Celeb (and Celeb SO's) Sexual Harassment Thread

[Irish]

Uh, in case you're still feeling gossipy and want to deep drive into AICN and Knowles:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/billy...4695332846207/

http://www.slashfilm.com/films-state...ilm-community/

Also, from long reads from long ago, but still relevant (and the parts about Drew McWeeny are funny):

http://filmthreat.com/uncategorized/...ical-part-one/

http://filmthreat.com/uncategorized/...arry-part-two/

http://filmthreat.com/uncategorized/...-harry-part-3/

And finally these are worth checking out. Paints quite the picture:

https://drewbyrd.blogspot.com/2013/0...harry.html?m=1

http://www.efilmcritic.com/feature.php?feature=1159

(I'm fascinated by this because Knowles built a business with $700,000 annual revenue with nothing more than bad writing and a coupla webservers, and everybody involved completely fucked it up.)

[Dukefrukem]

I shouldn't say fans--the teenager was, but other women who came forward were women who work in the games industry. They're not Robinson's employees, so it's not strictly workplace harassment, but Polygon fired him because he used his main twitter handle, the one he uses to tweet about tech and gaming while representing the company, to send these unsolicited gross messages.

Roger that.

[Dukefrukem]

As usual, I don't have any judgment for victims who are too afraid or ashamed to come forward.

Do you consider people who work around Andy to be victims? Who witnessed or knew about the behavior?

[number8]

Do you consider people who work around Andy to be victims? Who witnessed or knew about the behavior?

I'm not very familiar with who these guys are or how ScreenJunkies and Joe Schmoes relate to each other, so I might be confusing your question, but I was referring to JTE saying his girlfriend was one of Signore's victims. I assumed he never said anything until now because he didn't want to just out his girlfriend.

[Irish]

OTOH, oooooof. WTF

https://twitter.com/April13Dawn/stat...63352967745536

ETA: "I was later invited by SJ to come out to LA to be on the fam cam, and they put me up in a hotel. Andy stopped by my hotel uninvited and took a dildo out of his bag and tried to use it on me."

https://twitter.com/April13Dawn/stat...57757237784576

Whelp, that's a double wtf.

[Dukefrukem]

OTOH, oooooof. WTF

https://twitter.com/April13Dawn/stat...63352967745536

ETA: "I was later invited by SJ to come out to LA to be on the fam cam, and they put me up in a hotel. Andy stopped by my hotel uninvited and took a dildo out of his bag and tried to use it on me."

https://twitter.com/April13Dawn/stat...57757237784576

Whelp, that's a double wtf.

Dude is married with kids too. That's super creepy.

[number8]

Ah, found more context.

Ever hear that saying, HR is there to protect the company, not the employee?

[Lazlo]

With all that's going on how does Woody Allen still have a movie coming out a month from now?

[Spinal]

With all that's going on how does Woody Allen still have a movie coming out a month from now?

In his book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson speculates that public outrage is not just about the actions, but about the actions in comparison to our previous perception of the individual. Allen's behavior has been a part of him so long that it is already tied up with who we understand him to be. He has, on some level been accepted on those terms, at least by the people that keep him in business. Despite his provocative jokes, Louis has been known to the public as a loving father to two young girls. This is why Trump can keep afloat with disaster after disaster that would sink any other politician.

[Dukefrukem]

[Grouchy]

And frankly, after Devin Faraci, Harry Knowles, and Nick Robinson of Polygon, what's really depressing me - you know, aside from watching men presuming to be woke and sensitive but then revealing themselves as slimy little fucks - is just how profoundly bad they are at flirting.

I feel the same way. Threatening and attempting blackmail to keep the girl from revealing the advances you made is clearly in harassment territory, but at first I assumed some of these cases might have been an extramarital affair gone wrong and an accusation made out of spite... until you read the conversations. Come on. An adult person realizes when you're talking to someone who wants to fuck and when you're not wanted.

[Irish]

Harvey Weinstein has been fired:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/b...ein-fired.html

And so has Andy Signore (Honest Trailers):

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hea...claims-1046756

[Wryan]

Gonna be a lot of fanciful tap dancing around Hollywood as people try their absolute best to be aghast at the sudden knowledge of Harvey's activities and abuses. He's been the whispered-about pig kingpin for decades. Everyone who ever profited off of his power, whether roles or money or whatever, and did their best to excuse or dismiss allllll of that gossip should have their damn souls examined. This is how shit like this perpetuates and festers and poisons people, organizations and industries. The power of people like this to make things disappear or put a person's credibility in an acid bath is frightening. I hope whoever feels strong enough to come forward can pin him to the wall with good enough evidence to send a message. But I worry that the only message received will be, "We gotta be more careful about how and who we abuse and assault and rape."

