Frank(en)ly not funny

The photo that emerged last week of the senior senator from Minnesota pawing the breasts of a sleeping woman was heinous, but it wasn’t unfamiliar. Nor was the mugging grin on Al Franken’s face as he grabbed her, or his initial response that he was trying to be funny. Sexist jokes have long been considered acceptable in American culture — and not only acceptable, but funny, in a way that a certain sketch comedy show perfected. …

From Franken and Harvey Weinstein to Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, women are reckoning with the painful reality that powerful men recently accused of sexual misconduct have long been the media and cultural gatekeepers in America. They’ve been the arbiter and the lens, determining what is newsworthy, what is socially acceptable and, in Franken’s case, what is funny.

— Allison Yarrow, Washington Post