'Black Monday' Season 2 Episode 4 is a masterclass on how to portray sexual harassment and bad male feminists
Spoilers for 'Black Monday' Season 2 Episode 4 'Fore'
Even though based in the late 1980s, how Episode 4 of Showtime’s dark Wall Street comedy ‘Black Monday’ manages to capture the zeitgeist of the present era is masterful. Sexism, sexual harassment at the workplace, homophobia, gun violence, racism and the painfulness of male feminists, are all beautifully addressed in just under 25 minutes.
The episode titled ‘Fore!’ starts with an unsolicited “d**k pic” in an era when no knew the term, let alone the concept of one. It was a black and white photo, most likely taken in a photocopier. And no one seemed to know who it belonged to. Of course, the blame went towards Yassir (Yassir Lester) and Wayne (Horatio Sanz), the only two male employees in an office full of empowered women only.
While the ever-belligerent Wayne aggressively took to questioning every woman in the office as to who complained about the said “d**k pic”, Yassir took to constantly apologizing to them for unintentionally making them face a hostile work environment. In the end, it turned out it wasn’t one of the women, rather Yassir, who had complained about the photo, tired of Wayne’s sexist and gross behavior.
But Yassir lecturing Wayne was a thing of beauty. He hits every possible wrong note. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but times are changing,” he says, to much applause from his coworkers. “We just had a girl Vice-Presidential candidate and granted, she got her a*s f***ing smoked, because duh! But we’re gonna have a chick president soon.”
One can only assume he spoke about Geraldine Ferraro, and “she got her a*s f***ing smoked, because duh!” has only got to be the worst possible ways to describe one of the landmark moments of US politics. Also, the use of “girl” and “chick” to describe women was the cherry on top of the painful-yet-hilarious ice cream sundae that was Yassir’s speech.
He continues, “These girls, they are mothers and they are daughters and they are wives, and they are sisters.” When a woman employee points out, “We’re also people,” Yassir quickly corrects himself and says, “Exactly! These people are men’s mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives.”
Countless feminist authors have written about how words like “chick” and “girl” infantilize women. Many more have written about how reducing women to their association with men only demeans them. And several more have opined about how quote-unquote feminist bros do the barest of minimum and think grandly of themselves. In 30 seconds, ‘Black Monday’ demonstrates all three things with enormous finesse.
The episode also displays an intersection of racism and classism where all the rich white folk, even the governor, at the golf club assumed Dawn (Regina Hall) was some sort of a celebrity, just because she was dressed in an expensive attire and she was at a rich people’s club. Throughout the episode, they try to take photos with her, get her autograph, and even think she’s everyone from Janet Jackson to Oprah Winfrey to actress Regina King. One can only laugh and facepalm so much while watching one episode.
‘Black Monday’ airs Sundays on Showtime at 10 pm ET.