I went to bed last night reading Louis C.K.’s admission of guilt in response to the allegations of sexual misconduct made against him by five female comedians. I woke up this morning to headlines touting Anthony Edwards accusing a producer of raping him and a friend when they were 14, a male model accusing George Takei of attempting to rape him in 1981, and WB suspending Flash/Supergirl co-showrunner Andrew Kreisberg after 15 women and 4 men (all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity since many still work on those shows) accused him of sexual harassment.
The denials.
Edwards’ alleged abuser, Gary Goddard, has denied the accusation just as he denied similar accusations made against him in 2014 in a criminal case which eventually fell apart in court and resulted in his accuser going to jail for fraud. At the time of this writing, Takei has yet to respond. Kreisberg has vehemently denied all allegations while acknowledging that in his role as EP he’s said things about actor’s appearances others might have taken out of context and occasionally offered a non-romantic hug or kiss on the cheek some might have misinterpreted.
The week that was.
All of this caps off a week which saw the Louis C.K. story explode and almost immediately end his career, Corey Feldman and others accuse Charlie Sheen of raping Corey Haim on the set of Lucas (a claim Sheen denies), Terry Crews file charges against his groper, more actresses come forth to bury Steven Seagal, and Ellen Page accuse the already-disgraced Brett Ratner of outing her when she was only 18 and generally acting like a lecherous pig on the set of X-Men: The Last Stand. She also detailed troubling behavior she observed on other film sets when she was still a minor.
Hundreds of #MeToo survivors just marched on Hollywood (memorably chanting “Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to see you masturbate”), and the GOP is currently jumping through hoops to make the Roy Moore abuse story (or just Roy Moore in general) go away, leading outlets like Splinter to run with headlines like, “Fuck the GOP’s Cowardly ‘If True’ Roy Moore Statements”:
We have always undervalued women’s voices. Believing the women who have come forward with their stories against Moore might not even be enough—it’s been a year since Donald Trump was elected president, even after several women came forward with their stories of sexual assault. A poll from October 2016 showed that 68% of registered voters believed that Trump made unwanted sexual advances toward women.
As Jia Tolentino wrote in the New Yorker on Thursday morning, we failed the women who came forward to accuse Trump almost exactly a year ago. As the Moore story plays out, and Republicans jump in with their “if true” statements, it seems depressingly unavoidable that we will fail the women who came out with their stories today.
Hollywood’s decisive response.
Hollywood, however, is determined to not fail any women and men who are coming forward with their own stories of assault. Such accusations are triggering instant suspensions and project cancellations in ways we’ve never seen before, even if it leaves the livelihoods of over 2,000 House of Cards Baltimore crew members hanging in the air.
Of course, some of those crew members are among the now dozens of Kevin Spacey accusers, which is a pattern we see repeating itself. For the serial offenders in Hollywood right now, all it takes is one person (either on the record or anonymously) to speak up. Once they do, the corroborating stories from similarly harassed or abused come flooding in.
Thus, decades of inaction are now being met with vigilant reaction and systemic self-reflection, both as a matter of image control and improving employee morale as well as simply doing the right thing. This is obviously larger than Hollywood, but what Hollywood does in response to it can help countless others deal with their own experiences. As Edwards wrote in his heartfelt essay about his own experience, “There are millions of children in our country who are one conversation away from being heard. Just as there are millions of adult men who are one step away from healing. I did not go from being a victim to a survivor alone. No one does. I had to ask for help, and I am so grateful that I did.”
The “witch hunt” defense and argument.
So, when Jeremy Piven, who stands accused of harassment by three different women, writes on Instagram, “We seem to be entering dark times – allegations are being printed as facts and lives are being put in jeopardy without a hearing, due process or evidence,” we roll our eyes and think, “Sounds like something a guilty person would say.”
Just as Rose McGowan memorably had this to say in response to Woody Allen’s misinterpreted statement about Harvey Weinstein:
Allen also expressed concern over us entering “a witch hunt atmosphere” where “every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself.”
In this case, the messengers are clearly flawed, but is the message as well? Do they have a point? Are we in the midst of an unprecedented industry-wide cleansing and national conversation about gender relations and workplace harassment? Or are we looking at a witch hunt? Or is it kind of both at the same time?
