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Guy Buys Movie Ticket, Internet Outraged
A Brooklyn movie theater recently scheduled a special screening of Wonder Woman open only to women. Cinema/dining chain Alamo Drafthouse said on their website, “Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying ‘No Guys Allowed’ for several special shows at the Alamo Downtown Brooklyn. And when we say ‘Women (and people who identify as women) only,’ we mean it.”
Movie fan (and my Conservatarians podcast partner-in-crime) Stephen Miller decided he wanted to see a new superhero flick, so he bought a ticket online. Upon sharing this rather mundane act, the Internet exploded, as is its wont.
I hope this story ends with a lifetime ban from Alamo theaters. https://t.co/JqBMJGvVLG
— BenDavid Grabinski (@bdgrabinski) May 27, 2017
*tannoy* can Stephen Miller’s mommy please come to the sandpit he has soiled himself for attention https://t.co/hv865Rfnxx
— David Lewis (@davidclewis) May 27, 2017
Yes but you are also barging into a space you’ve been asked not to enter, and doing it for lulz. This is a rapist’s mentality. https://t.co/38Ql0Lg5hE
— Jordan Hoffman (@jhoffman) May 27, 2017
Of course, there were thousands more entertaining tweets, but their ubiquitous profanity violates Ricochet’s Code of Conduct. To each attack, Miller stressed he has no interest in making a scene; he just wants to sit down and watch Wonder Woman.
Of course, his calmness created even more outrage. A.V. Club writer William Hughes wrote the first of sure to be many think-pieces on this calumny:
As Miller has delighted in telling people irritated by his decision—in that “I am speaking calmly, so you must be the [expletive]” tone so beloved by internet trolls—there’s nothing illegal about purchasing a ticket to a screening. That argument does, though, gloss over the fact that, while barging into a space you’ve been asked to stay out of just because that request made you feel briefly tiny and weak doesn’t make you a criminal, it does make you an insecure piece of [expletive].”
Alamo Drafthouse is in a bit of a pickle here. New York City law strictly prohibits them from discriminating by gender:
Hello mentions https://t.co/VxvkxVVezE pic.twitter.com/okkAZ6zjyU
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) May 27, 2017
In fact, New York City prohibits even advertising women-only events, meaning that Alamo is already in violation of the law.
@redsteeze Better to cite the statute itself https://t.co/FKi6QBiuS5 note that the ad already is a violation of the law pic.twitter.com/ahefjj5Ity
— (((Aaron Worthing))) (@AaronWorthing) May 27, 2017
After years of progressives demanding that businesses bake cakes and open bathrooms, it’s cathartic to see them reverse their position when it offends their consciences. Miller is offering them a minor, even friendly, clinic on the brave new world they have created.
And I’m sure he’ll provide a thorough review of the screening when he returns to our podcast.
Published in Entertainment
I guess this is why even after all the aggravating hipsterism and anti-imperial nonsense I still consider myself a libertarian within the conservative coalition.
What you’re saying is surely descriptive of most societies. America was supposed to be different. Anglophile conservatives who prize Burke over Paine are wont to forget that.
It seems we really do learn different lessons in different parts of the country about what it means to be an American. I’ve always resisted that kind of regionalism but now that I’ve lived in NYC for just a little while I can see that growing up in rural Utah I absorbed a vision of the country that was fundamentally different in a way that transcends right and left. I hate to romanticize rural life but I’m coming to believe that whether “societal consensus” means coercion or volunteerism has mostly to do with how far away your nearest neighbor lives. True freedom existing only on the frontier makes more sense every day.
Wake me up when private space travel starts turning out its first colony ships.
The association of gender with sex is actually a very Eurocentric way of thinking. Some African languages have dozens of genders but masculine and feminine are not among them. If I had to guess, I’d say animate/inanimate is far more common worldwide.
The only thing worse than a bad law is a bad law that’s inconsistently enforced.
I’m not sure what the answer is. Certainly the left will continue to infringe on property rights in an effort to impose their wills while demanding that they are somehow exempt from the same infringements. So what to do? Highlighting hypocrisy will do for now, and maybe the left will end up enacting laws to protect themselves from us, and in the process accidentally protect us from them as well.
From what I can tell all law is inconsistently / selectively enforced.
