Toxic Masculinity on TAIPEI: Alex Honnold Dismisses Sanni McCandless Once Again, This Time 1,667 Feet Off the Ground
I'm glad I have friends to send me the inane, self-centered things Alex Honnold does because otherwise I would have no idea. Yesterday, my friend sent me a clip from the Netflix special, Skyscraper Live, in which Honnold free soloes Taipei 101, a 1,667 ft. tower in Taipei, Taiwan. I watched as Honnold and Sanni McCandless, his wife, take a selfie at the windy top of the tower, all awkward smiles and then Sanni suggests saying "hi" to the kids at home.
Honnold immediately dismisses her loving, cute suggestion claiming, "They're not watching this." He then gives a half-assed, "Hi, babies," and then asserts a second time, "Yeah, they're not watching this," as McCandless sort of cajoles him into participating. The kids will most likely watch this film in the future, and it feels twisted and sad that as a Dad, Honnold wouldn't want to acknowledge the people who would, arguably, be most affected if he were to have slipped off that tower.
But this isn't surprising or new.
We saw Honnold's callousness and "nonchalance" on full display throughout his film Free Solo, the documentary in which McCandless was framed as the needy, desperate, clingy, naive girlfriend getting in the way of Honnold's macho, warrior-mode climbing ambition. There's so much to read into this momentary exchange between Honnold and McCandless at the top of the tower. The toxic masculinity is all too familiar for those of us who have been in relationships with cis men.
Recently, in a New York Times interview (of which I accessed through my St. Louis Public Library card), when asked about the potential impact his death would have on his kids, Honnold said, “I mean, baby Alice wouldn’t remember. Baby June probably wouldn’t remember. She’ll be 4 in another month. It’d be felt, and obviously it’d be super hard for Sanni, but they’d be well provided for. I don’t feel like I’d be leaving them in the lurch. They wouldn’t even necessarily be traumatized their whole lives.”
He then goes on to describe his Dad’s premature death as, “shit happens.”
If he’s this uncaring about his impact on his own family, doesn’t fully understand what “trauma” is, and has no awareness of how his Dad’s death actually impacted him, what does that say about how he views what’s happening to the rest of us? About what’s happening in the world?
I’ve said this before, but Alex Honnold is like most every other white bro at the gym: self centered, myopic, and claims the world’s problems aren’t his because they’d scoff, “how does that affect me?”
The other sinister part of their live-streamed, tower-top-out exchange are the comments that cheer on Sanni's “calm” and supportive demeanor. I didn't read Sanni's behavior as "calm" at all though. I read her behavior as suppressed and muted because she had to be. She remembers, and I remember, her getting skewered in the media for expressing any kind of concern for Honnold's well-being as he prepared for free soloing El Cap.
Sanni was forced to make a choice after that film aired: be her authentic self and vocalize her truth, or go silent, step back, and never get in the way of her man's ambition again. Sanni made a deal with Honnold, their public audience and image, and the white, cisheteropatriarchy. In exchange for being in relationship with Honnold and receiving an illusion of security (that we're all promised when we marry a white man), she gave up her agency, voice, power, and humanity.
We're taught to romanticize this, particularly as white women. This trope is as old as European colonization. Even Honnold’s buddy, Tommy Caldwell, gave us a double feature of the rugged-brooding-genius-who-leaves-his-Good-Wife-at-home in his film, Dawn Wall, as well as The Devil’s Climb (also starring Honnold). The scenes in which Caldwell and Honnold interact with their wives, as well as how they speak about their relationships, are reminiscent of the old timey, Western films that show a rugged cowboy leaving behind his domestic, civilized, pioneering wife and kids at home to go on some expedition and do man-stuff, or whatever. We’re of course given zero context in films like How the West Was Won, Wagon Master, The Big Trail, Far and Away, and Red River, about what’s happening in the world around them (settler colonial violence, chattel slavery, genocide against Indigenous peoples, and so on). This is the energy I imagine climber bros channeling.
However, in this modern example, we have Honnold, a combination of Peter Pan and the Lone Wolf, setting off on his brave, stoic, hero’s journey to conquer a tower, leaving behind his resilient, doting, moralistic wife and (collateral damage) kids, so he can establish his brawn, dominance, might, endurance, strength — ultimately, fortify his (fragile) manhood, you know, just incase anyone forgot he’s still a manly man even though he’s now technically a husband and dad. In this modern version we’re still given zero context about what’s happening in the world around them, translating to:
“Why care? Tune into this epic feat of humanity and take a break from the tired scenes of extreme violence, murders, and kidnappings happening at the hands of ICE across the so-called U.S., or the fact that multiple genocides are still happening to Palestinians, the people of Congo, Sudan, and even here on Turtle Island. It’s called self-care. Look at how moral, upstanding, civilized, rational Alex Honnold is. He can tune out the noise of genocide and police brutality and scale the side of a 1,667 ft. tower while delivering quippy commentary.”
Watching Sanni trying to coax Honnold into giving a thoughtful nod to his children at home only for him to respond with arrogance is viscerally uncomfortable. However, this is the relationship we’re awarded when we become doting agents of the patriarchy. We’re forced to smile for the cameras and completely sideline and suppress our true feelings, thoughts, and perspectives. I'm sure that if Sanni were to read this, like most other cishet, white women I know, she would disagree that she's been brainwashed, conditioned, or forced to succumb to these expectations. But this is the truth of being a white woman in the so-called United States and being in relationship with white men. It's the unspoken negotiation we make when we become their girlfriends or wives. In exchange for safety and security, or the illusion of security (white men are actually the biggest threats to our safety and security), we give up our power. We give up being the main character in our own lives and devote ourselves to being the supporting actress for the leading man.
This is why so many white women right now are going on the internet to express confusion, dismay, and tears about how their husbands support ICE. They’re asking, "How could they??" This only happens if women never had these conversations with their boyfriends and husbands to begin with. They chose to completely ignore the red flags that were there all along. They willingly opted out of challenging the oppressive norms in their dynamic from the beginning, and therefore opted into reinforcing these oppressive norms in their communities and the world. They aren't challenging their boyfriends and husbands on any important, "political" issues. They're not even discussing these things. So many white cishet couples don't even fart in each other’s presence, let alone talk about "politics." As Ericka Hart shared in the above linked reel, your husbands are bigots and so are you.
My fellow white women don't want to admit that who you’re in relationship with is what you permit. They don't want to admit that they're a willing participant in their own subjugation, and the subjugation of other marginalized people, by playing our assigned role in white supremacist patriarchy. But now because white people are being shot by ICE, white women are suddenly terrified and asking, "Are we even safe?"
The answer is no, never. Black people have been trying to tell us this forever. None of us are safe inside of these systems of oppression. As white women we can try to mold ourselves into the perfect performance of wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, but white supremacist patriarchy will execute you and discard of you the moment it deems you're being obstinate, defiant, and failing at that performance. If you don't submit to white men you're going to get the boot or bullet.
Sanni chose to fall in line. In Skyscraper Live, we see her performing appropriately granting her the applause, adoration, and praise from mainstream audiences everywhere.
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