Harvey Weinstein

crispybug2

Jesus!!

When the rich and powerful crash, they crash spectacularly!!

The guy is undoubtedly ruined and you wonder what's coming next

Stevo_666

crispybug2 wrote:

Jesus!!

When the rich and powerful crash, they crash spectacularly!!

The guy is undoubtedly ruined and you wonder what's coming next

Jail?

tangled_metal

We can only hope that if guilty then jail is where he will end up.

verylonglegs

At the moment he seems to be getting the biggest public hanging by media in history so regardless of whether it goes legal he is finished. I have no idea how the law works from here with the allegations coming out thick and fast, it's like Saville x10, the difference being Weinstein is still alive.

cornerblock

crispybug2 wrote:

Jesus!!

When the rich and powerful crash, they crash spectacularly!!

The guy is undoubtedly ruined and you wonder what's coming next

The movie?

tangled_metal

Trial by media. Will he be able to get a fair trial now?

He's rich so even if he's finished in his field of work and circle of contacts, his life will be one of relative luxury. Plus he's 65 years old, good age to retire.

pinno

I'm wondering if this opens up the can of worms revealing women who have slept their way to the top. There is still a culture of sex for favours. Perhaps if legal action proceeds, then other protagonists/players may be exposed.
How do you differentiate between those who did it willingly and say they were unwilling and those who genuinely would rather not have in the stark light of an impending media and legal circus?

They are not exactly going to admit that they may have slept with x,y or z and so the best course of action would be to claim that some form of coercive persuasion took place.

Hopefully, this will blow the lid on that aspect of the Hollywood culture and put and end to it but if it's a predominantly male driven industry, then probably not.

pblakeney

The casting couch.
Twas ever thus.

shortfall

verylonglegs wrote:

, it's like Saville x10.

Really?

verylonglegs

I'm talking about the scale of the story in global media terms, I'm certainly not attempting any comparison of what they've done.

fat daddy

Unless he ends up in Jail, its only his career that is finished. The guy is loaded, he will buy a mansion somewhere ... drive around in sports cars find another trophy wife that finds his money sexually attractive, holiday in exotic places and in a years time only his name will be recognisable

tangled_metal

Whether they willingly went through the "casting couch" or not it's still a harmful, abusive act. I would bet very few women would escape mental scarring just by consenting. Just how consenting is it really?

I think it's a bit of a generation thing to justify such behaviour by arguing some consented. In that vastly unbalanced power situation consent cannot be considered as freely given. It's abusive even with consent.

lostboysaint

The thing that I find very, very strange is that everyone is rightly on his case but they elected a President with exactly the same MO and no-one has linked the two stories and suggested that it's rather timely to make this kind of behaviour totally unacceptable and that the President should be impeached and jailed and Weinstein jailed.

tangled_metal

One more comment. Did you hear about that younger actor who was a prominent supporting actor in good Will hunting? Apparently he gave a public comment about how bad the Weinstein abuse case was. Then someone tweeted about IIRC an MTV appearance where he felt the female presenter's breasts.

The Hollywood star then apologized and said he didn't remember it. Only for the female presenter to comment that she certainly remembers it.

Now Weinstein is of the older Hollywood generation which had this abuse as part of its culture. That younger actor is part of the younger Hollywood generation who should know better IMHO. I wonder if the culture is something to do with the personal attributes or characteristics male stars and management (producers included) need to succeed in that world? A kind of competitive or dominant edge? Just a thought.

lostboysaint

It was Ben Affleck.

A little more on the Dotard of Covfefe and why he is unusually quiet on this subject.

http://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-hail-trump-sex-predator-chief-681509

haydenm

lostboysaint wrote:

The thing that I find very, very strange is that everyone is rightly on his case but they elected a President with exactly the same MO and no-one has linked the two stories and suggested that it's rather timely to make this kind of behaviour totally unacceptable and that the President should be impeached and jailed and Weinstein jailed.

Agreed, even the slightest allegation would ruin political careers elsewhere in the world

I did spot this half way down an article I was reading yesterday:

"Why wasn't this all reported sooner?
The simplest and sadly familiar answer to this question is familiar from recent allegations that have come to light against other serial sexual abusers (Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly and President Donald Trump): Weinstein is a powerful and influential man, and we live in a society where women are systematically discouraged from coming forward with stories of harassment and rape."

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/new ... ow-w508162

Annoying use of the word 'familiar' though...

Edit:
Come on, this is ridiculous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Tr ... llegations

shortfall

Pinno wrote:

I'm wondering if this opens up the can of worms revealing women who have slept their way to the top. There is still a culture of sex for favours. Perhaps if legal action proceeds, then other protagonists/players may be exposed.
How do you differentiate between those who did it willingly and say they were unwilling and those who genuinely would rather not have in the stark light of an impending media and legal circus?

They are not exactly going to admit that they may have slept with x,y or z and so the best course of action would be to claim that some form of coercive persuasion took place.

Hopefully, this will blow the lid on that aspect of the Hollywood culture and put and end to it but if it's a predominantly male driven industry, then probably not.

