Can Wonder Woman's Lasso Of Truth Conquer The Disingenuous 'Outrage' Of Internet Manbabies?

Earlier this week, The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin announced that it would be hosting a single showing of Wonder Woman that would be open only to women, for a night of "girl-power" and what have you. Aw! Cute!
Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying “No Guys Allowed” for one special night at the Alamo Ritz. And when we say “People Who Identify As Women Only,” we mean it. Everyone working at this screening -- venue staff, projectionist, and culinary team -- will be female.
Then, of course, there was the ever-so-predictable outrage coming from obnoxious men on Twitter and Facebook trying to insist that such an event was sexist and discriminatory against men.
The assumption many of those pretending to be aggrieved here are making is that no one would ever allow a space for men only. Which is patently untrue. There are still hundreds of "Men's Clubs" all over the country -- not strip clubs, mind you, but "old fashioned gentleman's social clubs," that admit only men. There are also still several golf courses (four in Chicago alone!) that still do not admit women.
One particularly obnoxious fella, Heat Street contributor Stephen Miller -- no, not Trump advisor Stephen Miller, another one who is also obnoxious -- even went so far as to purchase a ticket to the screening online, and claims he intends to show up.
Miller has literally been spending the past two days retweeting messages criticizing him for being a douche, along with other messages supporting his "civil rights." Which, of course, is a fabulous use of anyone's time. He is clearly very impressed with his own cleverness. It's kind of sad, really.
In response to all the criticism from ridiculous people, Alamo Drafthouse decided to add another woman-only showing of Wonder Woman. BOO YAH.
We heard your complaints have taken swift & decisive action. Another women-only #WonderWoman show on sale now! https://t.co/ILueTsJH6Rpic.twitter.com/6HAuYi6fQG
— Alamo Drafthouse NYC (@AlamoNYC) May 26, 2017
Naturally, following the outrage, there were pieces in nearly every online publication about said outrage. Because let's be real here -- dudes crying about superhero movies is freaking hilarious, as we all learned from the LADY GHOSTBUSTERS ridiculousness.
But there's a danger in that, in a way -- because us taking them seriously, believing they are genuinely aggrieved, is sort of exactly what they want. As someone who has studied the "manosphere" for several years, I have a pretty good instinct for distinguishing sincere MRA bullshit from general trolling -- and this? This is just trolling.
The thing to understand here is that those complaining about this online are not sincerely angry at not being able to attend a particular showing of Wonder Woman at one theater in Texas (or another in New York). They are mad at what they see as disingenuous social justice warriors constantly complaining about every little thing in order to get attention and what they see as the ever-so-coveted "victim status."
You see, what these people genuinely believe is that women conspired to invent the existence of sexism for the explicit purpose of ruining their collective days and trying to make them feel bad for no good reason. They believe that the "wage gap" is a myth we made up for this same purpose. They believe the same is true about racism -- although some even go so far as to believe that black people only believe that racism exists because evil liberal white people convinced them that it exists in order to get them on their side. They believe this is also the case for poor people, who are all secretly living high on the hog on food stamps while just being super lazy all the time and not even wanting a job.
They see those of us who do actually care about things like injustice, sexism, racism, poverty, healthcare, rape, discrimination as, at best, unwitting participants in a mass delusion perpetrated by those with some other nefarious purpose (GEORGE SOROS!) and at worst, as empathy thieves in constant need of attention. We go around pretending to be "victims" in order to try to cruelly siphon empathy from white men who have not yet gotten around to taking the Red Pill. To what end? Not sure. But they sure as hell believe it.
So, when they pretend to be outraged over a movie theater doing a woman-only showing of Wonder Woman, they see themselves as holding up a mirror to what they see as the ridiculousness of social justice movements. They're not seeing it as a genuine offense, they're seeing it as "turnabout is fair play." They are trying to beat us at our own game, while having an incredibly convoluted idea of what that game is.
This is not to say that many of those on the Right do not feel genuinely aggrieved -- maybe not about this, but about other things in general. Though they love to talk about "victim culture" and "snowflakes" and what-have-you, there is a deep-seated resentment and jealousy over the fact that other people are receiving attention and empathy they see as rightfully theirs.
In fact, you will almost never see a comment those on the Left "playing victim" that is not backed up by some variation of "and no one even realizes that the real victims are heterosexual white Christian men with money!!" And they do believe this, with all their shriveled up hearts. Several recent polls have shown that Trump supporters in particular believe white people and Evangelical Christians are the most discriminated classes of people in America. This mentality is perhaps most evident in the ever-popular comment section spam phrase "Diversity is a codeword for anti-white."
If you understand children, you can understand where they are going with this. They're basically kids who are angry because mom is paying so much attention to a sick sibling. They might even fake an injury in order to get some of that attention themselves, which is partially what this Wonder Woman crap is. It's Social Munchausen's.
This kind of trolling has become a pretty common thing in the past couple years -- another good example would be when Trump supporters pretended to be outraged on behalf of gay people over Stephen Colbert's joke about Trump being Putin's cockholster. Their goal is, essentially, to invalidate legitimate outrage by making a farce of it. They want to be taken seriously, for the "lulz." It's best we not give them what they want.
[Alamo Drafthouse | Washington Post]
Wonkette is ad-free, womyn-owned and completely gonna see Wonder Woman on June 2.
Robyn Pennacchia is a brilliant, fabulously talented and visually stunning angel of a human being, who shrugged off what she is pretty sure would have been a Tony Award-winning career in musical theater in order to write about stuff on the internet. Follow her on Twitter at @RobynElyse