We shoot down dreams, we stiletto in the back
By A tale of two Politico theater criticism narratives, with the more recent one first:
Which of course is a nice bookend to Politico’s greeting of another women’s campaign:
You can’t win.
It’s not that it’s only women who are subject to inane theater criticism. But it’s a mode of punditry where sexism and other biases are particularly likely to flourish, precisely because it’s devoid of any actual content. When you’re arranging carefully cherrypicked facts to tell a pre-determined story it’s almost impossible for stereotypes not to slip in there. Men can be just right — remember “Dick Cheney, proof that the very likable and comfortable in his own skin George W. Bush will be a harmless moderate, and for sure don’t look at either of their actual records in office”? — but women are unlikable or must be superficial because people like them, and there are a million more “heads you lose tails you loses” choices where this comes from. And there’s no reason to think it’s going to get better anytime soon.