Imagining an SNL skit: "How do you handle an angry man? The Man Handler!" [View all]

[Sparkly]

I've heard it all today...

- "If Hillary had said 'Back up, you creep,' she'd have won the election!"
- "No, because the whole debate would have turned into 'You're acting threatening,' 'No I'm not, why are you so sensitive?' And she'd have looked out of control."
- "Okay maybe just a little flash of reaction - a look, a word, a gesture - and she'd have shown 'authentic emotion.'"
- "But people attacked her whenever she showed emotion, so she had to show reserve and presidential temperament."
- "She should have turned around and kneed him!"

Etc...

The old commercial jingle - "How do you handle a hungry man? The Man Handler!" - popped into my head. It was not so long ago that ads showed women (as wives) being blamed for men having dirty necks (ring around the collar) or going elsewhere for better coffee (ahem), and women were usually seen serving husbands and kids, rarely sitting down and eating, themselves. Handling his needs to his satisfaction was her success.

The message of the "Man Handler" commercials, as I recall, was that manly men work hard, rough and tough and macho-like, so they come home hungry - and YOU'd better be ready to handle it with "Man Handlers!" (Some frozen or canned substance.)

So, since Hillary couldn't handle Donald in the perfect way, it's her fault he's president. By her own admission, she failed to figure out the perfect response to him, and wished she could throw it out there -- "What would YOU do?"

I'm amazed that she was able to navigate the impossibly fine line she treaded all her life -- her hair, her voice, her clothes, her words, her facial expressions. Outside of places where merit mattered, she was considered too weak, too strong; too emotional, too cold; too meek, too confident; too smart, too incompetent; too ambitious without merit, too accomplished to know her place; too outspoken, too calculated; too career-driven, too willing to save her marriage, blah blah blah.

(And now she has the audacity to write a book?! Why couldn't she say all this later, or sooner, or not at all, they ask? Why not go away, shut up, and let us absorb the lesson that running a woman candidate was merely "symbolic" and the country is not "ready?" Why doesn't she just hang her head in shame and disappear in disgrace, like all icons of progress in history have -- well fine, none of them ever went away, but SHE should!)

I suddenly imagined a skit re-enacting moments from the debates, or the campaign in general, with an actual "Man Handler" character who arrives to save the day and help her respond to Trump in the RIGHT way - the WINNING way. For example:

Trump invading her personal space in the debate. "How do you handle a hostile man? The Man Handler!" Time freezes and the Man Handler enters to explain exactly how she should respond. Similarly:
- Trump calls her "Crooked Hillary" or interrupts her with "Wrong!" "How do you handle a childish man?" The Man Handler has the answer.
- Trump denies Russia's involvement. "How do you handle a Putin Man?"
- Trump calls her a "Nasty Woman." "How do you handle a (I dunno, Dickweed Man)?"

Various scenes ask "how do you handle" a Lying man. Clueless man. Crazy man. Desperate man. Angry man. Psycho man. Each time, the Man Handler comes to the rescue to tell HRC exactly what to do, and each time, there's a backlash showing how it failed.

I guess the skit would have to end with the Man Handler giving up. Because there IS no way for any woman to handle a horrid man like Trump -- not in this country, not in our time.

And I guess it's not funny at all.