THR’s Stephen Galloway, for one, is concerned about the potential for collateral damage:
“I’m terrified that, in our righteous quest to do good, we’re sweeping up the innocent as well as the guilty. We’re accepting allegations in the place of solid proof. We’re conflating those guilty of more minor crimes with perpetrators of egregious and even criminal behavior.
Journalists have a responsibility to stand firm, to not get swept up in the rush to judgment or the race to break a story, remembering that some of the most incendiary material may turn out to be less combustible than it seems. But faced with white-hot competition, we’re giving up tried-and-tested codes of conduct, knowing that if we don’t, we’ll lose the battle to get the story first. We in the media are not verifying and re-verifying the facts, but only checking that so-and-so did indeed say such-and-such — not always even on the record.”
Our rocky relationship with, well, everything these days.
Of course, that old standard of needing some to go on the record is reportedly why NBC opted not to run Ronan Farrow’s bombshell Harvey Weinstein story, and look at the beating their reputation has taken as a result. Considering the way the Weinstein story mushroomed, Farrow’s journalistic instincts were correct, turning NBC’s journalistic caution into an integrity-sapping indictment of not just them but broadcast news in general.
And that feels like a very 2017 thing to happen. We don’t trust the news anymore and haven’t for years, yet far too easily fall for fake news on Facebook. We don’t trust men in power because in a world with Donald Trump as President everything seems suspect and corrupt (or, if you support Trump, you likely responded to his anti-establishment message which casts doubt on the reliability of the media and government).
The way “blame the victim” has been codified into law.
We don’t trust the justice system for oh so many reasons but in this case its history of continually failing those who actually file charges against sexual abusers or harassers (via Slate):
Thus, even with the nearly 7,000 sexual harassment complaints received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last year and thousands more by state agencies three out of every four victims of workplace harassment still don’t report it. The 500,000 people who tweeted #MeToo in the 24 hours after Alyssa Milano’s call to action last month can certainly speak to that.
It’s partially down to our laws, which more or less codify the “blame the victim” mentality. The Supreme Court’s controversial interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 1998 Faragher–Ellerth precedent on the standard of legal liability in such cases, and regrettable 5-4 decision in 2013’s Vance v. Ball State University case of 2013 has created, as Slate put it, “a legal environment that encourages victims of sexual harassment to remain silent.”
The burden of proof falls on the accuser, not the accused. They don’t just have to prove the harassment, though; they also have to demonstrate they tried hard enough to bring their complaint to the attention of their supervisor, which Vance v. Ball narrowly defines only as someone who has the power to hire or fire them. If you don’t do everything exactly right the employer can just wave that sexual harassment policy form you signed when you were first hired and make the case go away.
In such an environment, you fight the good fight regardless, stay silent, or play by the rules of mandatory arbitration and non-disclosure agreements, where you get paid for your silence but in exchange lose your right to sue or even speak about it publicly without being sued yourself. That’s why Rose McGowan talking about Harvey Weinstein raping her is technically illegal – she signed an NDA. It’s a flawed system which only exists because our laws governing such cases are already flawed, and while Congress and individual states have the power to force through changes we all know they won’t.
Why harassment is so pervasive – gender disparity.
If you exist in a system where you believe you can legally get away with anything you’ll try everything. But it’s not as simple as that. It’s even more systemic. Simply put, there aren’t enough women in positions of leadership in the workforce. They occupy over half of professional-level jobs but only hold a quarter of all senior and executive-level postions. That has allowed misogyny to grow as has the media’s tendency toward sensationalism and “blame the victim” reactions.
It’s even worse in Hollywood. Here are the latest statistics from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism:
Moreover, in the Hollywood boardrooms, women hold only 20% of corporate, chief executive, and executive management positions.
But it’s not even that simple. We’re also talking about an industry where plenty of people knew about Harvey Weinstein’s reputation for years and did nothing, an industry where agents who should have and sometimes likely did know better persisted in sending their young, female clients to his hotel room without offering them warning or protection. It’s a system built on thousands profiting off the vulnerability of few, and this inherently creates power dynamics that are easily taken advantage of.
