It turns out her response to the "Me Too" movement is a gasp of "Sapristi!" Followed by a dollop of whup-ass. She feels that if some guy wants to flirt, it might NOT be "harassment," and that somebody's lack of social skills with women shouldn't automatically get him fired from a job he does well for the general public.
She might well have had the ex-Senator Al Franken in mind, the guy hounded out of office by Sen. Kirsten Jellybrain and her sanctimonious band of shrill shrikes.
Is there any question that in toppling a giant, power-mad bully like Harvey Weinstein, some much more benign and generally helpful guys have been dragged down with him? Jeffrey Tambor, who ironically had his best success in many years by sensitively playing a transgender woman, was forced to curtsy and depart in disgrace. For what? For making a move on a cast member in a clumsy way? That was about it. Al Franken joked about how pathetic he was in trying to touch some untouchable Playboy bunny, and in the course of meet and greets with THOUSANDS of women, let his hand stray to a rump or two. Charlie Rose? Being an egocentric superstar, wanted by both CBS and PBS simultaneously, he figured that walking around with his robe open was a fine way to show a woman he was available. Clumsy. Stupid. But career-ending moves? Not to Deneuve.
What is important is that the "Me Too" movement calls attention to how women should be treated and what is fair in the workplace. There's a lot of "consciousness raising" to be done about this, as some still figure that if a woman is going to paint herself up and dress to attract, she's doing what men do NOT do. So she shouldn't be surprised if she's treated the way she projects.
What detracts from "the movement" is the McCarthy-like witch-hunt hysteria of chasing men back over several decades to what they did, or might have done, in an era of sexual liberation and "free love." It was a time when Nancy Friday wrote about the "Secret Garden," and Erica Jong had a best seller that was all about sex. It was a time of "burn the bra" and let it all hang out. It was a time of acknowledging women had a sex drive too. It was a time when bawdy talk on a film set was not a crime, and when Lauren Bacall, in her autobiography, could frankly admit that she fucked the bellboy at her hotel just to keep him from constantly bothering her with his fawning, and compliments and attention. She did it out of control, not out of weakness, and wrote about it that way.
It's interesting, isn't it, that at the Golden Globes, dozens of women dressed provocatively. They showed off their curves and their plunging necklines. Men simply wore suits. So what's that mean? That women want to be treated as equals and not sexual objects, or something else?
Catherine Deneuve makes an important point in questioning how the Puritans and prudes of the world will seize on this current "Me Too" craze in order to put through agendas that might shut down a sex shop selling vibrators or make it even more difficult for a woman to choose birth control. The hysteria that banished one of the more capable senators in Congress, Al Franken, could lead to more blue-nosed nonsense that would be dangerous to both sexes.
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