Yes, I mean the new film, Suffragette. Of course, it’s terribly worthy and gives us a picture of the struggle of the fledgling Women’s Rights movement—what’s not to like, admire and support?
It’s also a big dose of what I call Millennial Smugness. From the ivory tower of the utopian present day, pasty-faced, right-on Halflings can cheerfully ‘appreciate’ these historical struggles and triumphs whilst reclining in a comfy armchair.
Privileged fuckwits.
This is the same smugness that slings faeces at HP Lovecraft and his undisputed racism. The attitude, essentially, is—racism is a thing of the past, scum like Lovecraft should be erased from history or, at minimum, held in utter contempt. The reality is that Lovecraft’s racism is historical fact (he died in 1937); while today, racism is alive and well. But why should they address contemporary racial tensions when lazy, pampered Millennials can rag on a guy who died 80 years ago? Quite.
Likewise, Suffragette. We can look at this history from a smug, contemporary viewpoint. Sexism is a thing of the past. Except it isn’t.
Please don’t think that I’m anti the women’s movement. I’m a feminist. But my feminism is more First and Second Wave—not the sludgy, cloudy, politically correct, so-called sex positivist, neo-Liberalist effluvia we generally refer to as Third Wave Feminism.
We can see what Third Wave has done to the women’s movement since it took hold as the 1980s came to an end: the ultra-gendering of children’s toys (worse than at any time during my life); the Pink and Blue resurgence; the persisting social expectation that women paint and adorn themselves as decorative objects; sexist gender identity politics supported by bogus and largely discredited brain sex drivel; lately, the censoring of language in this hyper politically correct atmosphere, that seems to be erasing actual female biology; deluded, privileged old men thinking they can somehow define what womanhood means… etc. It’s a mess.
Suffragette does not show us how far we’ve come in this atmosphere. There’s no cause to congratulate ourselves. Anyone who believes that has their head up the collective arse of the current mainstream of our stagnating culture.
So, no, I don’t want to see this silly film. There are numerous books which deal with these issues much more comprehensively and informatively. Otherwise, keep your Millennial Smugness. We’re in trouble. Open your goddamned eyes and get real.