Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo/sexual misconduct scandals

p to the e · 07-10-2017 1:39pm #1

No thread on this here. Thought it would be relevant in the film board. There's a thread on After Hours but I'm not going near that place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html

Is this just something that's par for the course within the film industry? Is this the next Saville case (not Weinstein specifically) whereby everyone knew about it but did nothing just because it was just the way things were/are? Is there more to come from this?

The Black Oil · 08-10-2017 8:07pm

Guy behind Honest Trailers allegedly involved in this sort of crap too. https://www.avclub.com/honest-trailers-creator-suspended-over-accusations-of-s-1819233301

Hande hoche! · 08-10-2017 8:36pm

Harry Knowles from Aint it cool News is too allegedly. 2017 seems to be the year stories emerge as regards creeps in cinema.

brevity · 08-10-2017 9:47pm

Tip of the iceberg IMO

youngblood · 08-10-2017 9:56pm

How has this taken so long to come out is my question!?!

conorhal · 09-10-2017 12:37am

youngblood wrote: »

How has this taken so long to come out is my question!?!

Because he's out of Miramax and the Weinstein Co has little pull in Hollywood these days so he no longer makes or breaks careers.

The reality is that Hollywood is a cess pool and always has been, and it operates a code of omerta that makes the mafia seem loose lipped.
If you slide into irrelevance however (and that goes for his accusers as much as Weinstein) and there's some cash or publicity to garnered then it's fair game because there's nothing to loose.
The truth is that everybody probably knew what was going on, still know what's going on with a lot of power players still, but nobody's going to blow the whistle and risk getting blacklisted by Hollywood because they're all at it, so opening your gob makes you an unemployable liability.
The movie business, like banking is one of the few industries where bad behaviour is the norm.

I'm actually re-reading Peter Biskind's 'Down and Dirty Pictures' at the moment. It's a great book about the rise of 90's indie cinema, which is to say it's a great book about Miramax and thus, about Harvey Weinstein.

He starts out saying that he can't tell half the stories about that company that he wished he could because nobody would go on record. The stories he does tell however paint a picture of Weinstein as a sociopathic, manipulative, hyper-agressive bully with an explosive temper who reacts like a five year old when called out, with complete denial, even when caught with his hand still in the cookie jar.
He seemed to take a particular pleasure in humiliating people and controlling them and women weren't excepted from that.

09-10-2017 7:07am

conorhal wrote: »

Because he's out of Miramax and the Weinstein Co has little pull in Hollywood these days so he no longer makes or breaks careers.

The reality is that Hollywood is a cess pool and always has been, .

Very much so. America as a whole is like an episode of south park these days. All of Hollywood on their moral perch yet had been singing the praises of predators like Weinstein. They would have heard the rumors and the stories about him.
Meryl Streep even called him God! :pac:

__..__ · 09-10-2017 7:14am

My sister worked with Martine McCutheon and told me some of the stories she told her about that fella. Some really sick stories. No doubt t they will surface soon now.

conorhal · 09-10-2017 8:37am

Deleted User wrote: »

Very much so. America as a whole is like an episode of south park these days. All of Hollywood on their moral perch yet had been singing the praises of predators like Weinstein. They would have heard the rumors and the stories about him.
Meryl Streep even called him God! :pac:

The whole episode of Polanski getting arrested in Switzerland a few years ago was quite revealing, it was amazing to see Hollywood rally around one of their own and sign a petition to release a man that anally raped a 13yr old girl after filling her full of drugs. Streep being one of the ring leaders.

The funniest thing about the neurotic levels of autistic screeching about Trump, 'grab 'em by the pussy' and the hypersensitive promotion of identity politics in Hollywood over the last few years is the fact that they don't seem to realise that the're building the scaffold for their own hanging. If you crack Hollywoods code of silence and you are up to your neck in filth you're undoing the system that protects you. Of course some imagine they can virtue signal and yet remain untouchable, but that's only true as long as you're powerful or your victims still have a career left to ruin.

Weinstein is a friend and fundraiser for the Clintons and was very much on board with the progressive agenda and the witch hunts and firings for 'wrong think' that it persues. I'd say it probably came as a huge surprise to him that the progressive twitter mobs came for him, an 'ally' after all, but when you enable witchfinder generals he really shouldn't have been surprised.

09-10-2017 9:49am

Looks like Hollywood is getting the same treatment as the BBC. Prepare for a lot of people to go under - some you'll never suspect, like Rolf Harris.

brevity · 09-10-2017 10:45am

He's been sacked

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/09/harvey-weinstein-sacked-in-wake-of-sexual-harassment-scandal

God only knows what's gonna happen next. I wonder will he start naming names himself.

09-10-2017 11:02am

brevity wrote: »

He's been sacked

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/09/harvey-weinstein-sacked-in-wake-of-sexual-harassment-scandal

God only knows what's gonna happen next. I wonder will he start naming names himself.

Doubt it, he's gonna spend the next decade fighting lawsuits i'd imagine. The vulture lawyers will be circling now

Agent Coulson · 09-10-2017 11:11am

The women of Hollywood were very quick to rightfully and loudly come out and condemn Trump but their silence on this issue is very sad and hurtful and harmful to women.

p to the e · 09-10-2017 11:13am

youngblood wrote: »

How has this taken so long to come out is my question!?!

