I don’t even think it’s accurate to be like “Neil Gaiman portrayed himself as the good guy but was secretly a monster” I think Neil Gaiman thinks he’s the good guy and that’s what’s scary. I think he still views himself as a scrappy 20 something year old misunderstood introvert trying to make it with just a wish and a story in his heart and I think that’s the problem. I think his refusal to grow the fuck up and get over himself is what caused his entitlement to others. Like, he has the most vile strain of Peter Pan syndrome imaginable. Women in the public eye often get smeared as immature for things like making art about difficult feelings they have or standing up for themselves against unfair or misogynistic criticism, but men in the public eye are seldom criticized for their very glaring, very dangerous immaturity and it is emboldening them and enabling them big time. Men in the public eye get to be charming, impish boys well into their middle age. Society coddles them. Society gives them the benefit of the doubt. Society blames the woman instead. Society makes excuses. Society is patient with them as they take their sweet time sorting things out that women are expected to have sorted out by the time we turn 30. Of course powerful men think they can do these things and get away with them! We so often allow them to!
