Toodles, Tucker!
I'm still traumatized by debating toxic masculinity on Fox News with Tucker Carlson, a man who personifies the concept.
The start of this week was a bloodbath in the American media landscape. Fox News announced Monday that their (white-supremacist/misogynist/sexist/white nationalist) prime-time star, Tucker Carlson is leaving the network.
"Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways," the network said in a statement. "We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."
While every op-ed writer, media reporter, and person on the Internet has opinions (myself included) about Tucker’s firing, I had the experience of actually being on his show— not once but twice.
To quickly recap, because there’s a lot of material in Carlson’s trove of racism and misogyny, he landed himself in hot water in the past for saying everything from immigrants make America “poorer and dirtier” to stating that women are “extremely primitive” and “just need to be quiet,” to his latest controversy: questioning the legitimacy of the last U.S. elections.
But what was finally the last straw for this notorious white nationalist was his role in the near $800,000,000 (!!) settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems. The Associated Press (AP) reports that the lawsuit exposed how big names at Fox really felt about the “bogus election claims,” something Tucker Carlson, the network’s top-rated host, actively pushed on his top-rated show.
Unfortunately, I have personal experience with Tucker’s racism and sexism after going on his show a few years ago, on the advice of my agent at the time, and because I clearly like to torture myself. While I’ll give the Fox hair and makeup team mad props for their skills, being on-air with Tucker was traumatic.
The first time I went on Tucker Carlson Tonight, he incorrectly labeled me as a “Climate Activist” during our segment about population control, a very racist and outdated theory that basically states that it’s the overpopulated brown countries that disproportionately and negatively impact climate change.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, I went back a few months later for a second time to really experience the depth of Carlson’s racism and misogyny. This time, he wanted to talk singer-songwriter, John Mayer.
During a segment on toxic masculinity, we were discussing whether Mayer’s song, “Your Body Is A Wonderland” is an example of misogyny or not. Carlson repeatedly interrupted and yelled at me, while dismissing the entire idea of toxic masculinity as a “made up, dumb feminist concept.”
I’m getting angry just writing about this experience again. Just look at my face in the above screenshot. Also, did I mention that pre-show his producers told me “not to get personal with Tucker” over toxic masculinity? That whole network embodies all things sleaze.
While I refused to allow Carlson’s barrage of manterruptions and mansplaining shut me down, I won the “debate” not because I have a Master’s in Gender Studies but because Tucker is an actual moronic psychopath. You can literally hear it is his laugh.
The irony of debating something like toxic masculinity with a toxic man like Tucker Carlson is that you are being simultaneously gaslit while your points are being dismissed. Here’s a man telling you that something doesn’t exist despite literally embodying it.
If you watch the clip of our “debate” you can see how angry Carlson gets with me from the get-go. It wasn’t about the topic but that a woman of color was talking back back to him and refusing to back down. I never thought we would get to say “toodles” to Tucker, but I couldn’t be happier that this guy is finally off the airwaves.
But the battle between America’s white-supremacist soul and roots, (let’s not forget Tucker had the number one show on the number one network, which says A LOT), and a truly diverse, vibrant democracy, (complete with no banned books and full reproductive rights for women in 2023, please) remains to be seen.
And that’s with or without Fox News and Tucker Carlson.