Bombshell

Recently I was in a hotel on a business trip in which S joined me. The TV was on playing Bombshell. The story depicts the sexual intimidation of Fox reporter Gretchen Carlson and others by Fox News chief Roger Ailes.  The intimidation included unwanted touching and asking the women to twirl so he could leer at their figures.

I could not watch the movie. Not because I do not sympathize with the women or because I believe Ailes is anything but a depraved sick person. I could not watch it for relative reasons.

Let me explain. Imagine you are walking down the street with a friend when a mugger appears. Your friend is punched in the arm and you are shot in the stomach and knee. The mugger flees and and crowd gathers around your friend offering sympathy and help. No one pays any attention to you. An ambulance quickly arrives, the paramedics jump out and assist your friend who is then taken to the hospital. You are left alone on the street. You drag yourself home, stitch your wounds and go back to work the next day. The knee injury makes you a cripple for the rest of your life. In the ensuing weeks, the media is all over what happened to your friend. Lawyers line up to help and eventually your friend receives millions in compensation. Everyone talks about how awful the experience was for your friend.  If you ever ask, What about me?" they say you just need to get over it and accept what happened.

That may sound unrealistic but how different is it from my experience? Not much.