Much like any pushback directed toward men ever in history, Tarana Burke’s #MeToo movement has ruffled the feathers of the peen plumage.
Hollywood even sent itself into a tizzy about the movement possibly killing a filmmaker’s creative ability to produce adequate sex scenes in movies. Which ... okay. Whatever helps you set up your light kit at night, boo.
In a May 2018 survey interviewing 1,000 men in the United States, 84 percent of them were concerned this movement would ruin the reputations of innocent men. Yeah, because that’s the primary point of concern: these hypothetically innocent men raked over the coals, not the women whose reputations and careers were actually ruined due to this toxic sexual culture.
Instead of performing in these same Cirque du Soleil-level acrobatics, Idris Elba snatched the onus from the women—for once—and instead directed it onto its rightful target. Because there’s only one reason to be worried about the #MeToo movement.
“It’s only difficult if you are a man with something to hide,” the 47-year-old actor told the Sunday Times.
Bloop, there it is. As Savon (Isaiah Washington) did in Love Jones, Elba broke it down “so it can forever and consistently be broke.”
Hit dogs holler, and all that jazz.
In fact, Elba has always been Team #MeToo, having praised the women who came forward during a 2017 interview with Den of Geek while promoting the Jessica Chastain film Molly’s Game, in which he co-starred.
“Of course, this is a film that was made a year ago, and probably prepped two or three years ago. But to come out when it’s coming out now is actually quite amazing, when we’re seeing women stand up and have a liberation movement of speaking up against some their atrocities that [have] happened,” he said in connection with the film’s relevance to the movement.
Elba recently released his directorial debut, Yardie, and will be returning as the titular character in BBC’s Luther, which will premiere its fifth season this Christmas.