What Saoirse Ronan Stunning Paul Mescal And Other Male Actors Says About 'Nice Guys'
If you want to know what it feels like to be a woman in the world today, just ask Saoirse Ronan. Because the Irish star was able to sum it up within a matter of seconds during Friday’s episode of The Graham Norton Show, stunning and silencing four (very famous) men in the process, including the internet’s boyfriend himself: Paul Mescal.
Sitting alongside Mescal, Denzel Washington and Eddie Redmayne, as well as Norton, Ronan cooly and calmly made them all look rather clueless in the midst of a conversation around self-defence. Redmayne had been talking about his training for his role alongside Lashana Lynch in the upcoming Peacock miniseries, The Day of the Jackal, and explained how he’d been told to use a phone as a weapon against an attacker.
‘Who is actually going to think about that?’ Mescal retorted. ‘If someone actually attacked me, I’m not going to go "phone."' Norton responded by laughing and pretending to hold a phone while fending off an attacker, saying: ‘Can you hold on a second?’ Redmayne also quipped: ‘That’s a very good point.’
Ronan, meanwhile, tried to interject and was seemingly ignored by the men at first, who talked over her and continued laughing and joking about their various self-defence tactics. Then, Ronan raised her voice and said simply: 'That’s what girls have to think about all the time.' Cue several seconds of awkward silence as the men slowly became aware of their own ignorance, prompting Ronan to come to their rescue by making them all feel more comfortable by adding, ‘Am I right ladies?’
The remark elicited a rapturous applause in the audience and has since gone viral online, with many viewers praising the 30-year-old for calling the men out for being so myopic. After all, it’s not like Ronan was sat alongside a bunch of men’s rights activists. Far from it: she was with the famously liberal Norton, the wildly popular Washington, and Mescal and Redmayne, who are globally adored. Put simply? These are ‘nice guys’. Men who, we assume, are emotionally intelligent, kind, and, well, safe. These are men who, I suspect, most women would trust.
And yet, as the clip showed, even men like that can be completely unaware that, while they’re joking about the lengths they might go to in order to defend themselves from potential perpetrators on the street, these are serious, ongoing thoughts women have on an almost daily basis. And they aren’t remotely funny.
We have them whenever we’re walking home from the tube at night. Or anytime we’re on a quiet residential street on our own. When we’re trying — and failing — to get an Uber at 4am. Of course, these are the most obvious scenarios that most men would (hopefully) be aware of as potentially dangerous. But if you read the news, and realise just how endemic violence against women really is, you’ll see that there are actually no obvious scenarios. Because we can be at risk anywhere we go. Like when we’re walking through a park in broad daylight. Or going for a run in the morning before work. Or meeting up with a guy from a dating app.
Women have been raped and murdered in all of the aforementioned circumstances. And I’m not sure any amount of self-defence would’ve saved them. Hence why it’s so galling to watch Ronan being overlooked during a conversation around a kind of violence that most – if not all – of the men around her won’t have experienced outside of a film set. Perhaps that's why they can laugh about it; for them the reality of being attacked is so foreign and far removed, it really is just something to crack jokes about.
What’s even worse about the clip, though, is that despite the audience’s applause and evident appreciation of the importance of Roman’s words, Norton swiftly moved the conversation on, immediately asking Redmayne about horses. You can practically hear the producers in Norton’s ear, desperately urging him to push the conversation forward and away as quickly as possible. God forbid anyone responds to Ronan’s words and validate their significance.
That said, it has been heartening to see people sharing and discussing the clip online. Many are lauding Ronan for speaking out, while others are criticising the men for their ignorance. Rather than take the conversation further, for even a few seconds, in response the men went quiet and shared a subtle 'well, yeah' shrug as they acknowledged the truth that had just been spoken. Because even the ‘nice guys’ move through the world with a privilege they’re reluctant to acknowledge. And until they do, well, nothing will really change.
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