October 13, 2017

"There’s a lot of abuse in this town. Young actresses are mistreated in all sorts of ways by powerful men..."

"... who can dangle jobs or access to exciting parts of show business. I think a lot of people are mistreated and they don’t realize how badly they’re being mistreated.... People do not want to put their livelihoods at risk... That’s why people like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby get to operate like this for so many decades. The people around them — executives, assistants, drivers — they don’t want to risk everything."

Said producer and director Judd Apatow.

"Everyone knew [about Weinstein’s alleged behavior], just as they know about other high-profile people with power in the industry who get away with the exact same things. This is far-reaching, it is endemic, and we have to believe that the toppling of this mogul will lead to the toppling of others…. This is a bigger issue than taking down one person."

Said Kelly Marcel (a female screenwriter and producer).

(L.A. Times.)

Meanwhile, Rose McGowan has blown off the nondisclosure agreement and is saying that Harvey Weinstein raped her.
In a Twitter thread posted Thursday afternoon, addressed to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, McGowan said, “I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it.”...

(She is reported to be the anonymous actress who pulled out of Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker story, telling him, “The legal angle is coming at me and I have no recourse.”) This week, McGowan asked if she’s “allowed to say rapist,” and in October 2016, she said she was raped by a studio executive. McGowan’s tweets come just after her account was suspended by Twitter Wednesday night.

210 comments:

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tim in vermont said...

Stifle yourself, Althouse!

tim in vermont said...

"Which is why you're about as fit to make decisions about what's right for America as a donkey."

Deplorables should not have a vote, TTR knows what is best!

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

buwaya said...
"Attractive young women are always aware of the power of their sexuality and many of them use that power in business affairs."

Which explains why they are so often hired as manufacturers reps even in technical firms.

Pharmaceutical reps you've seen in any doctor's office.

lonetown said...

In other words Trump supporters are right to be angry at Hollywood hacks for calling out Trump for talking about what they all were doing! We knew back in pussy hat days that they were full of shit. We said it back then.

The only people that were covering up and projecting were the actual freaking victims.

Ray - SoCal said...

What changes are happening due to this sex scandal?

My guesses:
- Big media will reexamine potential liability of hiring wrong person. Especially if there is a successful suite against Disney.
- Hollywoods moral capital reduced
- NBC credibility hurt
- Major Democratic support area
- more will come out on Weinstein enablers...

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Jimmy Kimmel won't mention poor Harvey because both Harvey and Kimmel are Democrats.

CStanley said...

And talking as if there's nothing corrupt about a system that treats young women like prostitutes is offensive, because as someone pointed out above, it ignores how people act and are motivated in the real world-- (even if I accept that Hollywood is chock full o' whores and the majority are just a bunch of hypocrites regarding Weinstein, I'm not cynical enough to think there are no genuine victims of sexual predation in Hollywood. Especially among the very young and powerless who probably get preyed upon the most.)

I agree with this but I also think that rhardin's premise that all actresses are interchangeable is proof that society really has come close to fully commodifying sex. Remove the intimacy and relationship aspect of sex repeatedly, over a long period of time, and people become objects of pleasure. For the studios it becomes necessary to cast actors and actresses who conform to a general standard of physical attractiveness instead of people who have the individual quirks and charms associated with people we might fall in love with instead of just lusting after.

So I guess I'd quibble with the part of the comment I quoted where the commenter said that this commodification is different than how people act and are motivated in the real world. I think our baser instincts are to act exactly in this way, and the veneer of a civilization with morals has been stripped away. For many people these commodified sex acts are only in fantasy, or compartmentalized with porn or strip clubs or with prostitutes, but it's this pervasive fantasy of sexual pleasure without intimacy that has enabled people like Weinstein.

Night Owl said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Night Owl said...

"I think our baser instincts are to act exactly in this way, and the veneer of a civilization with morals has been stripped away."

I agree that it's the veneer of civilization that keeps us all from becoming whores. But people are motivated to avoid humiliation. No one-- except for sadists-- wants to have sex with someone who repels or debases them. As rhhardin says-- setting aside the legal and moral issues-- if both parties willingly agree to a sex for goods agreement, and the system isn't hidden from others, and everyone is fine with the system then there is seemingly no problem. But along with ignoring the morality issue, rhhardin ignores how power can distort the equation. W/o laws to prevent it, the powerless could be forced into acts of humiliation in order to survive.

Hollywood may indeed be a special case since the potential rewards are so great. That has an impact on the motivations of both players in a contract; it gives the producers and other star-makers an enormous amount of power that may make them prone to abuse it, and the actors are apt to feel less humiliated if the end result of the blowjob is a multi-million dollar contract. Hollywood may be proof that we can all be turned into whores if the price is right.

Night Owl said...

Even though it's unlikely anyone is still reading this thread, let me make a correction to my 2:31 pm comment above: Where I wrote "sadists" I meant "masochists". (If I were into S&M I'm sure that's a mistake I wouldn't make twice.)

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