What Alamo could have done is sell the tickets as a block to whatever organization came forward to buy them. They evade the charge of failing to obey the “public accommodation” laws and the purchaser can give the tickets (for a “donation”) to whomever they will.
There’s an old Vermont point of view about neighbors that fits in with this, at least if you don’t live in Chittenden County (meaning you live in more or less the sticks). If you’re driving along a country road, and there’s a guy standing next to his truck that’s broken down, you stop and help. Not so much because you’re a nice guy (because you are a nice guy), but because one day your truck will break down, and you’ll be the one needing help.
It’s less about altruism, and more about pragmatism. The effect is the same. We are neighbors, yes, and I will help you, and be happy to do so. But I sure as hell won’t be knocking on your front door telling you to eat spinach pancakes.
Because that’s wrong, and also, it being Vermont, I wouldn’t want to get shot.
I totally get all of that because I’m from Georgia. I totally don’t understand Vermont politics. They don’t want to make me eat spinach pancakes? Why do they elect people like Bernie Sanders to the Senate?
I’m torn on this. I love Alamo Drafthouse, at least the one in my area (Denver). If you’ve never been to one I highly recommend it. I also understand why they would want to have a ladies night. However, also get the idea of making the left live by their own rules, because you can imagine the response of a man only night. This kind of thing is more and more common, we have to allow women into every men’s sport and space, but we can have spaces that are only women and people of color.
I will go along with that. It’s like with wealth, though. (And there’s obviously plenty of that in Hollywood as well.) There are the 1% with the looks and the money. (I should throw in “power” here, too.) It’s the other 99% who who lack all of these and think it’s merely because “they didn’t get their fair share”, and think it should have been just handed to them. And like the rest of leftist theology (it IS a religion), they hypocritically ascribe their own flaws to their opponents.
Really? I haven’t seen anything about the movie. I am trying to have no expectations going in to give it the maximum chance not to disappoint me.
On my flight to London this weekend the gentleman seated next to me, a Mr. Joss Whedon, having seen the film said it is fantastic. He may have been biased.
Oh my word, Jamie. You do keep some unexpected company! I hope your trip was nice! (I always love London.)
Well, that’s a mark against it. :(
Does the left not see the absurdity of the world they have created? All a man had to do in order to avoid incurring wrath for attending this show is to (a) “identify as” (i.e., pretend to be) a woman, or (b) pretend to identify as (i.e., pretend to pretend to be) a woman.
Miller could have been dishonest and chosen option (b). Instead, he chose option (c), to attend openly and unapologetically as a man and incur the wrath.
Attending under options (b) or (c) involves absolutely no difference in terms of the experience for Miller’s fellow moviegoers. In either case, Miller and his male biology would be sitting in one of the theater’s seats. The only difference is this: If challenged at the door, under option (b) he would lie and say that he considers himself to be a woman. That would completely shut down the challenge. He might have to deal with similar challenges in the auditorium. Again, he would lie.
But it would not change the objective reality of there being a man sitting among the women. And the only thing necessary to defuse any protest would be uttering a few (dishonest) words.
Thus we see that the left favors a world in which blatant sex discrimination is legal, mere words supposedly change biology, and there are incentives to lie and pay lip service to their beliefs in order to get by.
And they wonder why normal people are angry.
Addendum: I neglected to address the specific absurdity of this sentence: “And when we say ‘Women (and people who identify as women) only,’ we mean it.”
Imagine a private club with a sign outside that states the following: “Members only. And when we say ‘members (and people who believe themselves to be members) only,’ we mean it.”
Don’t be torn, I love Alamo too (Austinite). They’re free to continue the theme showings they do (Kid’s Camp, Girly Night, Tough Guy Cinema, Weird Wednesday, etc). They just can’t break laws- which, in NYC, means no denying service due to gender. Advertising a “Girly Night” with a classic chick flick and specials on pink cocktails? Totally fine. Not selling tickets to men? Illegal.
Men aren’t allowed their own spaces anymore. Even alleged conservative sites are happy to deny men their own spaces or shame them for wanting one.
The primary objection to drum circles is the drums.
Says the bagpiper….
I ain’t no bagpiper!
Brass instruments only.
Q: If you throw a set of drums, a set of bagpipes, a ukulele, and an accordion into the Grand Canyon, which hits bottom first?
A: Who cares?
I knew that. I should have said “trombone player…”
Real Celts play the carnyx.