The main attraction of this weekend’s Red Nose Day—organized by Comic Relief, the UK’s showbiz-driven charity and broadcast on UK TV—was a 12-minute sequel to popular Christmas movie Love Actually.
Comic Relief co-founder and Vice-Chair Richard Curtis, who directed Love Actually, brought back Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Bill Nighy and Keira Knightley for Comic Relief, Actually, which chronicled what happened to the characters after the end of the 2003 rom-com (though Martin Freeman and Emma Thompson were notable absentees).
The reunion had much of the media in raptures. The Telegraph called the mini-movie “a cockle-warming treat,” while Time headlined its piece: “People Are Actually Loving the Love Actually Reunion.”
Well, yes, some people are loving it. But social justice warriors on social media are slamming the mini-sequel for happening on the grounds that the original movie is a sexist abhorrence that degrades its female characters and advocates male stalking.
Oh goody, in case I wasn’t sure after the election that we live in a revoltingly sexist society, here comes a #LoveActually sequel. FML.
— Jennifer (@leftyjennyc) March 6, 2017
A thousand times yes, @HadleyFreeman! Love, Actually is *such* a sexist crock of shit https://t.co/0pCTJTXbmJ
— Alok Jha (@alokjha) March 24, 2017
Why is everyone going on about the new #loveactually. The last one was rubbish and sexist.
— j c (@cakesnshoes) March 24, 2017
Love actually is getting a sequel, will it be able to top the amount of prejudice and sexism included in the first one though? #loveactually
— reid jp (@PottsReid) February 15, 2017
Hadley Freeman of The Guardian led the backlash to the sequel, accusing the movie of killing the rom-com: “For a start, the majority of the rom involves men stalking women (Andrew Lincoln) or sexually harassing their female subordinates in the workplace (Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman). Most women in the movie are emphatically socially or professionally inferior to the men around them, and all are hopelessly passive, waiting for a suitor to pursue her in an airport or turn up like a deranged intruder on her front steps – with one exception.”
Jezebel, which not too long ago fumed, ‘”LOVE ACTUALLY’ SEES NO PROBLEM WITH TREATING ITS FEMALE CHARACTERS LIKE GIANT BIPEDAL VAGINAS IN SWEATER VESTS,” hasn’t weighed in yet.
But since it will be shown in the U.S. on May 25 when NBC airs its annual US Red Nose Day charity event, we probably haven’t heard the last of this “Sexism Actually” movement.