Laurence Fox (actor) Stands With Maya

I don't like people getting stupid Twitter threats.

I don't have a problem with people being critical of the idea that something like the press's attitude to MM is about racism. Maybe it is, but there is plenty of reason to attribute it to other things and not many reasons to attribute it to racism.

Is it racist to suggest that was the cause? I don't know, in a way I think it may itself be part of a very racialised way of looking at people. I don't tend to take the view that racism has to be the something that happens on the side of the more powerful and can't come from the marginalised, I would say rather that if an ideology sees race in an essentialised way that it is racist. I think its more accurate and also gives a more useful picture of how racism works in societies.

But maybe more importantly in this context, I think the reason a guy like Fox has so many people following his Twitter when he says stuff like this is because more and more people are seeing that kind of generalisation as negative and even backwards.

And as if we needed a reminder that comments like Fox's, as Boris, as Farrage, feed into the unchanged level of racism in this country.

The woman who challenged him is now on the receiving end of abuse and racism www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jan/18/question-time-clash-lecturer-tells-of-hate-mail

I'm not on twitter so dont know if he received any criticism or abuse.

Laurence Fox is no friend of women. He just hates everyone who might question whether the white, public school educated, son of an acting dynasty might - just might - have had a wee bit of an advantage in his chosen field of....acting. He's pathetic. His bleating about, "Not being able to help who I am, waah! " on Question Time was embarrassing.

I bloody hate woke people, and as a non white woman from a working class background, I bloody hate people who cry racism/sexism/class prejudice for everything that goes wrong in their lives. However, as someone who has also had a great deal of educational and financial success, I recognise that, going forward, I now have a huge advantage in many ways over the vast majority of people, irrespective of sex or race, and so will my children. To deny that I do would be ridiculous. Fox and the Triggernometry men represent the ridiculous position of ignoring their own personal histories (particularly in Fox's case) and that of white men as a whole; in their complete denial that anyone suffers any kind of discrimination or disadvantage, a belief that actually, it's women and people of colour who really hold all the power cards, and that white men are in fact at the bottom of the pile.

Trans radicalism is stupid, because it flies in the face of science, human history and material reality. That people from across the political spectrum can see this is great, but it's not because there's some big political ideology that's being wrangled over. The mistake of the GC is to give any credence to the notion that there is. Being GC doesn't mean being a feminist ally. By getting all excited when any Tom Dick or Harry says something GC just allows the woke left wing to scream that you ally yourselves with the right and all that entails.

All the "sexual power" vis a vis women stuff that Douglas Murray comes out with is just Incel talk.

Any voice is welcome.

Yes, I would say he gets a kick out of making people ticked off about this stuff. It probably doesn't win anyone over but it does perhaps make it easier for others to say what they think.

He reminds me a lot of my grandfather, actually. He'd have had a field day with this stuff.

I think that he's standing with Maya solely because, as so many have noted, he's a professional contrarian, and it gets a reaction from precisely the demographic he loathes. Having said that, I don't really care why he's doing it. I'm just glad that he is.

news.sky.com/story/laurence-fox-slams-black-and-working-class-actors-for-only-complaining-after-becoming-famous-11912649

Childrenofthestones

Meanwhile, on another side of town . . . Fry's Five Boys !

I saw the piece Helena posted earlier.

I'm inclined to agree that he is used to getting his own
privileged way.

Not everyone who is against TW in women's spaces comes at it from a position of supporting women,

I know it's childish but what's the odds of both Murray and Fox being mints?
I'll get me coat..

I think that includes feminists, tbh. Just because he agrees with Maya doesn't make him a feminist hero.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/laurence-fox-shuns-woke-women-under-35-tkc8vfnxw

Laurence Fox shuns ‘woke’ women under 35
The actor, fresh from a roasting for denying white male privilege, now shares his dating advice

The actor Laurence Fox has admitted that he once dumped a girlfriend for being “too woke” and said that he refuses to date women under 35 because of their politically correct views.

Fox, who sparked controversy on BBC1’s Question Time last Thursday for railing against accusations of “white male privilege”, said he had finished the relationship early last year after a few months when his girlfriend expressed some “woke” opinions

he final straw came when the woman, whom Fox did not name, praised a Gillette advert that targeted “toxic masculinity”. The video ad, which showed images of bullying, sexual harassment, sexist behaviour and aggressive male behaviour, asked, “Is this the best a man can get?” — a play on the razor manufacturer’s famous slogan.

Sexual 'power', as Murray imagines it, for the majority of the time ranges from being a massive inconvenience to terrifying.