As you point out, there will be lots of shades of grey in all this. That's not to excuse everything that Weinstein's accused of, and the fact that he's now in therapy having made a partial admission of guilt suggests he's a very unpleasant character (the recording of him pressuring a woman in his hotel room confirms this). What is staggering is the hypocrisy of some of the Hollywood women now piling in to condemn him. Some of these are the same women who give Roman Polanski standing ovations at award ceremonies and act in his films despite him being in exile after drugging, raping and sodomising a 13 year old girl in 1977. It always strikes me as odd the way some celebrities are excused for their transgressions and even feted whilst others are pilloried. Why is Bill Wyman still a national treasure for instance, despite his distinctly unhealthy relationship with the (then) 13 year old Mandy Smith? Hell, even the Rolling Stones song Stray Cat Blues is a song about the lure of underage sex.

Matthewfalle

lostboysaint wrote:

It was Ben Affleck.

A little more on the Dotard of Covfefe and why he is unusually quiet on this subject.

http://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-hail-trump-sex-predator-chief-681509

"The Dotard of Covfefe".

Brilliant.

Hat to that.

rjsterry

The Newsnight interview with Emma Thompson was good. The main gist of it was that HW is the tip of an iceberg. And that everyone knows it goes on but there is a sort of collective denial because of the structure of the industry. She also talked about the how 'being a great artist' is seen as mitigation for all sorts of other behaviour, and how she got sucked into signing a petition against Polanski's extradition before realising what that meant and withdrawing her support.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV_W6kPqR9U

If we want to talk about hypocrisy, I'm finding the multiple claims of "we had no idea..." from all and sundry a little difficult to take. From some of the descriptions given by his accusers, it was pretty obvious.

tangled_metal

We know it was happening but fear stopped us acting on the knowledge.

We supported Polanski but we only did it because it would have helped our career or harmed it if we didn't.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Blake

Is fear an acceptable excuse?

Ben6899

Shortfall wrote:

What is staggering is the hypocrisy of some of the Hollywood women now piling in to condemn him. Some of these are the same women who give Roman Polanski standing ovations

People in these circles will pillory or celebrate their peers depending on what they hope to achieve from it. I'm afraid that in the Venn Diagram (Has spoken out about Weinstein / Applauds Polanski's [admittedly great] work) there'll be quite a few in the overlap.

rick_chasey

Amazed by how many are haranguing women about why they didn't speak out sooner, without realising they are answering their own question.

tangled_metal

Well said.

It's the nature of powerful ppl to get others to do things against their conscience I fear at times.

crispybug2

Shortfall wrote:

What is staggering is the hypocrisy of some of the Hollywood women now piling in to condemn him. Some of these are the same women who give Roman Polanski standing ovations

The one quote I remember from the Roman Polanski thing was Whoopi Goldberg and she said "Well it wasn't rape rape " which even at the time I thought was extraordinary!!

pinno

Tangled Metal wrote:

We know it was happening but fear stopped us acting on the knowledge.

We supported Polanski but we only did it because it would have helped our career or harmed it if we didn't.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Blake

Is fear an acceptable excuse?

Is it 'fear' or is it the threat of anonymity an end to your acting career and being ostracised by the string pullers, if you spoke out?

Perhaps the 'grey' cases which turn immediately to black under the media/judicial spotlight will be a side effect that collectively, changes the Hollywood culture. A massive swing of the pendulum. Where does it stop? That will be interesting.

finchy

lostboysaint wrote:

It was Ben Affleck.

A little more on the Dotard of Covfefe and why he is unusually quiet on this subject.

http://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-hail-trump-sex-predator-chief-681509

Anyone else find it amusing that an article about Donald "alt-right" Trump was written by a journalist named "Reich"?

slowmart

While Weinstein is toast I'm amazed from the public narrative that this behaviour is endemic within the industry that other movie moguls haven't been implicated yet.

It's probably the same reason Weinstein got away with it for so long. Nothing has changed.

tangled_metal

The Amazon studio chief is on leave because of accusations about him. So far the only two big players hitting the news I think.

trivial_poursuivant

Cornerblock wrote:

crispybug2 wrote:

Jesus!!

When the rich and powerful crash, they crash spectacularly!!

The guy is undoubtedly ruined and you wonder what's coming next

The movie?

Would make a great movie, but it would be incredibly toxic for anyone to touch. You think another producer out there wants to be dealing with this? Never mind the actresses who would have to play the current ones involved.

Doubt it would ever get an Oscar.

mamba80

Can understand a new actress enthralled with a powerful man and scared to report his behaviour but some of these women kept quiet long after they d become super stars.
contrast with Taylor Swift, who did nt delay and called out abuse, regardless of any possible affect on her career.

rick_chasey

mamba80 wrote:

Can understand a new actress enthralled with a powerful man and scared to report his behaviour but some of these women kept quiet long after they d become super stars.
contrast with Taylor Swift, who did nt delay and called out abuse, regardless of any possible affect on her career.

Rick Chasey wrote:

Amazed by how many are haranguing women about why they didn't speak out sooner, without realising they are answering their own question.