Patricia Clarkson Has Feelings About Kit Harington’s Complaints About Hollywood Sexism
Kit Harington’s official job is acting, but it seems like his unofficial part-time job is to expose the persecution handsome men like himself face on a daily basis. Kit’s previous revelations include the existence of a double-standard of sexism and objectification in Hollywood that he has experienced as a handsome man (like when people ask him to take his shirt off), and that calling him a hunk is “demeaning“. One person who isn’t exactly feeling sorry for Kit is Patricia Clarkson.
56-year-old Patricia spoke to The Guardian about her new movie Learning to Drive, which is about a middle-aged woman. They talked about what it’s like being both middle-aged and a woman in Hollywood. Patricia opened with a joke about how she’s at that magical age in Hollywood where she’d end up being cast as the interviewer’s mother in a movie (“Kill me now!“) before really letting go with her feelings.
On Kit Harington crying about sexism’s double-standard for men: “He’s a sex symbol. Get over it. You have an amazing career and you’re on a hot show. Take your shirt off.”
On that certain *ahem* vocal demographic of people who are still pissed off about that all-female Ghostbusters movie: “There are still so many movies made starring 50 men and one woman! A white male actor should never be allowed to complain about anything. Shut up and sit in the corner. I mean, seriously! The odds of us having films made which star women…Everyone still references one movie: Bridesmaids!”
On the pressure for movies starring women to succeed: “Men make bad movies that bomb all the time but they’re like, ‘Oh, well, we didn’t do the marketing right,'” she says. “Eat me!”
On the “desexed, matronly” roles she’s often offered: “We always tend to want to soften female characters. Well, unless it’s some ridiculous caricature like a dominatrix or a one-dimensional boss with no life and bad hair.”
“I know what you mean. I too know the struggle of playing a character who is defined by their hair” said Kit Harington, as he wiped away a tear while looking at a picture of his old beard. Speaking of, here’s a beardless Kit Harington running errands yesterday. I bet Patricia Clarkson is looking at these picture all confused, like “Why is he still wearing a shirt? I thought I told him to take it off.”
