Author Topic: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment in Entertainment World  (Read 22483 times)

StudentOFilm

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #20 on: November 10, 2017, 07:58:08 AM »
What Bondo is saying I think is very important. Many of the people who have denounced Weinstein/Spacey/presumably C.K. now too, were there on Oscar night applauding Casey Affleck, continue to work with Woody Allen... you can go ahead and add Bryan Singer, Roman Polanski etc. We can sit here and distinguish each case from the other, but it boggles my mind that one person is crucified while another continues to work.
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Corndog

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #21 on: November 10, 2017, 08:18:04 AM »
I was going to mention Polanski as well.

Also, wanted to bring up one of the ESPN 30 for 30 films, since that is one of my niches here on the forum. Jason Hehir made a film, Down in the Valley, about Sacramento mayor and former NBA player Kevin Johnson. It was about how he helped save the Sacramento Kings for the city, and therefore was fairly celebratory of Johnson. Shortly after allegations of sexual misconduct by Kevin Johnson, ESPN completely shelved the film. I doubt it will ever be released.

It was scheduled to air shortly after the allegations came out, so the film had definitely been completed.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #22 on: November 10, 2017, 09:00:59 AM »
As long as we're talking about the systematic punishment of people who behave appallingly, one must ask, what's the process here? Are allegations enough to get someone kicked off a project? Should they be? Can we believe the people who speak out on principle, even when they're legion? I am uncomfortable labelling someone as some kind of offender without a conviction, but CK is hardly going to be sued for masturbating in front of someone.

Can we trust the industry to self police when there are incentives for it to overreact to bad publicity, which might one day lead it to punish the innocent? If a few people speaking out against Spacey gets him cast off an already finished movie, what does that mean can happen? I know insiders and people who are generally less oblivious than me are aware of rumours and such, but I am suspicious of any system that operates at the discretion of the people in charge, without clear rules and institutional oversight.
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MartinTeller

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #23 on: November 10, 2017, 11:14:53 AM »
This is a very worthwhile read.

Tides are turning. At last, powerful men are starting to face repercussions for abusing their power. Yes, some works are not going to be seen or are going to be altered. Boo hoo. I care more about shaping a world where people aren't harassed and molested. Yes, probably a couple of men will be wrongly accused and face unwarranted circumstances. That is a shame, and I hope it doesn't happen. It isn't fair. But what about the thousands, nay millions, of women (and in some cases, men) who have lived with things they should have never had to live with? The women who were made to feel they had no choice? Who were made to feel that reporting it would only ruin them? Who DID report it and it DID ruin them? Was that "fair"? It's time to start believing them, and if you're more worried about people making false accusations, then your priorities are out of whack.

I don't like punishing the innocent either. AT ALL. But hordes of innocents have already been punished by a system that looks the other way so men can get their jollies. The system must change. It needs to lean the other way. Let men feel the heat for a while.

Cynically, I have my doubts that anything will change in the long term, however. Probably someone WILL make a false accusation, which will make men think they have the right to say "SEE? We can't listen to them" and then powerful men will go on abusing less powerful women (and men) the way they have done since time began.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #24 on: November 10, 2017, 11:36:52 AM »
I was hardly saying we should turn a deaf ear to the alleged victims. Rather, I was asking what the best way to regulate/police the industry is. I don't trust it left to its own devices and the occasional good intentions of its more powerful agents. Companies have HR departments, universities have disciplinary boards, for all their flaws. There should be a way to systematise this instead of letting contingency and arbitrariness reign free.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #25 on: November 10, 2017, 12:26:47 PM »
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Bondo

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #26 on: November 10, 2017, 04:12:54 PM »
I was just thinking back to last DOCember when I watched Pervert Park and Audrie and Daisy pretty much back to back and was trying to square my outrage at excessive punishment in the former and the lack of accountability in the latter. In doing so I also reminded myself to prioritize reading Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed. I tend to be someone who gets really annoyed at the idea of people losing jobs over social media stuff, both when I agree with the gesture (the women who got fired for flipping off Trump's motorcade) or disagreed (people who say something racist that goes viral). Now, in those cases the transgression is relatively minor. But the transgressions in Pervert Park are real and serious and I still am averse to the virtual banning from society that lingers on.

