Douglas is Cancelled

Apologies, fellow boomers. I do think that Douglas – and all those millions of Douglases who’ve told a sexist joke at a woman’s expense – should be cancelled.

It’s taken me a while to arrive at this conclusion. Although the show “Douglas is Cancelled” came out six months ago, I’ve only just caught up with it during some holiday-viewing. At first, too, I confess that I felt sorry for poor, old, clueless Douglas.

For initially I related to him, and his situation. As a senior citizen fumbling around on social media, I’ve been shocked to witness entire reputations of people I’ve long admired and respected, unravel and be completely annihilated because of one statement, one controversial opinion. At the local swimming pool, I’ve clustered together with similar-aged women in tankinis to despair about the rise of individualism, identity politics and populism. After all, I’m a lifetime member of the counter-culture generation, and used to heatedly and minutely debating everything, so naturally I’m at odds with the fast shut-down nature of the cancel culture.

Therefore I laughed my way through the first two episodes of “Douglas is Cancelled”, enjoying the parodying of the precious sensitivities of the young, as in daughter Claudia and assistant Katerine, and the oblivious stupidity of the older men such as agent Bently and Douglas himself. I loved how no character seemed to escape lampooning in this scathing, hilarious social satire.

However, I stopped laughing in Episode 3, as I watched Madeline in the hotel room dodging the predatory producer, Toby. No longer was this a show about stupid old Douglas and a harmless joke which he couldn’t remember, but about something much, much bigger. As we all did at the time, I followed the case of Harvey Weinstein, and revelled in his exposure and subsequent downfall. Years prior, I had known a young female apprentice Monique who had been forced to have sex with her boss in order to keep her job, only to discover that the cost was too great, and hung herself. These stories are far too familiar. Distressingly so.

And yet, as the show developed and concluded, I realised that inherently it is not about these kinds of arsehole men. It isn’t about the Harveys or Tobys of the world. It’s about Douglas, and all those little guys who know perfectly well what’s happening and not only think it’s okay, but actively choose to turn it into a funny story – not against the perpetrator – but against the victim. Madeline dealt with Toby years earlier, at the time of the incident, but what was unexpected, and totally infuriating for her, was being undermined by the very person she admired. A man who told a joke for the amusement of other men, about her and at her expense. A story that belittled her, and reduced her to a mere sexual object. It was a story that showed her, and us the audience, exactly how he saw his female colleague.

For some women, it’s the massive, terrible events that happen to them that leave indelible scars and which take enormous courage to get through. But for many more women – for those of us lucky enough not to have been raped or trapped into having sex in order to get or keep a job – it’s the tiny little events that women are subjected to, on a frequent basis, that takes a hell of a lot of energy to get past.

I know this personally. I’ve had a lifetime of being reduced to a sexual object. I’ve been sexually propositioned by married male colleagues at work, and at home, by husbands of close female friends. I’ve spent many years having to dodge random strangers who have tried to follow me home in their cars, and even one stranger who brandished his erect penis at me.

I managed each unpleasant encounter. Of course I did. I rebuffed the colleagues and friends’ husbands firmly, but kindly, and managed to stay on good terms with everyone. I paid attention to cars driving behind me late at night, and in one instance had to do five circuits of Eltham before my pursuer eventually gave up. I stopped swimming alone at the Yarra River, not on account of this advice from the Warrandtye Police after I’d complained, but because my solitary sojourns were simply no longer relaxing as I had to stay on high alert.

I don’t believe that my experiences are unusual in any way. Neither are any of them significant enough, or saucy enough, to make it into any newspaper. At the time of each, I told myself that it was no big deal. However, each and every incident made me absolutely furious. How dare these men – known and unknown – assume that I would be interested in them? And why did the male married colleagues and husbands of friends all assume that I was the kind of woman to even consider having sex with a partnered man? And why did random strangers, seeing a woman alone in a car, decide that I was fair game?

What was even worse than dealing with my own anger, was my incessant self-doubt. Had I done anything to encourage these men I knew? I always tried so hard to be careful – to not wear clingy suggestive clothing to work or to say anything remotely related to sex – but perhaps I’d done something, said something, that could be easily misconstrued? Had I been overfriendly? In short, I spent many hours trawling through the possible ways that it could have all been my fault.

Generally I kept my anger and feelings of shame to myself. On the odd occasion, when I could no longer contain these feelings within myself and blurted out something to somebody, invariably I was told that I should feel flattered. Flattered?! No. I felt insulted, extremely insulted. I had been belittled. Reduced to being a mere sexual object. So I continued to swallow all this anger and all this shame, in silence.

Today I pay homage to two great women who have had unspeakable things done to them, and yet have spoken up. Grace Tame, who showed me that it’s okay for a woman to be angry, and show it. Gisèle Pelicot, who came out publicly to ensure the shame rested fairly and squarely on those who deserved it. I wish that I’d had these two beacons as a younger woman, as I believe that I would have navigated my way through life very differently.

And finally, I celebrate the character of Madeline, who refused to accept her assigned role, and instead shamelessly and furiously flipped the story to her advantage. Yes, I think Douglas should indeed have been outed, and cancelled.