Comedian Stephen Fry Quits Twitter
Comedian Stephen Fry makes joke, Twitter loses its collective mind, Fry tells them to piss off.
Comedian Stephen Fry was tapped to host the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) and managed to get in hot water over making a joke. He literally did the thing he was HIRED to do. In what has been explained as a fun joke between friends, Fry commented on the clothing choice made by award winning costume designer Jenny Beaven saying “Only one of the great cinematic costume designers would come to an awards ceremony dressed as a bag lady”.
That was all it took. The collective twittersphere took aim at Fry and unleashed an onslaught of accusations, calling Fry a misogynist. Fry attempted to explain himself, taking the twitter-bait and all hell broke loose. So much so that Fry deleted his twitter account (likely temporary, as he has done in the past) and took to his own website to share his feelings without the 140 character limitation. Fry held nothing back when standing up for himself likening twitter to a pool that too many people have peed in. In his post, aptly named “Too Many People Have Peed in the Pool” Fry sums up his feelings saying :
“Oh goodness, what fun twitter was in the early days, a secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest. It was glorious ‘to turn as swimmers into cleanness leaping.’ We frolicked and water-bombed and sometimes, in the moonlight, skinny-dipped. We chattered and laughed and put the world to rights and shared thoughts sacred, silly and profane. But now the pool is stagnant. It is frothy with scum, clogged with weeds and littered with broken glass, sharp rocks and slimy rubbish. If you don’t watch yourself, with every move you’ll end up being gashed, broken, bruised or contused. Even if you negotiate the sharp rocks you’ll soon feel that too many people have peed in the pool for you to want to swim there any more. The fun is over.”
The costume designer at the center of this, Jenna Beaven has stated “Yes we are friends, and I am absolutely not upset,” she told the Telegraph. “But I don’t want to talk any further because if I talk about it it will just create more fuss”.
There are some people writing that the joke was tasteless and others who say it just didn’t land. Some “feminists” ran to Beaven’s defense. I put that word in quotations because I’m assuming real feminists would see a woman who wore a black leather jacket and white t-shirt to a black tie event as a lady living her life, giving zero fucks. Instead of focusing on what the mean man said, let’s focus on how badass Beaven is. The lady receiving an award for being able to put an outfit together, shrugged off all social pressure and decided to be herself. That deserves attention.
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