On the other hand, perhaps there's some jealousy that he doesn't have this perceived 'power' himself.

When I was a late teen, I had a gay male friend. Being attuned to male attention, he noticed what straight men I’ve knocked around with never did about how it can be, being female in the world.

I don’t think it would be unreasonable to imagine that a certain kind of personality (and I hope Douglas isn’t one) may envy women this nuisance ‘power’.

Ha yes, he is smooth as fuck.

He is now he’s dumped the Tim Nice-but-Dim style in favour of Scruffy Douglas.

Ha yes, he is smooth as fuck. Disappointing because he is an interesting writer and speaker, he is fair minded and analyses the claims from other perspectives while putting his own forward unequivocally. I liked how he wrote about the Cologne attacks in 'The Strange Death of Europe'.

Aaaah, perhaps that's why he doesn't get it, being a sexy little minx really is a power for him! He doesn't understand that for a 13 year old girl or woman traumatized by sexual abuse, being being harassed by gangs of men on the street (as they more often than not do it in groups, because it's as much about dominance sexual attraction) doesn't give you quite the same buzz as 'turning' straight male fans with your twinkly blue eyes.

I agree Upfield but I think he does have that kind of power in a way, any comments below his videos are full of straight men saying they would give him one

(... just noticed I massively overdid the quotation marks in that post - oops! )

vaginafetishist Exactly the point you made about Murray means I skipped the 'Women' section in 'The Madness of Crowds' and fast forward when he talks about it as I thought the same as you, it was a lame and poorly argued point. By far more usual than women using their allure to get something is that women are met with a barrage of sexual harassment from the age of about 13 every time they leave the house. Sexual 'power', as Murray imagines it, for the majority of the time ranges from being a massive inconvenience to terrifying. There was no analysis of why this might leave some women to sometimes use their sex appeal, which has been the only currency they had until very recently, to their advantage. I think he's deluded if he thinks women gain any real power from a man being attracted to them, unless you're Anna Nicole Smith or something, (and who wants to end up like that? Or Ann Boleyn?) Usually it's more about trying to navigate being pestered on a daily basis without coming to harm. I'd much rather not have to think about how I need to make myself smaller and less intelligent to dance around a man's ego before interacting with him, so that he might actually listen to me/leave me alone, and don't see that as an advantage but a burden. It's all a bit of a shallow, Lib Fem take from Murray, 'selling your body is empowering and fun'. Surprising from him when compared with the depth of analysis he shows on other issues. Do a lot of gay men invest just as heavily as straight men in the idea of 'men are from Mars and women are from Venus' so that they're at ease with women doing the majority of society's unpaid 'wifework', perhaps? Does this thinking reinforce their sexuality in some way? Is it internalised homophobia, along the lines of 'if men are the same as women then I should really be with a woman'? Most men, and many women, WANT men and women to be different, as it props up their other ideas of what they think their own lives should look like. On the other hand, perhaps there's some jealousy that he doesn't have this perceived 'power' himself. Whatever the reason, there's some sort of emotional response there clouding his thinking. Sorry to go off topic from the OP a bit, but I think Fox and Murray are probably similar in the way they think about men and women in a 'if it's not broke, don't fix it' kind of way, ignoring all the women saying that it IS broke.

Fry is an old skool misogynist and whoever said Fox is a contrarian is dead on.

Murray will definitely support JK but I agree his analysis of women's issues is shallow compared to the other areas he writes about. He kind of gets it but thinks women have all this amazing power based on their sex appeal and can destroy men if they choose to do so. How many women can that be true of?

I've watched a few of the Triggernometry videos and I like them all but despite railing against identity politics, Murray and Doyle always talk about being gay, Konstantin is Jewish, Andrew Doyle is from a working class background etc.

Murray is such a good writer and also a courageous person in standing up for his beliefs.

Good for Laurence Fox! I've always liked him and now, even more so. He'll have no trouble getting work, he's able and versatile with connections.

John Boyne, the author
Good on him, the reaction to his book was a big wake up call.

John Boyne, the author (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) has supported JKR today. You may remember he deleted Twitter earlier in the year after a pile on in response to his latest book My Brother's Name is Jessica, which has the pov of a boy with a trans sibling. Boyne refuted the use of the term cis during the publicity for the book. www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/31/john-boyne-hits-back-at-critics-of-transgender-novel

And he was undoubtedly broken by boarding school.

Well what's in it for him? Not close to any of his relatives (probably some mummy issues there), no daughters, no wife or girlfriend, chums with other gay men and bunch of woke TV actor/BBC/Cambridge footlights types.

He doesn't get it and there is nothing in it for him to try.