Factor on top of that the decades upon decades of abuse that occurred and is only now being reported by, and it’s a recipe for an industry crisis.
How Hollywood is setting the standard for how to respond.
With change unlikely to come from the courts or lawmakers employers need to take actions they aren’t legally required to in order to send a message to employees about what kind of behavior is acceptable and how they will be punished.
Employers need a push to do this, which is what the steady drumbeat of harassment and abuse allegations does. When the actual courts have failed us and corporations have turned fat, lazy, and predominantly run by white men, a victim’s only reliable mechanism of action is to simply share their story and hopefully shame their abuser and his or her enablers into professional ruin or at least public contrition. This environment (and the desperation of the media to get right wrong NBC got wrong with Weinstein) also inevitably leaves open the possibility of false accusations, ones which the accused may eventually disprove but never escape the associated stigma and career assassination.
But which ethical hill would you rather die on: The one filled with the theoretically ruined lives of falsely accused, or the one which is flipping the script away from literal decades of blaming the victim and over toward empowering victims and embracing the potential for change?
What do think? Let me know in the comments.
We Minored in Film 
Well, what is the alternative? We are often talking about women who have tried to do the right thing and were rebuffed, and who finally decided that going public is the only way to start a change. Is it possible that someone ends up unfairly accused? yeah, certainly, it is actually very likely. But it is also very likely that such an accusation will stand alone, which will make the public way more wary of believing it. Not to mention that the question if people believe it or not has much more to do with what they WANT to believe.
Take the Clinton accusations – very questionable that he did anything more than being an unfaithful husband. Republicans still love to dig up the whole affair at every opportunity…while also saying that Trump Access Hollywood tape is just “locker room talk”, blissfully ignoring the long string of sexual harassment accusations against him which reach back decades and are often confirmed through his own words. And that the American public was comfortable to vote for him anyway shows that this is a conversation which is needed!
And it is not like this is easy for the people who came forward either…I have seen the better known actresses being accused of having slept their way to the top (and now complaining about it).
“Well, what is the alternative?”
There isn’t one, really. It’s a shitty situation which might ensare some innocent but do more good than bad in the long run.
That is a very scary attitude — let a few innocent get destroyed as long as lots of guilty get punished?
Isn’t that a lot like the rationale of overzealous police who don’t worry about sending a few innocent men to jail as long as they take some very terrible men off the street?
The question was whether or not there’s a better alternative, and as you yourself mentioned there should be but we don’t really know what it is yet. The best alternative is for us to be a better society driven less by fake news or sensationalism and impulse, to stick to our ideals of innocent until proven guilty while also giving an open mind to any who would bring about accusations. But years upon years of apathy and anomie, of our trust in societal institutions being chipped away and chipped away, have led us to this point. When we have no trust left in the mechanisms of power and execution of justice then we’ve reached the place where we are now, always assuming there must be plenty of fire wherever there’s a hint of smoke.
We’ve flip-flopped, at least in the entertainment realm (not necessarily politics), from a place of instantly blaming the victim to believing every accuser and assuming the worst of the alleged abuser/harasser/person in power. It feels like on balance and in a world where 3 out of ever 4 (mostly women) who are harassed don’t report it that the possibility of there now being some accused who are innocent is an unavoidable result but also one which the world won’t necessarily weep over when the narrative used to be genuine victims could find no real justice. Moreover, this all brings about the possibility of larger change in the industry, even if it stems from a place of fear.
I’m not saying all of that is right, ethically. It just seems to be the situation we’re in. The atmosphere, as you pointed out, is now ripe for people to lie or try to blackmail those in power. But it’s also possible that the entertainment industry really is this screwed up and has been for a long time when it comes to gender and abuse of power. We don’t really know, and it’s impossible to know for sure. But I think it all plays to a lot of assumptions.
‘ “We seem to be entering dark times – allegations are being printed as facts and lives are being put in jeopardy without a hearing, due process or evidence,”’
I’d disagree with him on this. The media is indicating that things are alleged Even in my limited study of legal studies and journalism, I notice that.
