It turns out that the worst thing about rape--I'm sorry, ALLEGED rape--as far as Sony is concerned is that it's bad for the music giant's rep, a.k.a., its bottom line.
According to conflicting reports, Sony is now trying to cut ties with Dr. Luke--music producer, adorably-scruffy-wolf-in-hipster's-clothing, and alleged serial rapist of pop-artist Kesha, who recently lost a legal battle to get out from under him (so to speak) because contracts. So what can we conclude from this? Perhaps that contracts can be both a "sword and a shield," as they say in the land of cloying legal cliches no one should ever use in a brief.
In one instance, Sony relied on a contract to force a woman to keep working for someone who allegedly repeatedly stuck his dick in her against her will. In the second instance, Sony is now trying to wriggle out (again, so to speak) of its own contract with said dick, because everyone is saying Sony sucks right now. And the company "can't afford the Adeles of the world out in the streets calling the label unsupportive," so they "are trying to figure out how to terminate the producer's contract."
Translation: we can't have famous women making enough of a stink that we actually start to lose money, so let's do what we didn't have the decency to let Kesha do, and get the fuck out of a dead-end contract.
M'kay.
But I have like, just one tiny little meekly-posed point to make about that, if it's okay? Either contracts matter or they don't, and you don't need a law degree to reach that conclusion. Sony can't scream "BUT CONTRACTS!" to make Kesha keep creating sweet, sweet music with her rapist, and then turn around and say "BUT FUCK CONTRACTS!", in order to distance itself from that same exact person once the company suddenly gets woke to the fact that everyone with a vagina thinks they should eat shit and die.
Or at least they can't do it with impunity.
If corporations are people--and in America they are--then they should be treated like people. Which means they should be put on blast as disgusting, morally (if not financially) bankrupt hypocrites when that's what they are. Score another one for corporate personhood.
In semi-unrelated Bad News for Women, Lex Luthor/Mr. Clean/Austin Powers/Voldemort is rubbing his hands together gleefully, all set to defund Planned Parenthood in Florida and fuck a bunch of poor women over forever.
Good times.
