Douglas is Cancelled might be the ballsiest show ever for setting itself up to be hated just so it can prove its own points (and to get idiot people to watch it specifically to say ‘this is about you actually’) and I loved it. Watched it in one sitting which is probably the intention since it was supposed to be a stage play. One of the best shows of the year I’m so serious.
Douglas is Cancelled isn’t about what Douglas said but what he did (or rather, didn’t do).
The show isn’t about a well-meaning man who just happened to say the wrong thing drunk. The show isn’t about the fact the ‘joke’ was said, but actually how this ‘joke’ came to be.
One of the things I really liked about Douglas is Cancelled [SPOILERS AHEAD] was the way the sexual coercion scene was played. It’s not forceful. Toby never behaves violently towards Madeline. As he says, she can leave any time she wants. It’s not how a lot of people would conceptualise attempted sexual assault. But there’s the unspoken threat to Madeline’s career hanging over her, and the way Toby continually tries to wear her down and pushes her boundaries further and further, all while trying to gaslight her about it when she becomes uncomfortable. And despite the subtlety, despite all the plausible deniability, there’s no doubt about what’s happening. That’s what’s so damning about Douglas’s behaviour. He knows. Men (both perpetrators and bystanders) like to play dumb and act as if they’re unaware of women’s true feelings in situations like these, but they can see it. The discomfort, the terror. Ignoring it is a choice.
The show isn’t about a well-meaning man being unfairly persecuted for some inappropriate but ultimately harmless joke he let slip while drunk. It’s about a “well-meaning” man who walks away from a frightened young woman in his boss’s hotel room because he doesn’t want to get involved. He may not be the sort of person who would try coerce someone into sex, but he’s not going to do anything about it either. He later calls her his best friend, he genuinely seems to care for her - to the point everyone thinks they’re having an affair - but he still laughs about the incident behind her back with his friends. He’s still jealous of her success and wants to take her down a peg. There’s nothing harmless about any of it.
I choose to believe that someone pitched the headline “JK Rowling whinging after David Tennant calls TERFs ‘whinging little fuckers’”, but they had to change it because she’s litigious as fuck.
The pile of puke had the audacity to try sealion when people told her Tennant didn’t attack women but people who are making his child’s life a living hell
And boy oh boy, someone DID took her challenge, with recipes
