Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Bravo
Tonight’s episode of Southern Charm sees JT and Rod try (and fail miserably) to stage some sort of reckoning over Austen’s behavior towards women. For the most part, it’s been refreshing to finally have men on this show who are willing to call out the “good ole’ boys”—specifically Austen and Shep—for their manipulative ways. But at what point does this sense of protectiveness turn into possessiveness? How much of JT and Rod calling out Austen and Shep’s toxic masculinity is just a ploy to get into Taylor and Olivia’s pants? Why do neither of them feel creepy for having an entire argument about Olivia’s left-behind bra without her present??
I mostly found tonight’s “bra-gate” to be extremely boring and pointless. I’m particularly done pretending that Rod has any chance with Olivia when they’ve had two scenes together this entire season. But this whole debacle really underscores the spectrum of misogyny. On one end, you have men like Austen, who feel entitled to women’s affection and completely ignore boundaries. Then you have JT and Rod, who think of themselves as “good guys” and allies to women. But it seems like they mostly want to be seen as these knights in shining armor to the show’s supposed damsels in distress.
At this point, I don’t want Olivia or Taylor to touch any of these men. I also just wish both of them were a lot smarter and had better taste, but I guess we wouldn’t have anything to talk about this season. That said, Olivia ends up back in Austen’s clutches following her brother’s death. She also may or may not have let him remove her bra.