Catherine Deneuve

Source: Wikimedia Commons

I spent the better part of two sunny days indoors writing about authenticity for a Greek magazine, a strange subject in view of how inauthentic politics are in that Brussels-run southeastern outpost dotted with islands. Mind you, what is taking place in the West makes Greek politics seem ideal by comparison. The witch hunt is on, and it’s as phony as the one that burned those poor women in Salem long ago. Thank God for the French actress who injected some badly needed truths into Hollywood’s bullshit.

It was around fifteen years or so ago that I took part in a debate on whether Britain would be better off siding with Paris rather than Washington where foreign policy was concerned. The egregious George W. Bush was in the White House, and Washington’s foreign policy was being run by neocons taking direct orders from Tel Aviv. The debate moderator was Peter Jay, as pompous as he was overbearing and taking himself as seriously as his then wife took Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, whom she had run off with while Jay was our ambassador to D.C. When my turn came I said that London should follow Paris for the simple reason that Paris had Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Irène Jacob, whereas America had Hillary Clinton, Shirley MacLaine, and Jane Fonda. I think it won it for my side. At a French-embassy drinks party that followed, the ambassador thanked me for bringing up France’s women, as well he should have. He couldn’t very well bring up the country’s fighting men in World War II, could he?

Catherine Deneuve has once again come to our rescue. They’re going after everyone, even that talented photographer Bruce Weber, who took pictures of me way back when I was almost cute, for Andy Warhol’s Interview. When I asked him to empty the room because posing in front of people made me nervous, he did and nothing unprofessional happened. Perhaps I wasn’t his type. Actually, both Bruce Weber and Mario Testino know whom to pounce on, and they pounce on those who are inclined that way, but try to tell that to the Torquemadas who now run the Inquisition.

It’s the hypocrisy that gets me. If those screaming the loudest about women’s rights being trampled by ghastly men looked where they should be looking, everyone would be focusing on the heinous criminal behavior of XXXTentacion, a rapper topping the charts with his first album, 17. XXXTentacion slugged his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach, which I think is slightly worse than asking for a massage and a shower, golden or not. Is it because XXX is black that he has the right to almost kill a woman? What about Tay-K, another black hip-hop “artist” who is facing a pair of murder charges? Is Tay-K better than Harvey because he’s accused of only two murders whereas Harvey harassed tens of women? And there’s always another “artist,” 6ix9ine, who is working after pleading guilty in 2015 to the use of a child in a sexual performance.

Now I read that the divine Rebecca Hall has announced she will never work with Woody Allen again. Rebecca is not the usual airhead actress, yet she’s turned against Woody on the word of his stepdaughter Dylan. My, my, hell hath no fury like Mia Farrow being dumped by Woody for another stepdaughter who is now Madame Allen. What I don’t get is why rappers, who are mostly black, are given a pass by the media, whereas white producers and directors, who are mostly Jewish, are thrown to the lions and their work tethered to the accusations against them. In fact, just by calling rappers artists, they are given the benefit of the doubt, and the criminals are not only being signed to lucrative contracts; some of them, like Tay-K, who is in jail awaiting trial, have signed recording contracts while in the cooler. Go figure, as no rapper says any longer.