Ann Althouse makes a very good point about an incredibly rude Slate article by writer Heather Schwedel. "Slate must think the word 'male' in this headline makes it not just okay but hilarious," Althouse wrote. The article in question has a headline that asks, "What Makes a Face 'Punchable?'" It begins:

There’s a certain class of public figure whose face routinely gets described as “punchable.” He’s usually male; though arguably society shouldn’t be encouraging the punching of anyone (with possible exception for Nazis), good etiquette would seem to indicate that women are considered the less punchable sex. The guy with the punchable face is usually white; it’s hard out there for white men lately, in case you hadn’t heard. He’s usually young, too: What’s more annoying than the know-it-all grin of impetuous youth? In addition to the privilege that being young, white, and male already affords him, he of high punchability often has a look that somehow scans as extra-privileged, a mouth seemingly born with a silver spoon in it.

I love it that Schwedel brings "good etiquette" into the conversation from the get-go. What article about knee-jerk animosity would be complete without at least a nod to what Miss Manners might think? Who's on Schwedel's hit list? "Martin Shkreli, Scott Disick, Ryan Lochte, Miles Teller, Justin Bieber, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump Jr.." She then goes on to point out that the adorable star of Baby Driver, Ansel Elgort, is the most recent addition. Why? Among other reasons, he's from a well-to-do family. "Backgroundwise, he’s an upper-crust New Yorker: He went to the Fame high school, and his father is a fashion photographer."

Gosh, who does he think he is, being born into an affluent, talented family? So rude. But not as rude as the Trump family members:

[O]bviously the Trump sons are beady-eyed paragons of smugness. There is a relationship, then, between punchability and self-knowledge. Misbehaving so badly when they have the advantages that they do is what tends to raise the public’s hackles. Can they all be so blithely unaware of the tiredness of the “bad boy” trope, or the many overgrown babies who have already trod this ground? And yet they continue to smirk.

As commenter Robert Marshall wryly observed, "If someone suggested that black faces look 'lynchable,' would that be an idea worth discussing in an article? I don't think so.... The fact that someone is getting paid for writing drivel like this is appalling."

h/t Ann Althouse

​Image Credit: By Mingle Media TV [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons