by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
You know, I try. I try to be as empathetic as possible to a wide range of people. But, alas, I *AM* a middle-aged white male. As such, I know that even though I’m going way, way, WAY out of my way to use the #MeToo movement as a major element in the novel I’m developing and writing, it’s probably a lost cause.
While I’m a big fan of both Olivia Wilde and Jessica Chastain and am trying to develop female characters they won’t hate, I know that in reality, all their complaining about how bad male writers are when constructing female characters isn’t completely in good faith. What they’re really saying is THEY want to write female characters. Men can suck it.
For instant — Ms. Wilde’s movie Booksmart. I was shamed into seeing it by Twitter liberals and absolutely fucking hated it with a white hot rage — and still do. I freely admit I was definitely NOT the audience and, as such, there are plenty of people (mostly bicurious teen girls in southern California) who probably see it as their generation’s fucking Citizen Kane. The reason why it evoked such hatred from me is Ms. Wilde seemed so determined to browbeat me, personally, as a member of the patriarchy that she was willing to alienate me out of the theatre. (Which she did.)
Some of my anger comes from how deep I continue to be in developing my novel. I really want to prove a point to both Ms. Wilde and Ms. Chastain that with a lot of work a man, can, in fact, not only write a novel with the strong female characters they demand, but also tell a great story that, like, entertains people without being preachy?
I have thought up a very interesting plot point in my novel that deals with the #MeToo movement in a very empathetic and compelling fashion. I guess I’m just a little annoyed that Twitter liberals will — should the occasion arise — not even give me a chance to prove that point because I’m a man. (And before you tell me to get my head out of my ass, let me say I AM a delusional jerk with a good heart. I have very strong opinions and some of them don’t fit the media narrative. Deal with it.)
But I really like what I’ve come up with. It’s going to require stepping outside my comfort zone by reading a number of books, but, in the end, I’m going to be very proud with the end product.
Too bad my gender won’t let anyone else agree.
