Silence is not just assent, it is complicit consent - Part 3
The 54 member Board of Directors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) voted to expel Harvey Weinstein on Saturday. I'm sure these men and women shook hands and hugged as the meeting broke up, engaging in self-congratulatory talk and then going on their separate ways. They probably slept well thinking they had done something important.
Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the people who is a member of that Board of Directors is Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg. The same Whoopi Goldberg who made a point of saying that what Roman Polanski did to Samantha Geimer (I am not "outing" her as his victim, she stepped forward and self-identified long ago) was not "...rape rape."
She was trying to distinguish between the fact that he wasn't convicted of rape but of pled guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. That was in 1977. Four decades later he remains a fugitive from justice. And he remains a member of AMPAS. When he won his Oscar for Best Director for the film The Pianist, the same Meryl Streep who recently spoke ill of Harvey Weinstein praised this convicted child molester by leading the audience in a standing ovation for the fugitive.
Bill Cosby is still a member in good standing of AMPAS as is self-confessed child molester Stephen Collins. Collins has been a pariah in Hollywood since his admission in 2014 that he had inappropriate sexual relations with girls under the age of consent. Cosby will undoubtedly "...never work in this town again" but they were not expelled from the Academy for their transgressions.
The hypocrisy is astonishing. I'm willing to wager that during the next week, more than one aspiring actress or actor will be told by a person in a position of power in the entertainment industry that they will advance in their career if they just "cooperate." The membership of the Board of Directors of AMPAS may think they did a good thing but all they accomplished was to stick a Band-Aid on a gushing arterial bleed of epic proportions.
* * * *
Oliver Stone said "I’m a believer that you wait until this thing gets to trial,” Stone said of Weinstein, who through a rep denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. “I believe a man shouldn’t be condemned by a vigilante system. It’s not easy what he’s going through either. During that period he was a rival. I never did business with him and didn’t really know him. I’ve heard horror stories on everyone in the business, so I’m not going to comment on gossip. I’ll wait and see, which is the right thing to do."
Then actress Carrie Stevens said that at a party at the home of Ted Fields, Stone had groped her breast and grinned about it. Patricia Arquette described an encounter with Stone that doesn't constitute assault or harassment, but certainly sounds inappropriate. Soon afterward, Stone backed off of his earlier defense of Harvey Weinstein.
This is not about "due process." That is part and parcel of the systems of criminal and civil justice.
* * *
Jason Momoa told a bad joke about rape in 2011 and now faces criticism for telling it. What took so long?
Terry Crew and James Van Der Beek say they were groped by men who are high up on the Hollywood food chain.
Blake Lively talks about how a make-up artist harassed her, even filming her while she slept. It took the intervention of her attorney for the man to be terminated from that film project and she says he got a good letter of reference because "...nobody wanted there to be bad blood."
Tippi Hedren speaks out decades later on how she was mistreated by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock and some want to shrug it off as "just how things were back then." It was wrong then and it is just as wrong (if not more so) now.
* * *
Ben Affleck finally apologizes for groping Hilarie Burton on MTV's Total Request Live. On the air!! It took someone mentioning that it had happened, as it seems everyone had forgotten about the groping. Ms Burton responded by saying she never forgot and only then; more than a decade later did Affleck offer his apology. He said "I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize."
Other women have come forward now to make similar claims about Mr. Affleck and on social media, the actor who is Batman in the DC Cinematic Universe is being referred to as "Buttman" for his affinity for grabbing women's asses.
If a man walks up to a woman he doesn't know on the street and gropes her, he's looking at criminal charges. It is far too late for Mr. Affleck to be hit with a misdemeanor charge for that particular grope.
* * *
Bob Weinstein, Harvey's brother and business partner denies knowing that Harvey was a sexual predator. "I thought he was literally just going out there cheating in a pervasive way."
That's tough to believe, given the fact that Bob was involved in the negotiation of his brother's contract with the company they founded back in October of 2015. A contract that allowed Harvey to "cure" any allegations of sexual harassment by paying money and retaining his lucrative position as the company's president.
* * *
It wasn't issues of sexual harassment or assault that caused Kate Winslet to exclude Harvey Weinstein from her Oscar acceptance speech for her role in The Reader. It was what she has described as "...the disgraceful behavior that went on - and I'm actually not going to because it's a can of worms that I'm not prepared to publicly open - nothing to do with sexual harassment, thankfully, lucky me. My god. I somehow dodged that bullet."
There is another side to Harvey Weinstein that no one seems to have a problem with. His bullying. His legendary temper. He threw things at his employees. But in Hollywood (and almost everywhere else) in the highest level of executive suites, as long as the bottom line looks good, behavior gets overlooked.
I used to work for a manager whose temper and ability to verbally excoriate her employees was legendary. The one time she did it to me, I told her that I wasn't a child, I wasn't in the wrong and if she did it again, I'd walk. She never did it again. That doesn't make me heroic. It makes me a serious taker of risks, because the people in power have the ability to ruin the careers of their subordinates. This is why people don't report what people like Harvey Weinstein do to them. Their futures are in jeopardy if they do.
The members of the aforementioned Board of Directors need to do more. They need to hold every single member of their academy responsible for their behavior in the future. Personally and professionally. When an actress reports that a producer/director/writer/makeup artist/whatever has acted inappropriately, the claim needs to be investigated. Professionally. Until that happens, no progress has been made since the casting couch came to be.
Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the people who is a member of that Board of Directors is Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg. The same Whoopi Goldberg who made a point of saying that what Roman Polanski did to Samantha Geimer (I am not "outing" her as his victim, she stepped forward and self-identified long ago) was not "...rape rape."
She was trying to distinguish between the fact that he wasn't convicted of rape but of pled guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. That was in 1977. Four decades later he remains a fugitive from justice. And he remains a member of AMPAS. When he won his Oscar for Best Director for the film The Pianist, the same Meryl Streep who recently spoke ill of Harvey Weinstein praised this convicted child molester by leading the audience in a standing ovation for the fugitive.
Bill Cosby is still a member in good standing of AMPAS as is self-confessed child molester Stephen Collins. Collins has been a pariah in Hollywood since his admission in 2014 that he had inappropriate sexual relations with girls under the age of consent. Cosby will undoubtedly "...never work in this town again" but they were not expelled from the Academy for their transgressions.
The hypocrisy is astonishing. I'm willing to wager that during the next week, more than one aspiring actress or actor will be told by a person in a position of power in the entertainment industry that they will advance in their career if they just "cooperate." The membership of the Board of Directors of AMPAS may think they did a good thing but all they accomplished was to stick a Band-Aid on a gushing arterial bleed of epic proportions.
* * * *
Oliver Stone said "I’m a believer that you wait until this thing gets to trial,” Stone said of Weinstein, who through a rep denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. “I believe a man shouldn’t be condemned by a vigilante system. It’s not easy what he’s going through either. During that period he was a rival. I never did business with him and didn’t really know him. I’ve heard horror stories on everyone in the business, so I’m not going to comment on gossip. I’ll wait and see, which is the right thing to do."
Then actress Carrie Stevens said that at a party at the home of Ted Fields, Stone had groped her breast and grinned about it. Patricia Arquette described an encounter with Stone that doesn't constitute assault or harassment, but certainly sounds inappropriate. Soon afterward, Stone backed off of his earlier defense of Harvey Weinstein.
This is not about "due process." That is part and parcel of the systems of criminal and civil justice.
* * *
Jason Momoa told a bad joke about rape in 2011 and now faces criticism for telling it. What took so long?
Terry Crew and James Van Der Beek say they were groped by men who are high up on the Hollywood food chain.
Blake Lively talks about how a make-up artist harassed her, even filming her while she slept. It took the intervention of her attorney for the man to be terminated from that film project and she says he got a good letter of reference because "...nobody wanted there to be bad blood."
Tippi Hedren speaks out decades later on how she was mistreated by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock and some want to shrug it off as "just how things were back then." It was wrong then and it is just as wrong (if not more so) now.
* * *
Ben Affleck finally apologizes for groping Hilarie Burton on MTV's Total Request Live. On the air!! It took someone mentioning that it had happened, as it seems everyone had forgotten about the groping. Ms Burton responded by saying she never forgot and only then; more than a decade later did Affleck offer his apology. He said "I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize."
Other women have come forward now to make similar claims about Mr. Affleck and on social media, the actor who is Batman in the DC Cinematic Universe is being referred to as "Buttman" for his affinity for grabbing women's asses.
If a man walks up to a woman he doesn't know on the street and gropes her, he's looking at criminal charges. It is far too late for Mr. Affleck to be hit with a misdemeanor charge for that particular grope.
* * *
Bob Weinstein, Harvey's brother and business partner denies knowing that Harvey was a sexual predator. "I thought he was literally just going out there cheating in a pervasive way."
That's tough to believe, given the fact that Bob was involved in the negotiation of his brother's contract with the company they founded back in October of 2015. A contract that allowed Harvey to "cure" any allegations of sexual harassment by paying money and retaining his lucrative position as the company's president.
* * *
It wasn't issues of sexual harassment or assault that caused Kate Winslet to exclude Harvey Weinstein from her Oscar acceptance speech for her role in The Reader. It was what she has described as "...the disgraceful behavior that went on - and I'm actually not going to because it's a can of worms that I'm not prepared to publicly open - nothing to do with sexual harassment, thankfully, lucky me. My god. I somehow dodged that bullet."
There is another side to Harvey Weinstein that no one seems to have a problem with. His bullying. His legendary temper. He threw things at his employees. But in Hollywood (and almost everywhere else) in the highest level of executive suites, as long as the bottom line looks good, behavior gets overlooked.
I used to work for a manager whose temper and ability to verbally excoriate her employees was legendary. The one time she did it to me, I told her that I wasn't a child, I wasn't in the wrong and if she did it again, I'd walk. She never did it again. That doesn't make me heroic. It makes me a serious taker of risks, because the people in power have the ability to ruin the careers of their subordinates. This is why people don't report what people like Harvey Weinstein do to them. Their futures are in jeopardy if they do.
The members of the aforementioned Board of Directors need to do more. They need to hold every single member of their academy responsible for their behavior in the future. Personally and professionally. When an actress reports that a producer/director/writer/makeup artist/whatever has acted inappropriately, the claim needs to be investigated. Professionally. Until that happens, no progress has been made since the casting couch came to be.
posted by me at 6:57 AM
<< Home