My view on this is that those who reported got settlements in exchange for a non disclosure agreement. Those that didn't report got oscars.

As someone said above this is only the tip of the iceberg and I'd say there's a few nervous folk thinking that Weinstein will take them down with him.

Four Winds · 09-10-2017 11:18am

conorhal wrote: »

The stories he does tell however paint a picture of Weinstein as a sociopathic, manipulative, hyper-agressive bully with an explosive temper who reacts like a five year old when called out, with complete denial, even when caught with his hand still in the cookie jar.
He seemed to take a particular pleasure in humiliating people and controlling them and women weren't excepted from that.

Sounds like Entourage were on the money with this guy's character who was called 'Harvey Weingard' in the show.

09-10-2017 11:18am

youngblood wrote: »

How has this taken so long to come out is my question!?!

TBH it took about 20 - 30 years for all of the allegations against Jimmy Saville to fully come to light.

Amalgam · 09-10-2017 11:20am

Agent Coulson wrote: »

The women of Hollywood were very quick to rightfully and loudly come out and condemn Trump but their silence on this issue is very sad and hurtful and harmful to women.

..because those women want to keep working, one person, the name escapes me, started off on Weinstein a decade ago and she's been stuck doing bit parts and indie, even though she had been tipped for bigger things.

You'll get blacklisted by the 'entire' industry. You'll never see the naked mechanism of that out in the open though..

HandsomeBob · 09-10-2017 11:21am

I don't think there's a low enough depth for how ugly this might get. In particular for those who may have taken hush money or allowed themselves to be bribed with plumb opportunities while allowing Weinstein to continue his deviant ways.

It's always awful to see people you respected or who were revered unmasked for what they truly are.

Hopefully this is just the beginning and the likes of Rose McGowan and Corey Haim will have justice done in their name.

Agent Coulson · 09-10-2017 11:36am

Amalgam wrote: »

..because those women want to keep working, one person, the name escapes me, started off on Weinstein a decade ago and she's been stuck doing bit parts and indie, even though she had been tipped for bigger things.

You'll get blacklisted by the 'entire' industry. You'll never see the naked mechanism of that out in the open though..

That was Rose Mcgovern I think

Of course that played huge and scarily understandable part over the years wanting to be able to keep working in the industry they dreamed all their life to work in.

I'm talking about this week and today and right now where are they it's still only the same handful of women that have been talking about it for years talking now.

Why aren't the women of Hollywood right now out on the streets protesting and saying stop and outing others as there is others.

p to the e · 09-10-2017 11:40am

Just to show stuff like this is closer to home than you think.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-40673389

Hector Savage · 09-10-2017 1:41pm

I remember talking to a girl in the USA that was trying to break into the movie industry - as a writer.
She told me the *only* way to succeed was to sleep with execs, she was in tears as she wasn't willing to go down that route.

Beechwoodspark · 09-10-2017 1:44pm

Weinstein's attorney left him high and dry yesterday so there's probably even worse stories to come out.

HandsomeBob · 09-10-2017 4:51pm

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Weinstein's attorney left him high and dry yesterday so there's probably even worse stories to come out.

From what I've read in the run up to her resigning, staying on would have been career suicide. Unbelievable pressure on her even without further stuff to come about Weinstein.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 09-10-2017 4:56pm

Agent Coulson wrote: »

The women of Hollywood were very quick to rightfully and loudly come out and condemn Trump but their silence on this issue is very sad and hurtful and harmful to women.

Are they the same women? Or are you painting them all with the same brush?

super_furry · 09-10-2017 4:57pm

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Why aren't the women of Hollywood right now out on the streets protesting and saying stop and outing others as there is others.

Or you know, maybe it takes someone to ask them a question before they can actually answer it. Like Meryl Streep today.

Harry Palmr · 09-10-2017 6:44pm

Had to laugh at Trump's comment.

p to the e · 10-10-2017 11:18am

HandsomeBob wrote: »

From what I've read in the run up to her resigning, staying on would have been career suicide. Unbelievable pressure on her even without further stuff to come about Weinstein.

Also from what I've read there's a couple of reasons including disagreements of how she was handling the allegations to her mother being a famed women's rights lawyer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/business/lisa-bloom-weinstein-attorney.html

AustinLostin · 10-10-2017 11:29am

Agent Coulson wrote: »

The women of Hollywood were very quick to rightfully and loudly come out and condemn Trump but their silence on this issue is very sad and hurtful and harmful to women.

Yes the women are at fault here.

Brief_Lives · 10-10-2017 3:24pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Had to laugh at Trump's comment.

You just know Trump will probably make him Secretary for Global Women's Issues...

johnny_ultimate · 10-10-2017 5:03pm

Series of even more serious sexual assault allegations made in a New Yorker piece by Ronan Farrow today, including from Asia Argento: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories?mbid=social_twitter Some stomach churning claims and revelations in it.

Also contains audio of one encounter, and significantly deepens and complicates many of the allegations made against him (including his own apparent claims of 'planting' media stories).

Four actresses, including Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette, told me they suspected that, after they rejected Weinstein’s advances or complained about them to company representatives, Weinstein had them removed from projects or dissuaded people from hiring them.

The Black Oil · 10-10-2017 10:31pm

I read all of the piece and just heard the audio of the police tape played on the BBC. Chilling.

Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo/sexual misconduct scandals

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