The Downfall of Harvey Weinstein?

[ursus arctos]

Why do you read it as a conclusion?

To me it is an observation, backed by evidence that is indeed more ample than that provided for the vast majority of the observations advanced on here.

[Satchmo Distel]

I understand her point to be that the voices of the victims are not being listened to attentively but are instead being fed into a voyeuristic spectacle that turns them into some tabloid entertainment, thereby robbing them of the agency they had when the focus was on #MeToo.

[laverte]

Thank you Satchmo.

And ursus, and Kev.

[G-Man]

The tabloid aspect is presumably inevitable when you go from the relative anonymity of "me too" to revelations about famous people. I'm struggling to see a net negative, though, if that's the suggestion, in more and more people feeling emboldened to report on powerful abusers. That's some welcome agency, and I would hope there's a trickle down effect. I tend to agree with laverte that we're not addressing capitalism as a systematic enabler of predatory behavior.

I don't think there's a "net negative" necessarily. But there is a hazard that the primary focus is on the "next big name" to fall, as a lurid type of entertainment, rather than on the system that sustained and protected the abuse and the abusers. And I think anyone is susceptible to it, myself included. I felt a momentary tinge of "disappointment" when some director I had never heard of was accused of abuse. And that is after I had written about patriarchy and Weinsteinian abuse happening in all walks of life etc. It's so easy to lose the focus.

[Hot Pepsi]

What I take from the examples Laverte lists above is that a lot of the punditocracy is asking how the same power structures that created this situation - or at least created the opportunity for it to happen - are now going to fix it. And that seems a bit dumb.

The public’s outrage has created some economic and legal incentives for them to do so, so change can and does happen - ex) the rapid demise of the RCC’s influence in Ireland - but it still doesn’t feel like a massive victory for women or other classes of traditionally shat-upon people (TSUP) because the massive power imbalances are still there.

Do I have that right?

I don’t know what kind of world or economic system would emerge if everyone slowed down and simply listened a lot more to the stories and perspectives of women and other TSUP, but I suspect it would be a lot different than what we have now or what we’re going to get in a the next few years as a result of all these public falls from grace.

We’ll likely get a new, albeit slightly less horrible, group of white men in charge with just a few more women and TSUP (who have to work twice as hard to go half as far as the white guys) in powerful positions, especially in Hollywood. But there will still be plenty of power-abuse.

And in the much wider world outside it the SoCal-based entertainmen Industry, it’s likely to get a lot worse before it gets better, because economic inequality is getting so much worse.

[G-Man]

Sure, there's all that, which is good and necessary. But it's not an either/or thing I'm referring to. Of course, whenever a big name falls, that's going to ripple the pond. Thatr's good. But we must retain and maintain an awareness that the story is not just a bunch of Hollywood sleazebags but the whole patriarchal system, everywhere.

In the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, there was a similar problem: there long was a primary focus on the predator priests, understandably so. The Boston Globe turned the spotlight, as it were, on the systemic culture that allowed for that abuse to take place. It still took a concerted effort to keep that focus on the institutional crisis, perhaps in part because the story of the crimes of the priests was more accessible than abstract power models. That is why the story of Cardinal Law -- which personalised the institutional culture -- was so important.

The Vatican long didn't get it that the core story was the enabling of predator priests and the cover-up of their crimes. Benedict XVI, who did a lot to set into motion safety protocols, didn't get it at all. He thought the problem was priests. Pope Francis gets it; he has said that bishops who cover up abuse must be dismissed, and he has repeatedly condemned the clericalism that gave rise to the cover-ups. The story hasn;t ended yet, but the reform of the institutional culture is underway.

The important thing here is that pressure was kept on the system, not by way of ripple effects but by people -- at first from below and eventually right at the top --demanding change.

[ursus arctos]

Multiple reports that the NYPD is working to arrest Weinstein for rape.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Netflix disown Spacey now, he'll struggle to find any work after this.

[Satchmo Distel]

The most recent, highly plausible allegations against Spacey are at a more serious level of serial predation than those against, say, Dustin Hoffman (although those are bad enough to put Hoffman's reputation under a huge cloud). Spacey seems closer to Weinstein than Hoffman on the continuum.

