#alanrickman pic.twitter.com/4WXwnoUtM7
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) January 14, 2016
Earlier today, as you no doubt have heard, legendary British actor Alan Rickman passed away, at age 69, from cancer. Actress and activist Emma Watson, who had worked with Rickman on numerous Harry Potter films over the years, paid tribute to a man she had considered a friend, writing on Facebook that she felt
lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I’ll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you.
Watson followed up her tribute by posting a number of quotes from Rickman on Twitter, including the one above.
And that was all it took to rouse the vast internet antifeminist troll army, who took to Twitter to attack Watson for supposedly “exploiting” Rickman’s death to push her evil man-hating agenda. They called her a bitch, a feminazi, a whore, a tw*t, and of course an SJW; they dropped the c-word so many times I fear it might be permanently broken.
Never mind that the “agenda” she was supposedly pushing was in fact Rickman’s agenda too. She didn’t make up the quote; they were his actual words, from an interview he gave to Australian chat show One Plus One. Watson was remembering Rickman as the feminist he was proud to be.
Perhaps the most offensive Tweet of the day came from the unlovely and untalented “journalist” Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart. Several days ago, you may recall, Milo attempted to use David Bowie’s death as a way to get some cheap publicity for himself; he rather outdid himself in this department today with this insensate Tweet:
I told you feminism was cancer pic.twitter.com/syKFBkF3cG
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) January 14, 2016
Congratulations, Milo; you’ve won today’s Worst Person on the Internet award.
Delete your account.
They care so much about men they’ll use a man’s fatal illness and death against a woman who happened to have worked with him and who dared to remind everyone of what he happened to believe in. Shove off, a-holes. Alan Rickman was an infinitely better man than any of you and he had more intelligence and decency in his toenails than all of you put together.
He’ll always be Hans Gruber to me.
Milo is that toddler who hits you with a spoon to get attention. Shh, honey, Mommy’s making dinner right now.
Ever notice that even though Milo looks like Dr Who Matt Smiths chubby brother, he has a twitter photo that makes him appear like a bad guy pro wrestler?
My esteem for both Rickman and Watson has increased.
My contempt for Yiannopolous remains at levels best measured using cosmological constants.
Milo makes up a fake quote from David Bowie to piggyback off his death, feminists respond with head-shaking and mockery posted on our blogs.
Emma Watson reposts a real quote from Alan Rickman to celebrate his life, MRAs respond with mangry gendered abuse sent to her Twitter account.
But don’t forget, both sides are equally as bad and the real truth is somewhere in the middle! </sarcasm>
What a bounch of assholes. They talk all the time about Feminsts exploiting deaths but have no problem doing the same themselves. Also Milo? Fuck you.
http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd460/Pedobear2306/hulk-throws-bear.gif
I don’t even know what else to say.
@weirwoodtreehugger
I agree. That gif is pretty much sums this up.
My esteem for both Rickman and Watson has increased.
My contempt for Yiannopolous remains at levels best measured using cosmological constants.
(my NOT PLAGIARIZED comment.)
((because Robert worded so wonderfully what I felt))
When an MRA/man does it, it’s okay because he’s an MRA/man. When a feminist/women does it, it’s evil because she’s a feminist/woman.
Seriously, though, I spent some time on their forum to see what all the fuss was about, and they treat ultimate attribution error like one of the 10 Commandments of MRAhood. A man did something considered morally repugnant by any reasonable person? He is clearly a misunderstood lost soul who was driven to commit the crime by the women-folk. A woman forgets to pay a parking ticket? This is clearly evidence that women are despicable creatures and should have all rights stripped away.
Alan Rickman was a feminist. He was also a Social Justice Warrior. And also an angel, a ghost, and a professor of wizardry, among other things.
Milo Yeah-Nope is nothing but a cockwomble.
> Emma Watson posts a quote from Alan Rickman about Feminism.
> “OMG STOP PUSHING YOUR AGENDA, YOU FUCKING [slur]!”
I always forget that those of us pushing for our rights are just “pushing an agenda” or our very fucking existence is considered “political” or totally up for debate, but when someone asks men to not harass women for posting their opinions online, that’s fucking “ethics” in action, and it’s a “righteous war” and totes not a waste of time or an agenda, but rather defending the “Natural Order”.
Fucking disgusting.
