tell you’re not like those other mean girls, right?” The rest of the interview reads like a creepy recital to prove just that, and to secure the trophy of Mirren’s paternal approval. That would be what my main man Mystery would call a “total neg.”
I find it all sort of delightfully dirty in the way that I, too, am no slouch when it comes to flirting with the ladies. Flirting is indeed an art, platonic flirting perhaps most of all. The subtle difference between what I do and what Mirren does makes all the difference; one is a manipulative means of exerting control, and the other is a playful nod to the theatre of interpersonal power dynamics, an imagined realm in which neither party assumes any sort of natural imperial authority over the other. The endgame is intimacy, not sovereignty.
That’s a lesson that both Mirren and the gloriously inept seduction community at large have yet to glean from the Masters like Mystery; stop taking yourself so fucking seriously. It’s called The Game because–hold on to your giant fuzzy tophats–it’s just a motherfucking game. You might rope in one rube for one night (or one interview) every now and again, but until you use your imagined powers for playful good and not self-congratulatory evil, the rest of us watching from the sidelines can spot what you’re up to from a mile away: some seriously sleazy shit.
