In the wake of the Sunday Times and Dispatches allegations against him (allegations which he vehemently denies), video clips and pictures have resurfaced of Russell Brand perpetrating all kinds of acts on women. In one, he straddles Australian interviewer Fifi Box and, as she squirms beneath him, begins to kiss her forcefully. In another he’s grabbing the news journalist Liz Hayes and forcefully kissing her on the mouth. There’s the clip of him telling his BBC Radio 2 colleague that he’d like to “go under the desk” while she read the news. They’re not rape, obviously, they’re comparably minor, humiliating acts of transgression. They amount to an invasion of personal space, a crossing of boundaries — all sugar-coated in his trademark (ceaseless) torrent of words.
They’re an uncomfortable watch. You can see the unease on the women’s faces as they’re forced to play along while this man makes lewd remarks, grabs them, touches them, etc. That invasion of personal space is an experience most women and girls who came of age in the early-00s will be familiar with. Brand didn’t exist in a vacuum and his jokes — which at that time ran the gamut from a bit about spitting in the face of a lap dancer to asking audience members to form an orderly queue for sex after shows — were only funny because many, many people laughed.
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