I was supposed to have a reading of my book, The Selfie Generation, at Garrison Keillor’s bookstore last week, in St. Paul, Minnesota. I canceled the talk after Keillor was accused of alleged inappropriate behavior with a co-worker.
Ironically, Keillor couched some of his anger about the accusation in an anti-selfie statement in which he seems to portray himself as a victim of women who not only want to get a cool selfie with him—a celebrity—but who actually want his body. In an email to the Star Tribune, Keillor said:
“If I had a dollar for every woman who asked to take a selfie with me and who slipped an arm around me and let it drift down below the beltline, I’d have at least a hundred dollars. So this is poetic irony of a high order. But I’m just fine. I had a good long run and am grateful for it and for everything else.”
This is not a surprising statement. As I write in my book—which looks at how misogyny has created the anti-selfie narrative—it’s generally men telling women that they’re narcissists for selfie-ing. In this instance, Keillor implies that the women taking selfies with him are bad, not just because they’re taking his time and hoping to be seen with a famous person, but also that they were all using the selfie to get into his pants. This loops back into the idea that “she asked for it”—one of the ways that predators rationalize their behavior.
Read my full story on Harper’s Bazaar here: http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a14030260/garrison-keillor-women-who-take-selfies/
