On Friday, May 23, Elliot Rodger went on a shooting spree in Isla Vista, California. He wounded 13 people, killed six and subsequently killed himself. In the aftermath of the senseless violence, a video of Rodger railing against his perceived enemies hit the internet.
The recording finds Rodger blamed “sexually active men” as well as “all you girls who rejected me and looked down upon me and treated me like scum, while you gave yourself to other men.” Most people would look at this and see it as the rantings of an unwell young man who, one way or another, learned to view sex as an entitlement and responded violently when he wasn’t getting any. Unless you’re Fox News analyst Dr Robi Ludwig, in which case that was clearly a matter of him repressing his homosexuality. Wait, what?
According to The Raw Story, Ludwig explained her theory by saying, “I was first listening to him; I was like, ‘Oh, he’s angry with women for rejecting him. And then I started to have a different idea: is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses?’” Granted, there was no actual evidence or reason for that conclusion, but she stuck with it, asking, “Was he angry with women because they were taking away men from him?”
Once again: at no point in Rodger’s rant did he ever say anything that would actually suggest that. It’s speculation. Hell, it’s even worse than speculation, because people are trying to pass this off as actual information.
The worst part about this is that they had a real opportunity to talk about how people see sex as something they are inherently entitled to, and how we’re taught to resent, belittle or otherwise dehumanize people who find us sexually unattractive or those we see as unattractive. Instead, they went with the insane closet-case theory and completely blew it. Congratulations, CNN! Your coverage of that Malaysian airplane is no longer the worst news coverage of the year.
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