Disclaimer: I feel really stupid writing this piece.

It’s about a story whose very existence demonstrates what a profoundly stupid cultural moment this is.

A few days ago, there was a flurry of stories all over the media — from the TV and film review site AV Club to the women’s site Bustle to The Miami Herald — about the inglorious defeat of a movie fan who tried to “mansplain” the iconic costume of Indiana Jones to the woman who designed it.

In other words: another uppity male on the Internet gets put in his place.

This extremely newsworthy event happened in a Facebook exchange concerning a Jeopardy question about the character whose costume was inspired by the one worn by Charlton Heston in the 1954 movie Secret of the Incas — the answer being “Indiana Jones.” A man named Stanley stated that the question was wrong, since the inspiration for Indy’s costume came from the movie The Greatest Show on Earth. Fellow poster Deborah Landis defended the question, finally telling Stanley that she “was there”; later, her son, film director Max Landis, posted a screenshot of the conversation on Twitter, with the punchline that his mother designed the costume.

The tweet went viral, and the rest was history as website after website jumped in to have some fun at Stanley’s — and his gender’s — expense. AV Club’s Dan Neilan (who, in case you haven’t noticed, also belongs to that gender) poured on the scorn especially thick, calling Stanley a “foolish commenter” and a “dummy” whose humiliation should be “a cautionary tale for men who plan to be obnoxious on the internet any time soon.”

“One can only imagine the look on poor Stanley’s face as he was so viciously owned by an industry veteran, before presumably slamming his laptop shut and sticking his fingers in his ears,” crowed Neilan. He also declared “Stanley, you have got to be kidding” to be “the new rallying cry for everyone that’s had it with tiresome men.”

Of course, as a number of people pointed out in response to Max Landis’s tweet, there was absolutely no evidence that Stanley knew he was talking to the costume designer, or that his response to her had anything to do with her gender.

But never mind that.

The real punchline?

Stanley wasn’t wrong.

Landis was wrong when she said that The Greatest Show came after The Secret of the Incas; Stanley was right about the dates and about the fact that Heston originally wore that outfit in The Greatest Show.

Of course, that doesn’t make the Jeopardy question wrong. It’s still possible that Spielberg drew only on The Secret of the Incas for inspiration; that movie’s storyline and Heston’s character in it are far more similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones than The Greatest Show on Earth and Heston’s character in that movie (a circus manager).

And yet after doing a quick Internet search, I found out that on at least two fairly recent occasions, none other than Deborah Landis mentioned The Greatest Show as another source of inspiration for Indiana’s costume. (Update: Commenter Bob Geoghan just found a third mention.)

From a 2013 interview posted on a website called The Fedora Lounge:

Steven and I sat and watched a couple of movies together. We watched China, which is an Alan Ladd picture from the 1940s; we watched the Lost Treasure of the Incas, starring Charlton Heston as Harry Steele. It was made in 1952, and he [Heston] really wears the costume, more or less, of Indiana Jones. Then I watched The Greatest Show on Earth, in which Charlton Heston wears a brown leather jacket and a brown fedora, pretty much the costume of Indiana Jones. And if that wasn’t enough, Steven used to run Saturday morning adventure serials, where a lot of these guys, because it was just post-war, were wearing flight jackets and brown fedoras.

And then there’s this, from a 2016 Daily Beast feature on Deborah Nadoolman (Landis’s birth name which she often uses professionally):

It isn’t really that Nadoolman invented Indiana Jones’s look. “Indiana Jones already existed as an archetype,” she explained. “In the 1940s there were adventure serials that showed Saturday mornings that inspired George and Steven. Charlton Heston was in two movies — 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth and 1954’s Secret of the Incas — in which he wears pretty much the exact same outfit as Indy.”

Update: Reader Bob Geoghan found another interview, published on September 24, 2014, in which Landis discussed an exhibit on famous film costumes she curated:

Interviewer: In Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana copped Charlton Heston’s style in Lost Treasure of the Incas. Landis: [Stephen Spielberg and I] both knew that Indiana Jones’s character was based on an archetype, and we immediately knew what the costume was meant to be. In the early planning stages for Raiders of the Lost Ark, we screened some movies: China, with Alan Ladd, wearing a brown fedora and leather jacket. Then, Lost Treasure of the Incas, released in 1952, with Charlton Heston wearing exactly the same costume. And then into The Greatest Show on Earth, with Charlton Heston, again, wearing a leather jacket and a brown fedora.

So: Deborah Landis herself, on at least two occasions, said that The Greatest Show on Earth was one of the Heston films that inspired the Indiana Jones costume.

Now, I don’t think the Jeopardy question was wrong. Heston’s costume in Secret of the Incas did (among other things) provide the inspiration for Indiana’s costume; the 2014 interviwer even mentioned it as the sole source. Landis could have simply pointed out that both movies inspired it and therefore the question wasn’t wrong. Instead, she seemed determined to prove that Stanley was completely wrong, perhaps because she was put off by his categorical tone. And in the process, she actually mixed up the order in which the two films were released.

Yes, Stanley’s tone was a bit obnoxious. But frankly, so was Landis’s. I imagine that if she had been a man, “The question is exactly right because I provided it” would have been seen as evidence of male arrogance. And if Stanley had been, say, Stella, the story would have been reported (if at all) as something like, “Plucky fan shows up costume designer; he throws a fit.”

To her credit, Deborah Landis did not turn this argument into a gender issue. The credit for that goes to Max, who has been busy repenting for his alleged male privilege.

Today, apparently, that privilege includes being ritually flogged on the Internet for having the gall to argue with a woman.

Tell me again how this is about gender equality.

Update: Blogger Jerry Chandler, who posted about this nontroversy on October 13, has some more interesting information in his blogpost.