I have no clue how House of Cards rescues its last series. Personally I would just dump it because the alternatives are just too stupid (and it was already highly implausible anyway in how the characterization was becoming so inconsistent, values and norms being so regularly reversed). Very harsh on Robin Wright, but I think she's good enough to find starring roles elsewhere.

[anton pulisov]

House of Cards was finished anyway, they were flogging a dead horse for the past two seasons.

It's obvious now how he was so creepily good as Frank Underwood (and in American Beauty) - he quite possibly wasn't acting at all.

[Levin]

Netflix disown Spacey now, he'll struggle to find any work after this.

Just like Mel Gibson? And Roman Polanski? and...

[WOM]

Polanski is so much easier to understand than Gibson; he basically creates his own jobs. And Gibson could have done likewise, cranking out self-funded anti-semitism for the rest of his life. But I was blown away when Ferrell and Wahlberg teamed up with him in that Daddy's Home 2. What would inspire those two to become part of his career rehabilitation plan?

[Amor de Cosmos]

It's very hard to tell whether there's any career rehab for Spacey at this point. I thought Rob Lowe was done after the "underage girls" video, but eventually he came back, and is now working regularly. It depends so much on legal and cultural factors, today the climate of forgiveness is an awful lot chillier.

[Nefertiti2]

I Guess this belongs on this thread. Though it's about Michael Colgan boss of the Gate Theatre in Dublin

[Satchmo Distel]

I think Lowe would be toast if it happened today. 1988 was a different country.

OTOH he was 24 in 1988 so he had time to turn things around and appears not to have carried that exploitative conduct into his middle years. It depends whether people are willing to believe a leopard can change its spots.

[Amor de Cosmos]

If there's any future for Spacey it's likely to be in theatre, probably as a director/artistic director. He's well regarded in that capacity and it's lower profile than TV/film.

[Sam]

Given that a fair few allegations involve him abusing his position as artistic director of a theatre, I'd have thought he'd struggle to find work in that capacity as well.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Sure, but it's a smaller world, and given his reputation, he'd be easier to keep an eye on. As I mentioned earlier, everyone — and I do mean everyone — who worked at the National Theatre during his time as AD at the Old Vic knew his rep. I heard about it through teccy friends maybe ten years ago. Nobody did anything then, because where would they go? In the future that's unlikely to be the case. He'd have to be very, very, careful.

[G-Man]

There will be people who will be all too happy to rehabilitate the likes of Spacey, after he has spent his time in penance. Weinstein will be the poster monster, the man who takes the fall for the casting couch system. But other than violent rapists, rather than serial sexual harassers, those being named will likely be OK. Unless they have many enemies or are otherwise expendable, in which case they'll get a billing on the Weinstein poster. That's entertainment.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Jesus friggin' Christ...

(Guardian) Berlusconi set to return to Italian politics

Dominique Strauss-Khan has also been putting himself about in the French media of late… (Surely, DSK is totally "grillé" as the French say – he’s history –, even in a minor capacity. Or is he?... Nah, he's defo dead meat.)

[ursus arctos]

Silvio’s “base” is very much like Trump’s. There’s literally nothing that he could do that would cause them to abandon him.

Getting back to Harvey, Ronan Farrow’s latest on the lengths to which he went to try to suppress the news coming out is extraordinary.

[Sam]

This isn't an exact match, but it's probably best for this thread. I've just finished watching An Open Secret, a documentary intended for release in 2015 which failed to get a release in Hollywood. If you give it a watch, you'll understand why. The producers have uploaded it to Vimeo themselves since the Weinstein allegations came out; it's in that link, though it's only available until 'early November' so who knows for how much longer. I highly recommend it, though it's not easy viewing. It covers the stories of five victims of child sexual abuse on the part of Hollywood agents, and those agents. And apart from a lot, lot more, and without naming any names, it really makes you wonder how much certain child actors who later turned into 'teen wildchilds' were really struggling with fame, and how much they were struggling with ... other issues.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, that happens.

I’ve also been wondering how many people, especially women, either quit Hollywood because of this kind of thing or have trouble getting work because they refuse to go along with it. There’s so many “whatever happened to them” actors.

[Sam]

Some of whom appear in that documentary. And they're not wondering why so many others quit.

[G-Man]

Corey Feldman has been talking about the abuse of minors in Hollywood for years. Somehow he became the punchline for jokes about child actors who never made it as adults.