Losing My Perspicacity September 11, 2024

Why are we still idolizing Brad Pitt? The Dolphins stick up for Tyreek Hill; Disband whoever is in charge of break-dancing; Rebecca Cheptegei’s murderer has died.

Author

Julie DiCaro
September 11, 2024

Good morning and Happy Wednesday.

As I write this, I’m shaking in my boots ahead of the Harris/Trump debate. Not because I think Kamala Harris isn’t capable of wiping the floor with him, because she is. But Trump is going to do the same thing he did to Hillary, looming over her and trying to intimidate her with his presence, rambling on about god knows what, and making up his own facts as he goes along. And for some reason that I still can’t figure out, there is a significant segment of America that particular brand of nonsense appeals to. And after the debate, every network is going to talk to a group of “undecided” voters who are going to split down the middle, and everyone is going to pretend like all of this is totally normal.

It’s the normalization of this I dread more than anything else.

Today, Why are we still idolizing Brad Pitt? The Dolphins stick up for Tyreek Hill; Disband whoever is in charge of break-dancing; Rebecca Cheptegei’s murderer has died.

Let’s go.

Slate brings up a good question about Brad Pitt

It’s a good question, and one we could ask about multiple athletes, celebrities, and influencers. The piece does a deep dive on the allegations against Pitt, including the lengths Angelina Jolie has gone to to prove her allegations against him.

Acting as a Jane Doe, Jolie filed a Freedom of Information Act suit requesting that FBI documentation about the 2016 plane incident be released. The redacted documents included allegations that, while on a private jet, Pitt grabbed Jolie, shook her, pushed her into a wall, punched the ceiling, and poured a beer on her before pouring wine on his kids, hitting one in the face and choking another.

Of course, all three of the Jolie-Pitt daughters have dropped the “Pitt” from their names, though only Shiloh has done so formally.

It’s amazing that the story hasn’t ended Pitt’s career, just like the allegations against Johnny Depp didn’t end his. Instead, Pitt, who I once adored, has fashioned himself as some sort of feminist uber-ally, despite his decidedly non-allyish actions.

Pitt, though—he was a good guy, right? In 2017, in the same story in which Jolie told the New York Times that she—among countless other women in and out of the movie business—had been sexually harassed by movie producer Harvey Weinstein in the late 1990s, Paltrow shared an account of how, in 1995, her then-boyfriend Pitt had confronted Weinstein after the film producer had harassed her. “I think the interesting thing is that we, Hollywood specifically, but the workplace, men and women’s dynamics is being recalibrated, recalibrated in a very good way that is long overdue. And I do think that’s an important story to tell,” Pitt told CNN in 2019, sharing his side of the story. He has been applauded for standing up to Weinstein, but even after that alleged confrontation, Pitt went on to work with the producer twice more: first in 2009 with Inglourious Basterds, which Weinstein produced and distributed, and then in 2012 with Killing Them Softly, which was distributed by the Weinstein Company. (The Daily Beast reported that a source close to Pitt said Weinstein’s involvement, and their interactions, were “limited.”) What did Jolie, his partner at the time, think of Pitt’s involvement with Weinstein? “I never associated or worked with him again,” she said in 2021. “It was hard for me when Brad did. We fought about it. Of course it hurt.”

I often wonder why this kind of thing doesn’t matter to people in general, sort of like I hear people talking about why Donald Trump isn’t qualified to be President, but they rarely bring up the fact that he was adjudicated a rapist by a jury of his peers. Hell, I remember when Gary Hart had to drop out of the race because he was caught with Donna Rice sitting on his lap.

I’ll be honest: Ocean’s Eleven is one of my favorite movies, and I will watch it every time it’s on. And I know a lot of other people who feel the same way. And because that movie was so cool, so slick, that we’ve given the guys in it, who have created the adult version of the “cool kids table” in junior high, a pass on a whole bunch of things. Consider the sexual harassment allegations against Casey Affleck.

The women, cinematographer Magdalena Gorka and producer Amanda White, sued Affleck for $2.25 million and $2 million, respectively. Gorka claimed in her suit that the treatment she endured while working under Affleck was “by far the most traumatizing of her career.” Almost “immediately” after joining the project in 2008, Gorka claimed in court papers that “Affleck and other members of the production team made lewd comments, they discussed in engaging in sexual activity with [Gorka] and they suggested that she have sex with the camera assistant.”

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One of the final straws for Gorka, she claimed, occurred in mid-December of 2008 after the crew traveled to New York for the film and were put up in Phoenix and Affleck’s apartment. Gorka was given Phoenix’s private bedroom to rest, but claims she awoke in the middle of the night to Affleck “curled up next to her in the bed wearing only his underwear and a T-shirt,” her suit stated. “He had his arm around her, was caressing her back, his face within inches of hers and his breath reeked of alcohol.” When Gorka demanded that he get out of the bed, Affleck allegedly asked why, and if she “was sure,” angrily slamming the door on his way out when she rebuffed his advances.

None of this has stopped Matt Damon, infamously besties with Affleck’s older brother, Ben, from doing multiple projects with Affleck, who somehow made it through the #MeToo era with his career mostly intact. God bless Brie Larson for being unable to hide her disdain for Affleck when he won a Golden Globe.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the Clooney/Pitt/Damon dynamic, I think I’m done with this entire crew, who seem to struggle with holding each other responsible for the very things they claim to stand against. Not that I have any delusions that many people will be joining me. But violence against women matters, sexual harassment matters, even when the men perpetrating it want you to see them as “nice guys.”

Dolphins stick up for Tyreek Hill

Today, the Dolphins released this statement about the unncessarily aggressive police stop of WR Tyreek Hill and two other players.

The news today was the release of this video, which was supposedly in support of the police’s claims that Hill was going 100 mph when he was pulled over before Sunday’s game.

I would definitely want to see the radar gun on that one, because unless everyone around him was going over 80, that sure doesn’t look like 100 mph.

I have no idea what the break-dancing people are doing

How is this even possible?

You would think that being completely embarrassed on the world stage would give the World Dance Federation some incentive to do things differently, but this has all turned into a “Raygun is being bullied” narrative instead of what it actually was: A white woman appropriating an art form created and popularized by Black people, and then making a mockery of it in front of billions of people.

The man who murdered Rebecca Cheptegei has died

I don’t care to use his name, so I won’t.

Now, the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, has announced that [Cheptegei’s murderer] has also died as a result of his injuries.

“He died from his injuries, the burns he sustained,” Daniel Lang’at, a spokesperson for the hospital, told Reuters. Officials added Tuesday that police believe the attack had taken place because of “a dispute over ownership of the land one of them had bought.”

One of the most unsettling things about being a woman is that, no matter how often you work out, how strong you are, how smart or accomplished you are, no matter how many self-defense classes you take, you are always one disgruntled ex away from being murdered.

Finally, the debate has been on while I’ve been writing, and I feel like this tweet best sums up whatever the hell is was I just watched.

Have a great day today!

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