If only we could bottle (reusables) and distribute Greta Thunberg’s ability to neutralise the ire of men who should know better.
In an attempt to divert attention from the House judiciary committee debating his impeachment, Trump threw a "calm down dear" in the direction of the 16-year-old climate emergency activist who has been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019. (Let us never forget that Trump had to mock up his own Time cover to hang on the wall, like a Moonpig card for someone whose birthday you forgot about until the very last minute.)
"Greta must work on her Anger Management problem" he tweeted, showing as little regard for the correct use of capital letters as he does for the peril the planet finds itself in.
Thunberg, perpetually unfazed, responded by changing her Twitter bio to "A teenager working on her anger management problem ..." Please note the lower case.
Obviously, Thunberg is angry. Her speeches are about how angry she is. She is livid that she is the one to have to keep telling the world about the crisis it is facing.
"People are underestimating the force of angry kids," she told reporters on her arrival back in Europe at the start of December.
Even Jeremy Clarkson, who called her a ‘‘spoilt brat’’ in September, offered his congratulations on the Time cover, "from the old dinosaur", although he did manage to state that her dreams were unrealistic at the same time.
It is striking that Thunberg has achieved so much, so quickly, at such an age, but framing this as an intergenerational war is a distraction. The science tells us there is no time for this. The election of a prime minister who did not think a crucial television debate on the climate crisis worth his time, and a government whose environmental manifesto promises were described by Friends of the Earth as "in sector after sector ... invariably weaker than the other parties, entirely absent or just plain bad", tells us there is no time for this. Thunberg is right to be furious.
Her anger is what seems to most trigger the sensitive snowflakes of far-right politics.
Trump, a man whose whole state of being is so nuclear-head-emoji that he actually looks like one, uses her fury as his default starting point for insults.
When she tweeted about anti-indigenous violence in the Amazon, Jair Bolsonaro called Thunberg "pirralha", a little brat. She changed her Twitter bio then, too.
Her ability to contain her rage for the moments when it counts, rather than throwing it away on a hostile response to bullying babies, is remarkable.
She doesn’t need anger management. She’s managing it perfectly well.
When Natalie Portman presented the best director award at the Golden Globes in 2018, she announced: "And here are the all-male nominees." As they did last year, voters seem to have taken this as an instruction, rather than a rebuke.
In this year of great Gretas, the actor, writer and director Greta Gerwig has been snubbed once again for a best director nomination, even though her adaptation of Little Women has won the kind of five-stars-all-round critical bear-hug that would usually ensure a look-in.
The same happened in 2018 with the wonderful Lady Bird. Saoirse Ronan, who did win a Golden Globe for acting in the latter, and who has been nominated for Little Women, was compelled to say: "My performance in this film belongs to Greta as much as it does myself and I share this recognition completely with her."
There may still be consolation from the Oscars. Gerwig was nominated for best director for Lady Bird. She was the first woman to be nominated, simply nominated, in that category since Kathryn Bigelow(who won) in 2009 for The Hurt Locker, who was the first woman nominated since Sofia Coppola in 2003, who was the first woman since Jane Campion in 1993, who was the first woman since Lina Wertmuller in 1976.
That’s five nominations, and just one winner, in more than 80 years.
Usually, we are told that there simply aren’t enough women making films. But while Gerwig’s absence from the directing category at the Golden Globes is perplexing, that of Olivia Wilde, Lulu Wang, Alma Har’el, Celine Sciamma and Melina Matsoukas is equally baffling.
Here are the annual all-male nominees, indeed.
- Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist
