Scarlett Johansson called out Ivanka Trump for her assertion that while you might not hear her disagree with her father publicly, she’s totally doing so behind closed White House doors, pinky swear! “You can’t have it both ways,” said Johansson. “If you take a job as a public advocate, then you must advocate publicly, right?” She framed the First Daughter’s decisions as cowardly.
The Black Widow of my heart was being interviewed at the “Women In the World” summit when she was asked about Ivanka. Johansson was outspoken during the election and has upped her involvement in political matters and advocacy in the Trump era, giving an impassioned speech at the Women’s March. She’s now also pop culturally bound to the Trumps after her pouting, perfect impression of Ivanka in a
She’s now also pop culturally bound to the Trumps after her pouting, perfect impression of Ivanka in a Saturday Night Live perfume ad. The fake perfume was called “Complicit,” and the word has come to be so associated with Ivanka that she was asked about it specifically in a recent sit-down with Gayle King. Then the word trended on the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the public rushed to look it up.
Ivanka told King that the biggest changes she’d make would be out of the spotlight and the public eye. Although Johansson praises the concept of there being a powerful woman behind the man—who actually gets to wield the power—she thinks that the idea is awfully old-fashioned. I’d tend to agree, since we most often hear the “woman behind the man” phrase used about medieval monarchs.
“What about being in front of that person, or next to them? Or standing on your own?” And then Scarlett Johannson speaks for, well, nearly every woman on Earth:
“It’s such an old-fashioned concept that to be this powerful woman, you can’t appear to be concerned with that someone’s going to think you’re ‘bitchy.’ I think powerful women often get concerned with this idea that they’re going to be seen in this unforgiving light. Screw that! It’s so old-fashioned, and so uninspired and actually really cowardly.”
Johansson’s frustration with Ivanka is even greater because she’s met her “several times in the past” and found Ivanka to be “a very well-spoken, smart and intelligent woman, and I think, engaging.” While Johansson sympathizes with the “difficult” situation of your ungovernable father being in charge of the government, she also thinks Ivanka has a unique opportunity to make a big impact, “just by being vocal.” So the fact that Ivanka would be content to give a quiet, blank face to the public feels confusing and “baffling.” We don’t know how she really stands on the issues of the day, and as such we really have no idea what she’s saying to her father.
Before Ivanka became a formal government employee, I disliked the discourse about how she was going to tame and temper Trump. She was simply his daughter, and it’s not incumbent on women to keep overbearing men in line. But now that she’s an official Assistant to the President as well as his closest family member, we deserve to know where she really stands, and what she’ll take a stand for.
Hamilton just came on as I was writing this and it occurs to me that Ivanka is, at the moment, exemplifying Aaron Burr’s demeanor in the musical. “Talk less, smile more,” Burr advises Alexander Hamilton on the game of politics. “Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.” But all I can think is Hamilton’s riposte: “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what will you fall for?”
(via People, featured images: Shutterstock)
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