'F*ck Kavanaugh' lipstick and 4 other below-the-belt attacks on embattled Supreme Court nominee
Many might have felt that the Senate hearing was humiliation enough for Brett Kavanaugh, at least until he is actually found guilty of any crime. For others, it was just the beginning.
Campaigning cosmetics
F*ck Kavanaugh lipstick is definitely empowered female anger, and not tone-lowering opportunism.
After all what could be more defiant than the name of a purported sexual abuser on your lips in the form of “a liquid lipstick in a cool, calm, and collected deep red.” Why not some Bugger Off Jack the Ripper-themed eyeliner, or Stop Ted Bundy femidoms? Though the word-reclaiming Lipslut prefers a simpler template, following its F*ck Trump and F*ck Hollywood releases, the latter after the Harvey Weinstein allegations.
Bonus – for one week only! – all proceeds go to charities supporting sexual abuse victims. Everyone wins, not least an obscure company entering a crowded market.
And yet here we are, giving it more publicity.
Long-distance harassment
Can you be sexually abused by someone you’ve only seen on TV, dressed in a suit?
Harvard Law School students can, and filed mass complaints warning that Kavanaugh would create a “sexually hostile environment” with his mere presence, using Title IX regulations designed to prevent harassment and abuse on campus.
“Such an abuse of process would undermine the legitimacy and credibility of complaints that the Title IX process is intended to deal with, as well as of the Title IX office to focus on its duties,” warned Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor at the Law School.
But either way the students got what they wanted when Kavanaugh’s course for this winter was dropped. A missed opportunity to do some more eye-catching protesting after being triggered by his actual presence, some might say.
Probably a pedophile too
One of the major achievements of greater awareness of sexuality has been that people no longer conflate gay men with pedophiles, lesbians with witches or bisexuals with the Devil.
Well, just because Kavanaugh is accused of a violent sexual episode that allegedly happened 36 years ago, it doesn’t follow that he is a danger to his daughter’s class.
Yet it was exactly this that USA Today casually insinuated this week, together with comparisons to Larry Nassar, the former gymnastics doctor, who is currently serving 60 years in prison.
It had to remove that part of the article after a mass of complaints followed. In any case, whatever happens, both the newspaper and Kavanaugh would agree that the chances of him returning to coaching basketball are the same as those of his teaching at Harvard.
Heroic satire
Not many satirical shows would be brave enough to parody the testimony of one of the participants in an as-yet-unresolved case of this severity.
But Saturday Night Live went there – asking solid Clintonite Matt Damon to impersonate Kavanaugh at the Senate hearing, sobs, sniffs and all.
Of course, the fearlessness was matched when SNL invited Trump supporter Roseanne Barr to do a funny version of Christine Blasey Ford’s account, glasses, Coke bottle, girlish voice and all. Nah, that obviously didn’t happen (though Donald Trump did do his own impression, to mixed comedic reviews).
It might not have been fair, but at least the segment was funnier than SNL usually is.
Just like Cosby, according to ACLU
The proudly nonpartisan ACLU is spending over $1 million on a TV advertising campaign to stop Kavanaugh, or rather #StopKavanaugh.
NEW: When we said we're going to use the full force of the ACLU to stop Brett Kavanaugh, we meant it.We're spending more than $1 million to run ads like this in Nebraska, Colorado, West Virginia, and Alaska 👇 pic.twitter.com/dWyN1XYh29
— ACLU (@ACLU) 1 October 2018
The 98-year-old ACLU was once an organization that appealed to the Bill of Rights and fought for the presumption of innocence of everyone from NAMBLA to the KKK, and now says that the “burden is on the nominee” to prove he is not a rapist.
One advert implies that “a fourth and fifth” accuser had come forward, using real clips from liberal media outlets (see, we are not making this up). Another compares him to Bill Clinton (see, we are fair!) and to convicted sex offender Bill Cosby. And he hasn't starred in any beloved sitcoms. And Kavanaugh is white and privileged. Nonpartisan indeed.
Igor Ogorodnev
