Sundry items, the New York Times: “Is Softball Sexist?” “Are Algorithms Sexist?” “Is Your Pastor Sexist?” “Is Shielding Sarah Palin Sexist?” “ ‘House of the Dragon’ Is Less Sexist and Racist. But Is It Good?” “Is it any good?” is practically a revolutionary question—one that no one seems to have asked regarding that new Billy Eichner movie Bros, a romantic comedy about a gay couple. But the Times is an old hand at this: Feminists may chant, “My body, my choice!” but not when it comes to fashion. Nina Totenberg (best known for covering the Supreme Court at NPR) argued that accepting mini-skirts as a “fashion norm” would be “stupid and sexist” back around the time people kinda-sorta still gave a hoot who Sinead O’Connor is.

Call this the “soft Smollett.” …

And maybe Americans have, after all these years, earned a little benefit of the doubt when it comes to these kinds of claims. Americans are bonkers, of course—look at our presidential elections or our homicide rates—but we’ll watch a good movie about gay people. We’ll even watch a mediocre movie about gay people, provided it is a lesbian period drama. There is plenty to criticize about American society, American culture, and, in particular, American popular culture, which is a sewer. But promiscuous and self-serving allegations of bigotry and victimization are as indefensible in the soft Smollett as in the full Smollett, and they deserve the same contempt.