Adam Sandler has no social awareness of how awkward he seemed to be making Emma Thompson and Claire Foy #stoptouching #GrahamNorton pic.twitter.com/fKNin1aAof
— Michelle Marsh (@michellelmarsh) October 28, 2017
Can we all just decide right here and now that touching anybody repeatedly without their consent, especially when they make a move that implies they don’t want to be touched, is not okay? Can we just all do that and save ourselves some future trouble? On a recent episode of The Graham Norton Show, Adam Sandler and The Crown‘s Claire Foy were seated on a couch together during an interview, and Sandler had trouble keeping his mitts off of her.
You can check it out in the tweet above. Sandler puts his hand on her leg once, she taps it as good-naturedly as possible to get him to remove it…and then he puts his hand on her leg again, as if it’s all a big joke, making her look and feel really awkward. The really telling moment, though, is after that, when he removes his hand, and her reflex action is to run a hand over her low-cut top as if suddenly self-conscious, making sure that nothing too much is showing or something.
In the grand scheme of things, this was a teensy moment, but it wasn’t nothing, and it was a prime example of how women are supposed to “be okay” with being touched at all times. Sandler’s reps, of course, have a different version.
As reported by IndieWire, “a representative for Sandler said the actor’s gesture had been “blown out of proportion” and that Sandler had made the same move on Dustin Hoffman during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this month.” Here’s the clip, so you can see what they’re talking about.
- First, they’ve been friends for twenty years. There’s a big difference between patting the leg of a good friend, and patting the leg of someone you’re sitting next to in an interview whom you’ve either never met, or only know in passing!
- The gender dynamics are freaking different, and they know it! And if not, they should. Sandler can’t expect that putting his hand on a woman’s leg and leaving it there would be received in a comfortable way if they don’t know each other well, or at all. Hell, if he let his hand linger on Dustin Hoffman the way he let it linger on Claire Foy, I’m sure Hoffman would be uncomfortable, too!
Now, Foy’s reps, when asked about the appearance, said that “We don’t believe anything was intended by Adam’s gesture and it has caused no offence to Claire.” That’s all very well and good, except that whatever she says now, it’s clear from the footage that, in that moment, she was made (however slightly) uncomfortable, and it’s not something that she should’ve had to deal with while doing her job.
It’s very simple. Don’t touch people you don’t know well and haven’t asked or built a rapport with. Sheesh!
(image: screencap)
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