Jonah Hill’s Controlling Texts Are About Way More Than What His Girlfriend Was Wearing
By stacy lee kong
Image: Twitter.com/JonahHill
Straight, cis men have been kind of a lot lately, huh?
Over the weekend, it felt like the only thing anyone on my corner(s) of the internet wanted to talk about was Jonah Hill. It all started last Friday evening, when Hill’s ex-girlfriend, surf instructor and model Sarah Brady, posted a series of Instagram Stories featuring screenshots of some pretty disturbing texts that appeared to be from the actor.
The most memed message is definitely the one where he tells her he can’t be with her if she needs “surfing with men, boundaryless inappropriate friendships with men, to model, to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit, to post sexual pictures, friendships with women who are in unstable places and from your wild recent past beyond getting a lunch or coffee or something respectful” then he’s not the partner for her, and no wonder that’s the one everyone’s referencing because it’s truly the most ridiculous string of words. Also, friendships with women from my wild recent past are objectively the best friendships, duh. But jokes aside, all of the messages Brady posted are actually super troubling. In other texts, he tells her she needs to delete posts of “her ass in a thong” from her Instagram, which is seemingly about her surfing photos. He says he doesn’t understand why she needs “to do that [surf in a two-piece swimsuit] and no [sic] in wetsuits to display your brilliant surfing skills.” And he tells her modeling is the last profession he’d choose for a partner because models lack “depth and substance and sustainability for relationships.” Understandably, but pretty tragically, Brady clearly tried to respect these ‘boundaries’ because she also posted messages confirming she has deleted some of her photos, trying to negotiate with him so she can keep a surfing video she’s really proud of and referencing “work opportunities [she] turned down for [him].”
If these texts are from Hill (and I’m inclined to believe they are, because neither his legal team nor Hill himself have made any statements addressing or denying Brady’s allegations—which isn’t the case for everyone who’s recently gone public with allegations against him), they show a man who is much older, richer and far more powerful than his partner demanding she submit to constraints around what she can wear, who she can spend time with, where she can go and even how she can make her living. (All while calling himself the “best boyfriend in the world” 🙃.) Worse, he’s using ‘therapy speak,’ including talking about his boundaries, trust and feeling triggered, to legitimize his attempts to control her.
And… this is not the only time in recent weeks where we’ve seen this kind of conversation around a woman’s (or femme-presenting person’s) body. Keke Palmer’s baby daddy learned exactly what “fuck around and find out” means when he took to Twitter to criticize the sheer dress she wore to an Usher concert, clearly suggesting she should be ashamed about wearing an outfit that accentuated her body, especially since she’s now a mother. Then there are all the dudes who decided Janelle Monáe was no longer decent because they’re not wearing suits anymore, and the ones who thought Tracee Ellis Ross posting a topless photo of herself on Instagram was inappropriate because she’s 50, which… have you seen Tracee Ellis Ross?! Please 🙄.
While these critiques are all about modesty, I’d argue that isn’t even the real issue. It’s actually anxiety around women and femmes’ general autonomy. You’ll notice Daulton wasn’t worried about Palmer “being a mom” when he took topless photos of her or a video of her shaking her ass; it only became a problem when she showed her body in ways that didn’t involve him. Similarly, Brady’s texts seem to show Hill sliding into her DMs and liking photos of her surfing before they began dating in 2021; those bikini photos only became a problem when he felt a sense of ownership over her. That’s because the problem isn’t about nudity as much as it is about women and femmes, especially Black women and femmes, deciding how, when and where their bodies will be on display. And that anxiety goes far, far beyond comments from annoying men on the internet/in your text messages/sliding into your DMs.
This isn’t just about men, but it does start with them
Both Hill and Daulton professed, either explicitly or implicitly, to merely setting boundaries within their relationships, a thoroughly modern, and maybe even evolved, approach. But when Hill says “these are my boundaries for romantic partnership. My boundaries with you based on the ways these actions have hurt our trust,” or Daulton says, “We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is. This is my family & my representation. I have standards & morals to what I believe. I rest my case” they’re deliberately misrepresenting what boundaries actually are.
