14 DAY TRIAL // Actor Jeremy Irons has managed to enrage lots of people with a series of comments on what he makes of political correctness in the case of relationships between men and women. As he sees it, if a man pats or slaps a woman on the derriere, he’s just being “friendly.”
The actor, who has been married for 33 years but has an open relationship with his wife, said in an interview this week – cited by the Daily Mail – that no woman “worth her salt” should be offended when she’s thus “greeted” by a male friend.
The aforementioned political correctness has made of a simple friendly gesture something offensive, a cause for outrage, he says.
“[Political correctness] has gone too far. There are too many people in power with too little to do, so they churn out laws to justify their jobs. I hope it’s a rash that will wear itself out,” Irons is quoted as saying.
In other words, political correctness exists only because some people want to feel like they’re doing something, want to keep themselves occupied.
“Most people are robust. If a man puts his hand on a woman’s bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It is communication. Can’t we be friendly?” the actor asks.
Presumably, says the Mail, the conversation turned to this topic because of Irons’ reputation as a womanizer. The tab even goes to some lengths to illustrate that he’s mostly saying these things because that’s what he does to women on a regular basis – and he doesn’t want them to take offense.
Asked about his marriage in the same interview, Jeremy refused to speak about how difficult it is to make marriage work, even in the case of an open relationship like his and Sinead Cusack’s.
“I float ideas, which I shouldn’t. But why not stir the pot? Lack of privacy is faintly aggravating, particularly if you have a salacious private life, which I hope most people have. We only live once,” he says.
“We all like dirty secrets, don’t we? [But] I’ve never needed a super-injunction. They’re terribly expensive you know,” Irons adds.