So is ousting these producers/directors/actors from their careers similarly overreach? One big argument in favor of the justice of such harsh extrajudicial ramifications is that the legal system is so poorly situated to try cases of this nature, much less when the defendant is wealthy or powerful. If Weinstein, Spacey, C.K., Allen, Polanski and on and on actually served a full and proper jail sentence for their crimes, maybe we wouldn't need this kind of blacklisting approach. Of course, seeing as these are crimes born of wealth and power, maybe preventing them from working in such positions of power again is also fair, whereas preventing rank and file paroled sex offender from holding down a blue collar job is more vile.

Sorry for the ramble but I guess it comes back to Martin's link. It is not nearly time to feel pity or to contemplate overreach for a cadre of men across all areas of the economy who have had a particular status that previously untouchable from responsibility. And as an individual consumer of culture, it is justified to minimize my own contribution by boycotting the work of tainted artists like Woody Allen.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #27 on: November 10, 2017, 04:33:37 PM »
Justice is a hard thing. We live in a world where the more money and power you have, the less likely you'll actually be punished for your crime in a court of law. It's not fair, it's not right, it's just how it is.

So for Hollywood to take justice into its own hands and say this person gets blacklisted and this one doesn't certainly has some appeal to it. But it's subject to so many things that are just not going to be uniform or controllable. Public outcry, people willing to come forward with allegations, which ones pick up mainstream media coverage, etc.

It's decentralized and I don't see Hollywood coming up with a formal system to review these issues. And as for HR, press companies, disciplinary boards, and the like, they're not interested in protecting individuals but protecting the company.

I still think it's an area where Hollywood has long needed to self-police and I think this is a start, I just think like every human quest for justice it's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to abuse it for power and profit. And yet, we're weighing that against letting sexual abusers continue to go uncontested throughout the industry and I think I'd much rather err on the side of doing justice by the abused than worrying about how yet another human attempt at justice will be corrupted.


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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #28 on: November 10, 2017, 08:24:19 PM »
I guess I recall the CK stuff from a while ago, because when I started hearing stories breaking I was wondering why it was being brought up again. Last time he wasn't named, but I remember talking with iKeith! during the Film Festival a couple of weeks ago about the I Love You, Daddy I saw before The Florida Project and he mentioned being put off on even seeing the movie because of the previous allegations, and I remembered them at that point too. Regardless, it is something that should be made a big deal of, I'm just surprised at the surprise of this one since I thought we'd already been through it.

I am still super jealous of the people at TIFF who get a chance to put I Love You, Daddy on their year end lists, that's like the exclusive Margaret club or that FFC film with #TeamElle during the road show presentations. Or those lucky few who saw Kanye's seven screen pyramid at Cannes. On another note, not sure how anyone would be surprised that a dude who makes a movie called I Love You, Daddy in 2017 isn't a creep.

As for why Casey and others get by, it's obviously a timing thing. The Weinstein story caught fire and we're seeing the fallout from that, while Casey's Oscar came before, as did A Ghost Story, which sadly doesn't have much chance at any major awards aside from ISAs anyway. The director of Birth of a Nation had the building sexual violence story for months leading up to that film's release, and by the time it released the Sundance buzz had turned until it came and went. I think the larger concern is that the Weinstein story and the ensuing acts of sexual abuse start wearing people down and they start turning their attention elsewhere because of how easy it is for the media to sensationalize these things and lose sight of the tragedy and harm these people have caused. But that's just a thing I've thought about when I hear the occasional person around the office, men and women, who have started to roll their eyes and shrug off the stories, or worse started blaming the victims.

This thread's title is also in poor taste, I think.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: #MeToo: Sexual Harassment Bonanza 2017
« Reply #29 on: November 11, 2017, 06:27:15 AM »
Are there going to be any consequences for CK's manager and similar people whose conduct was arguably as egregious and are in some cases even more powerful than the creeps?
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