CULTURE

Susan Sarandon Has Some Interesting Theories About Harvey Weinstein and Hillary Clinton

"I did think she was very, very dangerous."

November 27, 2017

Susan Sarandon, infamously, wasn’t with her. She’s also not joining the #MeToo movement, and she doesn’t like to call herself a feminist (she’s more of a humanist, thank you very much). Indeed, the ever outspoken Sarandon has a lot of contrarian opinions, as evidenced by her latest interview with The Guardian. She claims that things “wouldn’t be much smoother” if Hillary Clinton would have won the election, and that there were still a lot of women out there who must’ve been flattered to be sleeping with Harvey Weinstein and James Toback. Yet, oddly, she also admits to telling women fighting for the Equal Rights Movements to “calm down,” and isn’t afraid to tell her gay friends about which politicians really are pro-gay.

To paraphrase a famous line delivered by the actress Sarandon recently played in Feud: Buckle in. It’s going to be a bumpy read.

On Hillary Clinton

While she wasn’t totally alone in her conviction, Sarandon was seen as one of the loudest famous voices during the election claiming that there really wasn’t that much difference between Trump and Clinton, and that she herself would be voting for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Ten months into Trump’s first term, Sarandon hasn’t changed her tune.

When asked whether she really said that Clinton would be more dangerous than Trump, she replied, “Not exactly, but I don’t mind that quote… I did think she was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she was president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother. Look what happened under Obama that we didn’t notice.”

On Telling Gay People They Shouldn’t Support Hillary Clinton

“Strangely, some of my gay friends were like: ‘Oh, I just feel bad for [Clinton]. And I said: ‘She’s not authentic. She’s been terrible to gay people for the longest time. She’s an opportunist.’ And then I’m like: ‘OK, let’s not talk about it any more.’”

Sounds delightful.

On Not Being a “Feminist”

“I think of myself as a humanist because I think it’s less alienating to people who think of feminism as being a load of strident bitches.”

She continues, “I remember going to the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment] march where there were 100,000 women and we were going around talking to senators for this vote and I got on the elevator, and the women were like: ‘We’re going to show them what the f— we want.’ And I kept saying: ‘Calm down, that’s not the way we’re going to get things done.’”

On Harvey Weinstein

“Now, I’m sure there’s a lot of men who were much smoother at seducing than [The Guardian indicates that at this point she started laughing] James Toback and Harvey Weinstein, who a lot of women felt very flattered to be sleeping with, even if they didn’t get the job. There’s just a culture, starting in the 60s and 70s, where there was a certain amount of liberation that made it possible for those things to happen without even seeing yourself as a victim.”

Incidentally, over the weekend, conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who also has no love lost for the Clintons, tried to connect the Weinstein scandal to the sexual liberation of the ’70s. So, Sarandon isn’t alone in that line of thought.

Writer Emma Brockes also points out some other inconsistencies about Sarandon’s politics. Mainly, how she thinks at this point women just need to admit “no one is going to fix it for you. It’s up to you to fix it” while also blasting Clinton for not supporting an immediate $15 minimum wage.

Though, maybe it’s Sarandon herself who offers the most illuminating detail by explaining the culture in which she raised her daughter.

“She grew up in a house where she had a mother who earned her own money and was powerful and she’s in a progressive city, with other progressive kids – she wasn’t even exposed to the more Republican part of Manhattan,” she said. “So she was in a progressive bubble.”