That Catcall Mansplaining Guy Was Terrible — So Why Did CNN Book Him?
CNN boosted the entire internet out of its weekend doldrums with a segment about Hollaback’s catcalling video, in which an interrupty dude said dumb and offensive things about how women only mind ugly men catcalling, and if they’re so threatened they should carry a gun, and so forth. Websites (including this one) dutifully covered it, in increasing levels of incredulity and outrage.
In fact everybody felt so good about dumping on MANual author Steve Santagati that nobody bothered to question why he was on television discussing gender-based harassment in the first place.
Santagati is a “self-proclaimed bad boy, model turned relationship expert,” per an Elle interview; his primary credential appears to be working as a relationship consultant for a Gerard Butler/Katherine Heigl rom-com. Fresh Fiction claims Santagati “has been studying women for over twenty-four years,” which it said is “the equivalent of four doctorates!”
It’s not and it showed. Whatever Santagati was ostensibly on air for — I’m being generous and guessing describing the psychology of the male mind when catcalling — he never bothered, instead flinging the most provocative statements he could find, the ones most likely to get a rise. It was, in fact, a version of catcalling, in which any reaction, even a negative one, is prized above all. CNN could have booked anybody in the world for this segment; they booked this guy.
Of course there are experts on street harassment, who can speak knowingly on everything from the effect of groupthink on the treatment of women in public spaces to how harassment levels vary by the weather, not to mention the long-term effects of sustained male antagonism on women’s relationships. CNN has even talked to experts on some of these issues in the past. Nor was the video itself without substantive problems: it was widely critiqued for only showing men of color, as if every white man in New York City is Newland Archer.
For CNN this was an opportunity for an actual discussion on gender-based public harassment, on the role of race and class in the presentation of that harassment, and, most important, whether efforts like Hollaback’s are effective at countering it. Instead CNN did what cable news does best and turned it into one big shoutfest. The network got a viral segment out of it and countless websites got traffic; the actual discussion over catcalling — not exactly a recurring topic in the mainstream media — was not advanced an inch.
By all means, harp on Santagati (though doing so only burnishes his bad boy image, self-proclaimed or otherwise). But save some criticism for CNN.
Watch the clip below, if that’s your thing, via CNN:
[Image via screengrab]
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