[Irish]

Gonna be a lot of fanciful tap dancing around Hollywood as people try their absolute best to be aghast at the sudden knowledge of Harvey's activities and abuses. He's been the whispered-about pig kingpin for decades. Everyone who ever profited off of his power, whether roles or money or whatever, and did their best to excuse or dismiss allllll of that gossip should have their damn souls examined.

I think Clooney put it best --- there's a big difference between water cooler gossip about Harvey being sleazy and an explicit story about jacking off into a potted plant.

I'm not in the industry, but even I heard shit about him. Everybody did. But I never would have guessed that he was groping Roseanna Arquette, fucking over her career, and raping Asia Argento. I mean, WTF, how is this guy not in jail.

PS: If anyone hasn't read the Farrow / New Yorker story yet... think twice. The stories are Cosby-level fucked up. Think a little more before listening to the NYPD tape. It's immensely fucking depressing.

ETA: This article by Leah Finnegan (who is a terrific writer, btw, and should be read regularly) about Weinstein et al changed my mind about a bunch of things. Worth a look: https://theoutline.com/post/2378/har...ce-for-bad-men

[number8]

ETA: This article by Leah Finnegan (who is a terrific writer, btw, and should be read regularly) about Weinstein et al changed my mind about a bunch of things. Worth a look: https://theoutline.com/post/2378/har...ce-for-bad-men

Good read. This is why I side-eye in disgust when old men just blanketly yell "DUE PROCESS" over and over.

[Irish]

Good read. This is why I side-eye in disgust when old men just blanketly yell "DUE PROCESS" over and over.

Ehhhhhh. I am -- or was -- one of those guys. I always believe the stories, but at the same time I was very uncomfortable the way the media initially reported on Casey Affleck and Harry Knowles, because it's too easy to trash someone's career and ruin their life. And it's difficult to distinguish between what's a fact and what's a rumor.

But the Finnegan piece changed my mind. These women have no power, no money, no recourse. Due process is a fucking joke for them. The way Indiewire handled Knowles was the only way to handle it, really. Otherwise, the dam of silence wouldn't break.

I'd rather toss my skepticism and pedantry out the window rather than have anyone go through what some of these women have gone through.

So fuck it, burn it all down and start over.

[number8]

To be less flippant: One of the most frustrating and conflicting feelings I have about laws or rules is the belief that a rule is inherently impartial and it's only in how it is applied that can get murky, but I don't think that's true, because I think when you've got an already impartial power dynamic between two groups, then even the equal enforcement of a rule within a community that has both groups is going to directly impact one group more than the other. Voter ID laws is probably the example most Americans are familiar to, and I've been thinking about it mostly in terms of how the state legalization of marijuana has impacted white entrepreneurs versus black entrepreneurs in California, but this is also the way I've been wondering that, given the known and accepted power imbalance between male predators and female victims, are we so sure that "innocent until proven guilty" is always a just rule?

[Irish]

are we so sure that "innocent until proven guilty" is always a just rule?

It isn't, necessarily, but it's all we've got. Go too far the other way, and you end up at the guillotine, Salem, and HUAC --- or Reddit and the Boston Bombing.

(But I think there's room somewhere were online discourse isn't litigated like it's a court of law, either. There's an odd space where due process and habeus corpus don't really work, yet people shout at each other like they're debating a point in a junior high civics class.)

[number8]

Go too far the other way, and you end up at the guillotine, Salem, and HUAC --- or Reddit and the Boston Bombing.

Or worse, a CBS procedural glorifying it.

[Wryan]

I'm off the mind that a person making an accusation against someone, especially a salacious or criminal one, should not be immediately believed nor immediately disbelieved. The claim (and, thus, person) should be taken seriously though. Sometimes that doesn't necessarily mean something investigative happens right then and there. But a lot of people seem to wait for "the pattern" to show up before starting to take something more seriously. I say if someone--especially if a good friend I trust--makes such a claim about someone, I'd keep an extra eye on that person from then on to see if there's more to it. You run into the possibility of having your perception of the person tainted and changed, and thus the possibility of seeing something that isn't there or suggestive or open to interpretation, but I personally think I'm fair to people overall, or try my best to be. I'm a devil's advocate to the point of tilting frustration for some.

[Dukefrukem]

Floodgates have opened indeed

http://deadline.com/2017/10/harvey-w...nt-1202185566/

[Irish]

That's off the original NYT story, which is worse and more depressing: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/1...weinstein.html

[megladon8]

I haven't seen anything about his brother through all this.

[number8]

I haven't seen anything about his brother through all this.

Bob's known to be much more of a recluse business man and not as much of a movie buff compared to Harvey. That's why you never hear actors and filmmakers talk about him, even though they always name-drop Harvey. By all accounts, they don't get along very often. Harvey actually is accusing Bob of being behind all of this coming out as a ploy to become sole owner of TWC.

[number8]

Look at this bunch of bullshit. Come on, Matt.