Monday, September 9, 2013

Hugo Danger on the comeback trail

Ann Althouse notices a familiar pattern in Hugo Danger's latest schtick.
This raises the question whether he promoted ideology he didn't actually believe or whether he merely failed to live up to his own principles. He hedges at first, saying he's "very confused," but soon he saying he's "guilty of hypocrisy" and "the fact that I am guilty of hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate the truth of what I was saying. I was just too weak to live up to what it was I was writing." So, in short, there's no repudiation of his stature as a tenured professor, the aptness of writing for the popular media, and the truth of everything he's written. He's just a guy that got caught misbehaving, and he's making the best of it. Doing a damned good job of it!

The Daily Beast interviewer invites him to admit that he was really writing for women and telling them what they wanted to hear, and he admits that:

I always wrote for women but wrote in a really backhanded way where it appeared I was writing for men so that it would not appear too presumptuous and instead it would make me look better. And that required presenting myself as the ideal husband, father, and reformed bad boy. My point is that I was writing for women because I wanted validation from women. The way to get validation from women was to present an idealized picture of what is possible for men.
And he's getting away with an almost identical strategy now with this big breakdown and confession. It's for the women, whose favor he wants, and who he knows will be massively pissed off that he had sex with that younger woman. He's the bad boy again, and he's got to reform again.
I taught a course in men and masculinity, and I cited male authors, but the whole way of designing the course was to get women excited about the possibility for male change, that they would then transfer some of that hope onto me. That is what I was doing.
And he's doing it again! Hilarious. There are some more confessions, but I'm stopping here. I really shouldn't give this guy more attention, but I'm writing this because I'm afraid people are falling for his bullshit.
I have no doubt Hugo will eventually be able to find "redemption" and start writing and lecturing again for feminist audiences eager to buy what he's selling.  Feminists are, by definition, the sort of women who repeatedly fall for outrageous lies and incoherent and irrational nonsense.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Because, for progressives, any moral judgement must be run the who/whom spectrum, no amount self inflicted damage to Hugs credibility will matter so long as he sticks to the message, so long as he knows and remembers his place in the grievance hierarchy.

Revelation Means Hope said...

Not by their own definition, of course, but by those whose eyes are not blinded by religious belief in the perfectability of mankind through social engineering....

I can imagine some semi-Pretty Young Thing (emphasis on Thing) in a future Huggy class speculating if Huggy will find *her* cute enough to give into temptation again...

The CronoLink said...

So feminists like it rough, eh?

"Yes, I know he battered me and sexually humiliated me several times in the past, but THIS TIME is different!"

Anonymous said...

How does "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce" work when it's farce the first time around?

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Sweet things from Boston / So young and willing...

Even better than the 'reformed bad boy' is always the 'bad boy with a heart of gold'. Scalzi is working on being more bad and more well meaning, ya know.

@Jack

Tragedy to farce to... modern theatre?

Anonymous said...

@ River

Definitely Modern Theatre. The only thing that it's lacking is that during his suicide attempt, he would have been saved by a sweet hot little woman who loved him to this current reformation took full hold.

The power of her love and all. Go get em grrrrrrrl

Trust said...

In other shocking news about familiar patterns, just caught on a show my wife was watching where the male lead in "50 Shades of Barf" is a virtual unknown experience playing the "bad boy."

I didn't know whether to roll my eyes or laugh, so I did both. "No, really? A bad boy? Who would have guessed."

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Having suffered through modern university, I was going to volunteer the opinion that the dramaturg would insist upon puppets or genderbent roles; The hot young thing would turn out to be a puppet and scalzi, a female ventriloquist.

They could even work in omages to onanism.

Retrenched said...

He'll be back. No one ever went broke by telling women what they want to hear.

Revelation Means Hope said...

Vox,
just for fun I clicked on "Women: don't cut your damn hair" and noticed the fun just keeps on coming on that one. Then I looked at your other top posts, and they are all being spammed by anonymous, especially

Shame and the single man

I imagine it must be irritating to police the spammers.

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