A viral clip of David Letterman's 2013 "horrifying" interview with Lindsay Lohan is stunning because it happened not too long ago

Jezebel

On Saturday, "Letterman" trended on social media after a two-minute clip that is "horrifying to watch now" went viral showing the late-night host prodding the actress over her rehab, attracting more than 10 million views in wake of the Framing Britney Spears documentary. "It always open season on women," tweeted actress Ellen Barkin in response to the clip. "The clip is illuminating," says Marie Solis, "because it’s from 2013, not the late ‘90s or the aughts, when some of the worst treatment of Spears occurred—a period of time that is easy to treat as the historical past, sharing few qualities with the present. We’ve grown so much more aware of mental health. More of us call ourselves feminists now. But 2013 wasn’t so long ago, and also all of this—misogyny—is happening all of the time. Once you know what you’re looking for it’s easy to see it everywhere. Viewed in the context of the Spears documentary, Letterman’s questions about Lohan’s substance abuse seem undeniably mean and insensitive, even if Lohan was in on the joke. Much like the response to Framing Britney, the response to the Lohan-Letterman interview has included demands that 'we' apologize to Lohan and other famous women who have been mistreated by the media. But while we all have a role in shaping the culture we live in, we don’t play an equal part: Figures like Letterman or Diane Sawyer have large, influential platforms, and those platforms are part of an even larger entertainment industry that is still eager to profit from making women into punchlines. Performative apologies don’t help anyway."