Liam Neeson’s Disappointing Honesty is a Sad Reflection of Our Unchecked Prejudices
When a celeb’s trending on Twitter, 9/10 times it’s bad news.
I’m seeing a lot of Twitter outrage about an anecdote Liam Neeson told during an interview with the Independent. He compares the “primal need” his characters have for revenge, with his reaction to news of a friend’s rape. There’s a whole lot of toxic masculine baggage in that sentence alone, but it goes rapidly downhill. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody — I’m ashamed to say that — and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know?”
Uh-oh. The interview goes on to frame it as a teachable moment, in which Neeson looks back, realising it was wrong, but accepting that was the honest reaction he had at the time. At first I thought “well, at least he was candid about it, maybe we can use this lapse in judgement to talk about the wider issue of prejudice against black men”, and that is something that another author…
