In the on-going (albeit almost totally one-sided) tussle between Susan Sarandon and Piers Morgan about the former’s choice of outfit for the SAG Awards last weekend, the social media-awarded score now stands at Piers nil, Sarandon one.
Piers has spent a (slightly weird) amount of time this week obsessing over Sarandon’s Maxmara-suit-and-bra combo, describing it as ‘tacky’, ‘inappropriate’ and ‘publicity-seeking’.
Following which, Sarandon tweeted a pretty cool response: a #tbt picture of her wearing a bra in the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, dedicated to one @piersmorgan.
Pause for applause.
To be fair to Morgan, though, his argument was a bit more sophisticated than just ‘Put it away, love’. (Because, you know, if he’d suddenly taken against cleavage surely Emilia Clarke’s cut-to-the-naval Dior would also have raised his ire.)
His point was that Sarandon was there to present the ‘In memoriam’ segment, in which the celebrations are halted to remember actors who have died in the last year. And that distracting from the solemn moment with your frankly awesome cleavage might be bad manners.
Which, OK, we can see where you’re coming from.
But still: hush now, Piers. For one thing, it wasn’t a funeral, it was an awards ceremony.
For another, Sarandon was asked to do a small but important job on the night, and she spoke movingly and elegantly. Doing it while in possession of breasts isn’t an offensive act. (If you find breasts offensive, well, that's your look out.)
If we start down the road of which bits of a female body are ‘tacky’ and which she should or shouldn’t display if wanting to be ‘appropriate’ (appropriate for what?) we end up in a pretty depressing place.
It seems like too many men still need to learn that just because something about a woman causes a strong reaction in them it’s entirely possible – if not preferable – to keep it to yourself.
And, Piers, we’re sure you’re not the only man to have spent most of the week thinking about Sarandon’s boobs. It’s just that most of them have the sense to keep it off Twitter.