Boundaries aren’t rules for other people, they’re values for yourself. So no, you can’t use them to dictate what someone else can and can’t do. In fact, they’re really just an articulation of what you will (or won’t) accept from someone else, though you’d never know that based on how the word is used in self-help TikToks, ‘healing journey’-centred Instagram posts and, um, Hill’s texts. In a Guardian article about his demands and whether the therapy speak he uses to justify them resemble actual therapy in any way, shape or form, psychotherapist India Haylor says she’s noticed the concept of boundaries being “misappropriated demands or ultimatums masquerading as ‘boundaries.’” In truth, she says, “healthy boundaries tend to be broader, more flexible, inclusive and respectful and will include propositions such as gratitude, open communication, space and honesty. I would also suggest that they are, above all, requests and not demands.”
So, if these men aren’t setting boundaries, what are they doing? That’s easy: using newly popular language in their attempts to implement a very old dynamic in their relationships, one where they dictate the rules of every interaction and their partners have no choice but to submit. It’s worth noting that this type of conduct is perhaps more formally known as coercive control, which is a lesser-known form of domestic violence that “is a strategic form of ongoing oppression and terrorism used to instill fear,” according to Healthline. “The abuser will use tactics, such as limiting access to money or monitoring all communication, as a controlling effort.”
The site goes on to spell out 12 signs of coercive control, of which several are particularly relevant to this conversation: a partner who isolates you from your support system, monitors your activity, denies you freedom and autonomy, gaslights you, reinforces traditional gender roles, controls aspects of your health and body and makes jealous accusations. And if it feels extreme to characterize this type of relationship dynamic, which feels very familiar for a lot of women and femmes, as abuse… well, I get it. But what’s more likely, that over the course of centuries our patriarchal, white supremacist society has normalized abusive behaviour in our most intimate relationships, or that someone attempting to control their partner’s actions as a balm for their own insecurities is just totally fine? It’s gotta be the former, right?
Why are some women so invested in undermining their own autonomy?
Also! I think it’s important to note that this isn’t specifically about men, per se. It’s actually about upholding patriarchy. You can tell because it’s not just one gender that’s criticizing Palmer, Brady, Monáe or Ross. I mean, influencer and blogger Jessica Reed Kraus published a newsletter this week asserting that “Jonah Hill Is Not an Abusive Misogynist We Need to Cancel.” (Thank you to Friday Things reader Catherine Héroux for forwarding that mess to me!) Kraus, who blogs under the name House Inhabit, claims Brady’s decision to post her and Hill’s texts was a “calculated revenge tactic.” She says that she saw Brady’s allegations of Hill’s emotional abuse circulating among her local surf crew a year ago, that Brady was a “bitter lover” and that she was only posting this information because she wanted—and was receiving, thanks to what Kraus characterizes as a gullible mainstream press—“head pats and reassurance.” Oh, and thousands of new Instagram followers, of course.
Interestingly, Kraus is the same blogger who accumulated hundreds of thousands of her own new social media followers thanks to her pro-Johnny Depp coverage of the Depp/Heart defamation trial last year… and who seems to have a tenuous relationship to truth. In just one example, she claimed she had received an handwritten note from an anonymous source that proves Amber Heard had drugged, raped and trafficked them, but Reddit users made a compelling case that the handwriting on the note she posted online is a far better match for her handwriting than Heard’s.
Or what about TV critic Emily Nussbaum’s asinine tweet about the propriety of Brady posting private texts between her and Hill? “It’s gross to post your ex’s private texts unless you have a really solid reason to do so—& this holds true even if your ex was a thin-skinned, manipulative weasel. That used to be a given, but it clearly isn’t anymore,” Nussbaum wrote earlier this week.
Leaving aside the fact that someone manipulating and controlling you should almost certainly count as “a really solid reason” to post private texts and that no one gets the benefit of the doubt from white feminists like white men, it’s important to unpack what the idea that it’s rude or improper to talk about abuse actually does. Namely: protect abusers. A 2021 paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology beautifully articulates this through the concept of “network silence around sexual harassment.” According to researchers M. Sandy Hershcovis, Ivana Vranjes, Jennifer L. Berdahl and Lilia M. Cortina, the composition of some networks and the belief systems of the people within those networks “serve to socially compel network silence, which enables sexual harassment to persist.” Men are often at the centre of professional networks, for example, which “may promote problematic belief systems, creating a mutually reinforcing dynamic. [The researchers] theorize that network silence contributes to the persistence of sexual harassment due to the lack of consequences for perpetrators and support for victims, which further reinforces silence. Collectively, this process generates a culture of sexual harassment.”
