The Fatal Flaw in Elba’s Woke #MeToo Reply
So Idris Elba has been dragged into #MeToo debate.
Thankfully not because of anything naughty he’s done, but because apparently he’s woke or something.
While some male actors have been criticized for their comments about sexual harassment in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein fallout, one has shown an unusual combination of empathy and good sense. In a recent interview to promote the upcoming season of his hit show Luther, Idris Elba had the perfect response when asked about the #MeToo movement, the crusade started by Tarana Burke to give voice to those who have experienced sexual assault. The Sunday Times asked Elba “how hard it is to be a man in Hollywood now, with #MeToo raging.”
“It’s only difficult if you’re a man with something to hide,” Elba replied.”
It needs to be said that Elba is easily one of the most talented actors of his generation. His work on “Luther” alone (which has completely outshone higher profile shows like “Sherlock”) should be enough to cement him as a legend.
He can be charismatic, funny, threatening and warm all within the same scene. Elba is an actor of multivalent gravitas.
Similarly his statement on #MeToo is many things at once. For starters, it’s both true and false. First, a little worldview and historical context needs to be set.
Conservatives have had a conflicted relationship to this stream of disturbing sexual misconduct allegations. Mainly, because it’s mostly been a product of the Left. It started in Hollywood and has primarily involved Hollywood. And, as anyone who frequents HiT knows, Hollywood is essentially of the Left.
FAST FACT: Idris Elba worked as a doorman at New York’s famous Carolines on Broadway comedy club early in his career to make ends meet.
What’s most shocking following producer Harvey Weinstein’s fall isn’t the stories, but how shocked so many seemed to be by them. If you know anything about Hollywood you know that sex is a form of currency there. Not just currency but power, a way to get things done.
Using women sexually is an ancient Hollywood tradition. From Judy Garland to Marilyn Monroe, the industry has always been a haven of misogyny by any measure.
Which is probably one of the reasons industry types are so comfortable repeating cultural Marxist myths about the gender wage gap. In Hollywood misogyny is almost a baseline.
The good guys are the exception, not the rule. This is one of the reasons that the American right was mostly untouched by #MeToo.
Our current Republican president isn’t even really an exception to that rule. He may be executing what most of us on the right want, but he’s a recent ally. His life has been one of Leftist decadence. His real rise to fame was a product of Hollywood.
He’s even got his own controversial star on the walk of fame. But it only became controversial after he joined the GOP.
And here’s where Elba comes in. If he’s correct that innocence is the best defense against #MeToo allegations, then the Left should have been completely eviscerated over the last couple of years. Yet they took back the House in a gigantic midterm turnout.
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Because somehow the American Left always manages to blame the Right for their sins. The Mike Pence rule is supposed to be misogyny, and yet because of this rule Pence can never be accused of anything remotely related to sexual misconduct. Somehow they are always able to weaponize their own sins against the right.
Jonah Goldberg explained this perfectly in his “Tyranny of Cliches”
“The social justice syllogism goes something like this: 1) We are liberals. 2) Liberals believe it is imperative that social justice be advanced wherever we find it. 3) Therefore, whatever we believe to be imperative is social justice. And there’s the corollary: If you oppose liberals in advancing what they want, you are against not just liberals but social justice itself.”
Really no matter what happens the non-progressives lose. It’s heads they win, tails we lose.
Before God, before actual Justice, false accusations mean nothing. But on earth accusations are damning. Just look at Brett Kavanaugh. No evidence. But there’s been no mea culpa from the Left, even as several accusers admitted they made it all up.
What’s worse?
No recognition that their handling of his situation was a mistake. Because in the end it simply wasn’t a mistake. The Democrats didn’t win the Senate in the midterms, but that’s the only good thing Republicans can say about our most recent national election.
The miscarriage of the Kavanaugh hearings should have been damning. Julie Swetnick and Michael Avenatti are being investigated for lying to Congress.
And yet the left is currently ascendant.
Conservatives should, and have, rejoice that monsters like Weinstein have been exposed. Elba is right to say that the innocent should have nothing to fear. Guilty men like Weinstein should not be allowed to get away with rape. But it seems like the best defense in the court of public opinion is being innocent of both sexual misconduct and being Republican.
The Left weaponized sexual assault, turning victimization into a cultural monetary policy. And, of course, that monetary policy became a bludgeon to punish the right.
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At least we can take comfort in the fact that good men like Elba are in Hollywood. I pray they become the norm. It’s just too bad that the Left is able to capitalize on their own bad behavior politically. Because we all know #MeToo should have happened when President Bill Clinton lived at the White House.
It only happened because Trump is president. Which ironically enough is another of the numerous good outcomes of his presidency.