John Russell Houser, who gunned down 11 moviegoers at a showing of Trainwreck in Lafayette, Louisiana Thursday night, killing two young women, was a volatile, violent, woman-hating, anti-Semitic, far-right loser given to dark and bitter diatribes against what he saw as cultural “immorality.”
It’s a safe bet that if Houser had stayed for the entire showing of Trainwreck, instead of pulling out his gun, he would not have enjoyed the film, a comedy about a young woman living an unapologetically “promiscuous” life in New York city, written by and starring Amy Schumer, a feminist comedian famous (or infamous, depending on whom you’re talking to) for her frankly sexual humor.
A more important question: Did Houser deliberately target viewers of Trainwreck as a sick protest against its “permissive” politics? And if so, was he inspired by attacks on the film from right-wing media and misogynists online?