I’d just like to point out a small cultural issue.
C*** is rightly considered sexist in the US because it is only ever aimed at women, in the UK it is an equal opportunities insult and can be used affectionately in ways that none of the alternatives can (“ye daft wee c***”). In some parts of the country “c***” is considered inoffensive compared to “twat”.
I’m not demanding that a US site take the sensitivities of its international audience into account, we’re mostly aware of the issue. But I use the c-word a lot and I get really, really tired of explaining why it is not sexist here whereas, for example, the ostensibly innnocuous “pussy” is way beyond the pale because it is either used to equate a woman with her genitals or humiliate a man by comparing him to a woman (the horror!).
I have censored my language so that you don’t have to, but reluctantly and in deference to your preferences. But as Louis CK points out, you’re making us think the word whilst being too prissy to say it yourself. If I was tackling someone for using the n-word I would use the word itself if necessary. Offence is down to context not the word itself (for example, “black” is not offensive but it indicates a racist mindset if used to embellish an insult). Refusing to say a word, ever, just adds to its power and undermines those who call out its misuse.
IMO, obv.
Thanks for the good work and all the belly laughs.
Hey dudes, calling someone a vagina as an insult is totes not sexist in the UK! In fact, we should all be calling everyone vaginas all the time in order to take away the power of the insult! Today in breaking news!
Are you sure that tweet is really from Milo? However can you possibly know that it’s him without the check-mark?
http://i.imgur.com/6v28AKW.gif
Jo,
There are plenty of people here from the UK who object to the word cunt as an insult. We’ve had this discussion before.
Also, just because it’s a common insult, doesn’t make it okay. “That’s so gay” was a really common insult among American teenagers in the 90’s. A lot of people who never considered themselves homophobic used it because it was just a thing everyone did. They later stopped saying it because it’s a shitty, bigoted thing to say. So, people don’t want you to use a term for a female body part in a derogatory way as an insult? Boo hoo. Find another insult. It’s not too much to ask and trying to find excuses to use a slur is not a good look.
Genn,
That is a massively insulting knee-jerk reaction which suggests you did not bother to read my post before deciding I was some kind of MRA wanker.
If you don’t read posts before deploying snark, how do you think you can possibly argue effectively with the enemy, let alone avoid alienating your allies?
If c*** is misogynist then so are twat and fanny (in the UK), and prick, dick and cock are misandrist and we are left with no cuss words other than arse or arsehole and they simply don’t have the consonants to do the job.
I have been considerate enough to censor my words in deference to the audience. Kindly be considerate enough to recognise that other cultures exist outside of the US.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/4723f05290f173c7a25fad4a1537e8dc/tumblr_inline_njbxcoY4lQ1qfu5ha.gif
So…something someone said made you feel demeaned and insulted due to context they deliberately chose to ignore?
I want to remind everyone that this video exists.
You haven’t been considerate at all. You’ve wafted in here to whine about put upon you are by being expected to not use a word considered a slur. You’re implying that we’re xenophobic against British people even though many of the regulars here are British themselves. You’re making assumptions that the rest of the posters are all Americans even though people from all over the world post here.
If you’re so considerate and deferential to our feelings, why even bring it up? Are you expecting a cookie for not calling us cunts?
FWIW, I’m pretty sure the guys calling Watson the c-word (or at least the ones I quoted) meant it as a the crude misogynistic insult it is in the US; looking at their accounts, most of them seem to be American; only one is British.
Calling, say, a male friend a “cunt” at the pub in the UK may be fine with your friend, but tweeting the word at a woman you don’t know is not the same thing at all. Even if she’s British.
I censor the word, at least in post titles, to make the site more SFW, especially in the US and everywhere else where the word is highly offensive.
I’d like to point out that it’s about 6 AM in London right now. It’s not impossible that someone who is either a first time or sporadic poster has decided to come here very early in the morning and whine about we’re all so mean to poor oppressed British people for not liking the word cunt. But it seems a little odd, doesn’t it?
Particularly when the context is a post about internet misogynists calling a woman a cunt for mourning her friend in a way they don’t approve of.
I do have to wonder if Jo is a troll posting from North America, looking to pretend to be chased away from feminism because we’re all sooooooo mean!
Just saying.
And apparently it’s almost time for me to get to bed, because I had to edit this post twice!