Put another way, when people within a professional, personal or social network—especially powerful, influential ones like Nussbaum—shame women for talking about their experiences publicly, it not only downplays that specific situation, it creates a culture of silence around abuse in general. This manufactured social taboo is kind of like the one that discourages workers from discussing their wages; it prevents other women from coming forward about their own experiences, yes, but it also makes it harder for anyone else who becomes aware of any abuse to say something, too.
Kraus and Nussbaum’s motivations are likely different—the former is definitely upholding patriarchy for the very straightforward financial benefits, while the latter’s reasons are a bit more opaque. (Author Ming Lauren Holden wonders whether Nussbaum’s “own sense of herself, and/or her professional success, depend on forgiving men’s emotional abuse and coercive control privately,” before going on to hypothesize that “Nussbaum either has engaged in such abuse herself or that she loves a man who does, or has. Husband, boss, brother, son, uncle, dad, etc.”) But the upshot is the same: people of all genders have a vested interest in upholding patriarchy because they mistakenly believe proximity to that power will protect or benefit them in the long-run.
I will say, it’s interesting to note that Hill and Daulton seemed to have varying degrees of success in their attempts to control their partners, likely because their relationships had vastly different power dynamics. Hill, who’s 14 years older and far more established than Brady, did seem to be able to exert some influence over her; she deleted the photos he asked her to, passed up professional opportunities that made him uncomfortable and seemed to depend on him financially to some degree, based on texts she posted this week. But Daulton quickly learned that Palmer is more popular, successful, powerful and financially established than he is; when he tried to influence her behaviour, it looks like her response was to… break up with his ass to the glee of Black Twitter, feminist Twitter and pop culture Twitter.
Of course, just because Daulton’s attempt to control Palmer didn’t work as well as he wanted it to—or rather, that the power dynamics in his specific relationship didn’t allow him to behave the way straight cis men historically have toward their partners—doesn’t mean the phenomenon of controlling men is on the decline. The opposite, actually. According to the Alberta-based Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society, 95% of people who have experienced domestic violence have also experienced coercive control. What’s more, according to Statistics Canada, “police-reported family violence” has increased for five years straight. If this month has proved anything, it’s that using new language doesn’t mean the old issues have gone anywhere.
Come Through: Hot Doc’s Thirst Talks, The Pedro Pascal Edition
On July 25, I’ll be talking about why so many people think Pedro Pascal is super-hot—and also what his popularity says about female desire, the state of the world and even the experience of being a woman in the year 2023—at a very fun Hot Docs panel alongside three of my favourites: Katherine Singh, Sadaf Ahsan and Meaghan Wray.
The details:
When: July 25 at 7pm
Where: Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, 506 Bloor St. W., Toronto
How Much: $15, but Friday Things readers can get 50% off the ticket price with the code HD062350.
Get your tickets now! (And keep an eye on Friday Things’ IG, because there may be a chance to win one of five pairs of tickets soon… or, like, this afternoon. One or the other!)
And Did You Hear About…
Washington Post columnist Christine Emba’s thought-provoking essay on modern masculinity’s identity crisis, which feels extra timely this week.
This excellent article about the business behind the Barbie movie.
The Cut’s wide-ranging Q&A with Keke Palmer—which apparently went down right as the Twitter body-shaming was going down. (She didn’t name the ex directly, but it’s in the subtext of her responses.)(Also, the answer about where she thinks we go when we die made me cry 🤷🏽♀️)
841, a five-year-old sea otter in California who has recently embarked on a life of crime.
This mini oral history of rapper Juvenile’s recent Tiny Desk Concert, which he didn’t even know was a thing back in April. And, this more expansive oral history of the Tiny Desk concept, which turned 15 earlier this year.
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