The writer of Men In Black has said he was accused of trying to "mansplain" the film after stepping in to settle an argument between two friends he heard discussing it in a cafe.

Ed Solomon, who also wrote the Bill & Ted films, posted about the encounter on Twitter.

Image: Ed Solomon says he had never heard the word 'mansplaining' before

He said he was sitting in a cafe when he heard two women nearby discussing the origins of the 1997 film, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

When he offered to "clear that up", he said one of the women told him: "I'm sorry, we do not need an old white male's mansplanation."

(And by the way - it's not like that was the first thing that was said; we'd actually exchanged small talk about various things over the course of their meal and my work.) — Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon) October 15, 2019

Mansplaining, which was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018, means the "explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronising".


Solomon said the other woman later apologised and that he had never heard the word before, but thought it was "a good word".

Not that it matters, when I said I'd never heard the world manspanation, which I thought was a good word, she said she was pretty sure her friend had said "explanation" and so it's possible I heard it incorrectly. (Does this matter? No. Should I get back to work? Yes.) — Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon) October 15, 2019

In a later post, he said the woman had seen his thread, realised who he was and contacted him - and then asked who had been right about the origins of the film.

SHE WROTE TO ME! She saw this thread on Reddit and realized it was her and she reached out! Oh my god it was so sweet. And she really made me laugh at the end cause she said basically “PS which one of us was right, me or my friend?” (About their disagreement) (it was her) — Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon) October 15, 2019

"It was her," Solomon said, although he did not give any details about the disagreement.