At the time of writing, the world hasn’t been attacked by aliens, and we’ve yet to see the standards of some Atlantean army surging out of the oceans, however I honestly wouldn’t be as overwhelmed as I probably should be if the BBC notified me of these things. Over the last 5 or so years, the world as we’ve known it has started to break apart. On 3 October 2012, ITV aired a documentary wherein allegations of sexual assault and rape were made against British peak-time star Jimmy Savile, and from these claims the police launched Operation Yewtree to investigate cases of historical sexual abuse. Fast forward to the final quarter of 2017 and we’re greeted with similar accusations, this time of Hollywood’s elite in Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. One of the fastest-spreading tags on Twitter has been the child of these accusations, ‘#metoo’. In other news, Brexit negotiations are still crawling along gasping for life, the far-right have returned to power in Austria and Alabama elected a Democrat to Senate for the first time in 25 years – a feat comparable to the Rapture, truly. What is happening?
Well, to be frustratingly literal, what’s happening right now is nothing more than things from the past are being dug up. It’s important to note that a lot of what we’re reading, watching, and hearing is historic; a lot of cases concerned in Yewtree are from the past, some even from the 1960s. The old order that successfully balanced its authority with its vices is finally falling apart as the silenced majority realise that they’re much more powerful than the handful of wealthy elite silencing them. It could be said that we’re imposing modern beliefs onto actions that are largely from the mid-to-late 20th century, and of course the attitudes then won’t totally add up to our morals now, yet that doesn’t cut it for most people (including me) – sure, it may have been okay for wealthy men to objectify those less powerful than themselves in the name of (as the US President famously said) ‘locker room talk’, however I can’t be alone in seeing a huge difference between joking about sex and then repeatedly harassing somebody for the several weeks of a performance in the theatre, or blocking actors from roles so nobody learns that you tried to blackmail them.
Not too far away from this realm of sexual crime, Democrat Doug Jones won out over Republican Roy Moore, which may initially seem to mean that the sky is falling – Alabama is famously the ‘reddest of red states’, the conservative answer to liberal heartlands like New York. Yet when you look at Roy Moore (and you don’t have to look hard), you find yourself questioning why it was so close in the first place. The entire campaign was dominated by reports that Moore had sexually abused teenagers, along with a smattering of establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell essentially leaving him out in the cold due to these allegations. So how did Jones only win by 1.5% (49.9 to 48.4)? It’s simple – at its very heart, Alabama is still a red state. The average Alabama resident would, despite this result, elect a Republican over a Democrat, even if that Republican has been accused of some disgustingly vile sexual misconduct. This will probably be reflected in the Senate elections of 2018, where it is incredibly likely that if the GOP candidate is a semi-decent human being they will win, even if the Democrats run a super-candidate meticulously designed for ultimate Alabama appeal.
Are we seeing the world fall apart? Is everything being overturned? Is Thor: Ragnarok actually a documentary? No (well, probably not). What we are seeing is people getting fed up with (to fall back on a cliché) the status quo. If Trump, Brexit, and Jones show this in the world of politics, Yewtree and #metoo are doing the same for entertainment. This is less the end of the world as we know it and more a reworking of the world’s systems – we’re collectively sick of the way things are going, and we’re finally working to fix it all.
Let’s hope we don’t leave more problems behind.