How About Men Just Step The F**k Off For a While

Harassers Won’t Stay Gone

Hey folks. I’m tired as hell. I just am. If you identify as femme or a woman, there’s a good chance you’re more tired than I am. This week (like every week before it), AMC re-instated Chris Hardwick as its host of The Talking Dead. Of all things, he was talking about a thing we literally just watched. This after AMC wrapped up an investigation into the sexual assault allegation against him. AMC felt they did all the appropriate things. Took him off everything. Hired a firm to investigate the claims. And when they were finished (i.e., breathed a sigh of relief), they put him back in his old role. Look, did Chloe Dykstra, Hardwick’s ex-girlfriend, lie when she penned her piece for Medium describing sexual assault? I seriously doubt it. It might change some for celebrities where the possibility of extortion is present, but considering 2% of all sexual assault allegations are proven to be fiction, I find it hard to believe there are that many unicorns running around when someone with a big smile gets accused of some predatory shit. I’m guessing the investigation landed somewhere between what was said and what could be proven, leading to this decision on AMC’s part. None of us should be surprised. But regardless, if Hardwick was truly innocent or got over on reasonable doubt (my vote), we’re all aged for witnessing this. Again. And again. And again.

This news comes in the same week that HBO came to a similar conclusion. James Franco was cleared of the allegations lobbied against him and will proceed with season 2 of a show nobody watched season 1 of. Across the workplace, across campuses, entertainment, the damn White House, more allegations come out weekly, damn near daily even. You can see the anxiety mounting for men all over who used to do whatever the fuck they wanted, and now do whatever the fuck they want except with more paperwork. Which leads to everyone’s favorite superhero Henry Cavill giving interviews about how the #MeToo era has made him cautious to engage with any woman for fear of being accused. As I think we can assume (hope) that Superman isn’t willingly assaulting people and broadcasting it, this projects an idea of assumed falsehood of the movement — that it destroys the lives of innocent men. That’s bullshit, but like hivemind, a lot of muthafuckas believe that bullshit.

But Wait, There Are More Reasons to Be Tired

And while we could unquestionably stay on the topic of sexual assault, harassment, or misconduct claims long enough take up all the bandwidth, let us not limit our scope. James Gunn getting kicked to the curb by Disney for his years-old, offensive and insensitive tweets. Josh Hader makes his first all-star game, which makes him famous. Famous enough for people to check his Twitter, where he was calling Black folks with a hard R, promoting white power, and taking aim at the LGBTQ+ community. Hader apologizes. Then he gets a standing ovation during his next home game appearance.

“Controversial”? That’s what we’re calling it now?

But There’s a Solution

There is a level of exhaustion reserved for new parents and ER nurses that we should all be hitting collectively at this point. But seriously, there’s a solution. Why don’t we take men off all the important shit for a while? Admittedly, I was gonna say take all the mediocre white dudes off of shit, since the “I was ostracized as a geek, so now I have all the Green Lantern rings” white dude fantasy seems to be the itch we just have to scratch right now. But Charlemagne tha Pauper still working. So, in the interest of diversity and inclusion, let’s say all cishet men. Its time to take a walk. I know, change of this magnitude leads to nothing happening. Like Congress. Though…the ask doesn’t have to be that big for Congress to do nothing these days. So let’s start with entertainment. We’ll call it a sabbatical. Tell your favorite male lead that they’ve worked so, damn, hard, that we just need to give them a break. We could start by sending Mike Colter on a vacation and letting Simone Missick’s Misty Knight take over for 13 episodes in season 3 of Luke Cage.

Let Nicole Yvette Brown get a whole season of Talking Dead, part 1 and 2 of Season 9. Give these muthafuckas leave, yo. I won’t pretend that women aren’t accused of problematic shit, but their batting average is way higher than ours right about now. Let’s give it a year. Maybe three. When the dudes come back, refreshed and ready to step back in, once we’ve assessed that nothing skipped a beat…we’ll give them something else to do. Someone’s gotta organize how we rinse and repeat this shit for elected officials.

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  • William is the Editor-In-Chief, leader of the Black Knights and father of the Avatar. With Korra's attitude, not the other one.

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