Samantha Jones may have said, “Who we are in bed is who we are in life,” but perhaps the more accurate assessment is, “Who we are in our yearbook is who we are in life” (in my case, a complete cipher). For Brett Kavanaugh, the fresh revelation of his “proud” declarations within the pages of a Georgetown Prep School yearbook speak to his utter lack of masculinity in the face of attempting so desperately to come across as such–“virile,” if you will.
“Renate Alumnius,” as he stupidly touted, refers to then fellow classmate, Renate Schroeder, apparently an “achievement” to be had in addition to “100 kegs or bust” and “I Survived the FFFFFFFourth of July.” A running “joke”/boast among Kavanaugh and his football team cohorts, the claims of having had an effortless turn at Renate were, of course, but mere hearsay, with Schroeder herself having to come forward all these decades later to say, “The insinuation is horrible, hurtful and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way.” Ah, but ain’t that the especially fucked up thing about rich white men and their daughters? They sexualize and fetishize them à la Zeus (see: Lindsay Lohan in Machete, Donald Trump in life). So no, that’s hardly a way to “reason” with them about how a girl ought to be treated during her formative years and throughout life in general.
And with this highlight upon the past, it’s easy to note certain comparisons to Thirteen Reasons Why, which continues the long (and still accurate) tradition in American TV of portraying the rich white male jock as the antagonist, offering up a similar nefarious villain to Kavanaugh–whose true superpower is untouchability, total freedom from consequence–Bryce Walker (Justin Prentice).
Renate, like Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford), was a target of cruel standard-issue male misogyny likely condoned by school officials who turned the other cheek, especially in the early 80s, for the sake of adhering to that goddamned saying, “Boys will be boys.” As for Kavanaugh’s second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, who Trump has already written off with the callous, gaslighting statement that she “was drunk” and “has nothing,” well, she fits the mold of the man who can’t help but repeat the same or escalated sexually assaulting offense twice. And it’s true, the two were engaged in a drinking game at a Yale party when Kavanaugh put his genitals in her face. But, you know, drunk or not, the mind can’t contort something like that. Yet Kavanaugh saw (and sees) no wrongdoing in treating women as objects designed for making him look and feel good about himself–for that’s what society, parents and pop culture have so long fortified as the message to be taken away from what it means to “be a man.” Somewhere deep down, however, they must know it’s wrong–otherwise, why would they try so hard to lie when the truth bubbles to the surface like a turd in a Parisian toilette?
It is the wolf in sheep’s clothing shtick that works so well for Bryce as he gets away with raping Hannah, ex-cheerleader Jessica Davis (Alisha Boe) and his own girlfriend/current head cheerleader, Chlöe Rice (Anne Winters). The same false self-portrait that radiates with just as much conviction from Kavanaugh, who has claimed in the midst of these accusations, “I was focused on academics and athletics, going to church every Sunday at Little Flower, working on my service projects, and friendship, friendship with my fellow classmates and friendship with girls from the local all-girls Catholic schools.” Yes, maybe in the white male mind, there is an ease that comes from parsing out the definition of “friendship” for his own purposes.
In all likelihood, he genuinely believes he has done nothing wrong, and is merely having to go along with this annoying current “trend” of being required to placate women who need to attempt to take back some of their power, to rattle their cages a little bit, if you will, so that he can secure his high-ranking position in an already sunken government ship. Bryce, too, is more vexed by having to deal with a potential comeuppance than actually horrified at the prospect of being forced to take a look at himself and the actions that compose him in the mirror. That’s never what it’s about when privileged rapists potentially lose their get out of jail free card (which never happens). No, it’s about being “inconvenienced” long enough to have to put a hold on what they’re usually capable of doing when no monitoring is at play. About having to, for once, let their arm hair bristle over the notion that their precious, free-reign ability to regard women as playthings who occasionally squawk as opposed to, by and large, superior human beings might be summarily plucked from their very hands. And no white man likes it when his “ball” is taken away. Mainly because that metaphorical one is all he has to keep his eunuch self going in life. Well, that and his congenital wealth that for some reason makes him flash his genitals at people when he’s supposed to be more “pedigreed” and “refined” than any woman with delusions of having been mistreated.
In the end, of course, Bryce gets a slap on the wrist and is free to go along his merry way after Jessica takes the unwanted risk of telling the story she only wants to permanently block out of her mind for the purposes of some mental self-preservation. Soon, we’ll know if the same expected result arrives for Kavanaugh when Christine Blasey Ford testifies at the open hearing on Thursday.
