Kit Harington really wants us to understand how hard it is to be pretty. The Game of Thrones actor complained last year about being labeled a “hunk,” calling the label demeaning. Those comments raised some eyebrows—but nevertheless, it seems he’s back at it again, now saying that “there’s a sexism that happens towards men” in show biz.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the man who plays Jon Snow said he wanted to get back to work that “tests” him, post-Thrones. He’s tired of being asked about his looks and his love life, and apparently blames sexism for these sorts of questions.
“I think there is a double standard,” Harington said. “If you said to a girl, ‘Do you like being called a babe?’ and she said, ‘No, not really,’ she’d be absolutely right. I like to think of myself as more than a head of hair or a set of looks. It’s demeaning.”
Harington conceded that “in some ways,” one could argue he got his job as Jon Snow because of “a look I have.”
“But there’s a sexism that happens towards men. There’s definitely a sexism in our industry that happens towards women, and there is towards men as well. At some points during photoshoots when I’m asked to strip down, I felt that. If I felt I was being employed just for my looks, I’d stop acting.”
There are few things more tedious than a young actor experiencing a modicum of success and fame who feels the need to whine about the burden of it all to the press. Harington is 29, which means he runs at a 10/1 ratio of unfortunate to good choices.
This “sharing” was definitely the former.
If Harington’s hair were receding and he had a few more pounds (the weight, not the money) on him, none of us would know who he is. He would barely be aware of himself. Alas, the head of hair helped get him a sweet gig on a red-hot show. That is unless we’re pretending that there is no correlation between attractiveness and success in television. When casting agents are going through a zillion head shots they’re not taking time to ponder whether the actor has recently read Proust or rescued a puppy.
So let’s stop complaining about objectification, Kitster. If you are making a comfortable income because you have some acting skill and lusty housewives fantasize about your backside, you’re kind of living the dream there, Mr. Feelings Bundle.
In case you didn’t think this story was weird enough already, a woman who writes on a “Celebrity Beauty” page for Yahoo! used Harington’s whining as an opportunity to lecture us about — get this — objectification in the workplace.
I work alone and I’m going to go stare at a mirror for a while.
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