Angela Lansbury On Rape: “We Must Sometimes Take Blame, Women”

First off, I can not, for the life of me, believe that Angela Lansbury is alive. Instead of simply congratulating Jessica Fletcher herself for not being dead, the Internet is jumping down her throat for comments she made basically saying that all women are whores. She must have made a rash judgment after seeing this. The ninety-two-year-old Lansbury chimed in on the sexual assault sea change happening in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal via The Telegraph:

We have to own up to the fact that women, since time immemorial, have gone out of their way to make themselves attractive, and unfortunately it has backfired on us — and this is where we are today. We must sometimes take blame, women. I really do think that. Although it’s awful to say we can’t make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped.

Just hearing a ninety-two-year-old woman say the word “raped” is kind of a thrill. Lansbury’s comments fall under the category of “victim shaming,” and apparently all of our collective morality hinges on one insanely old woman’s opinions, because the Internet is currently beside itself – shaming Lansbury for shaming victims. You know who’s a whore? You Angela. Dumb bitch. Just kidding you’re perfect. Lansbury was born in 1925 – two years after the first commercially-released talkie. The same year that The Great Gatsby was published. She grew up swimming in bathing suits that dragged around her knees and was probably raped for that. Ankles were where it was at back then. Plus, once she got going in Hollywood in the 40’s, she herself dressed like a slut, so she might be doling out advice from firsthand experiences. The children might want to pay attention.

We will all, inevitably, offend people when we’re a billion years old. I don’t ring my grandma when I want to ruminate about race relations, because I know I’ll get a ten-hour speech about how Koreans and black people are conspiring against her and her neighbors in Philadelphia. And I don’t care that she sounds crazy, because she’s ancient. When I’m a billion, certain current socially-accepted vernacular will be out the window. I might go totally rogue and use a pronoun.

Lansbury seemed to veer more towards the Buzzfeed-approved chatter when she continued with:    

Should women be prepared for this? No, they shouldn’t have to be. There’s no excuse for that. And I think it will stop now — it will have to. I think a lot of men must be very worried at this point.

So, she’s basically saying that women should get to be whores and also not get raped? Not to sound unwoke, but, isn’t that the end goal for even the most woke of feminists? She basically just delineated the premise behind the Slut Walk and the gist of all of Rose McGowan’s tweets. But I couldn’t possibly imagine the Internet overreacting, so she must be a woman hater. Anyway, here’s the ol’ ho bag in action.   

^{Photo Credit: Getty Images, Mr. Skin}