‘We in the media are not verifying and re-verifying the facts, but only checking that so-and-so did indeed say such-and-such — not always even on the record.’
I disagree with this guy too. I read an article by an anonymous accuser of Kevin Spacey. The article states they went to lengths to verify that Spacey was a mentor to the accuser.
Steven Seagal – I’m inclined to believe the accusers because his reputation has been like that for years. What I am not sure of is the allegation that he had a literal sex slave.
I think what needs to happen is trials. Unfortunately, that takes years. When I think of Australian celebrity serial sex offenders, it took DECADES before Rolf Harris and Robert Hughes were convicted. The end of Kevin Spacey’s career has come extremely fast and without formal trial or procedure.
The problem with a trial is that most of these things happen alone in a room. No way for an accuser to offer any proof — unless they kept the blue dress.
Well, then the alternative is trial by media and the injustice of that.
That’s binary thinking. Just because one doesn’t work does not mean the other will — or that it’s better.
As I and others on this thread have stated — we’re kind of stuck. There are no obvious solutions that don’t potentially screw one side or the other.
Ok. You show me another avenue where victims are compensated financially and perpetrators go to prison.
What part of “There are no obvious solutions that don’t potentially screw one side or the other.” are you not understanding?
That’s just your opinion. No need to be a dick about it.
All I’m saying is that over an over again, I said there were no easy solutions and then you replied with asking me to tell you a better solution. I thought that was weird.
We do live in dark times and while i imagine most are true tales i can imagine some craving attention. There is a fine line between wrongfully accused and ashamedly guilty. Weinstein falling into the latter. It is all truly shocking. I found louis ck hilarious although some of his topics do raise an eyebrow or two when he delves into the detil. I will give him credit though for admitring it unlike all the other accused men. Any women abusers out there by the way?
“Any women abusers out there by the way?”
Not that I’ve seen. Granted, it’s been hard to keep up with every allegation, but I don’t recall there being female harassed male or female harassed female story yet.
This is a challenging situation in the extreme. I’m glad so many offenders are being outed and suffering the consequences. But, it is super scary how little it takes to ruin a person’s career right now — and, as you pointed out — the hundreds or even thousands of jobs lost by people who worked on canceled projects.
The accusation of this looking like a witch hunt is reasonable. It seems a single shout of “She’s a witch” will get her burned at the stake. And quite often, all it took was for a young woman to reject the romantic advances of a respected man in the community for him to accuse her of witchcraft and her life is forfeit.
Yes, some very bad people are being outed and suffering and that’s great. But, how can any of us know if and when an innocent person is having their lives ruined? Are we now of the mindset that it’s worth having a few innocents condemned if it means stopping the abuse by those who are guilty? That’s a very, very scary place to be.
In the case of Moore, it’s been established that at least one of the accusers is an avid supporter of Moore’s opponent — a fact conveniently left out of the Post’s article. I’m not saying Moore is innocent, but if we’re becoming a society where all you have to do to to tank an opponent’s career or campaign is get two or three people to make an untrue accusation (in some cases anonymously), then we’re heading towards a sort of reverse anarchy.
On the other hand, I do think we need some kind of system where victims are safe to come forward with their stories.
I don’t know if there’s a solution that adequately protects both the accused and the accuser. But I’m pretty sure what’s happening right now is not it.
As an aside, in this environment, what’s to stop people from blackmailing those in power? Young assistants, make up artists, interns, actors can tell a person they want one million dollars or they’re going to make an accusation that will cause their show to be canceled and to be blacklisted from all the late night shows. Surely a one million dollar pay off is better than losing tens or hundreds of millions and having your career ruined.
Scary stuff.
I thought Louis CK’s response to the accusations was brilliant. So much so that I suspect it was written by a fixer.
This was so much better than, “It’s a sickness so I’m going to go check into a treatment center and when I come out I’ll be cured and… bygones!”
He took ownership of it. He acknowledged that the power of his success had gone to his head. And he expressed horror at realizing how much he’d hurt his victims and all the people who just lost their jobs.
I don’t like Louis CK as a person. His normal humor is quite disgusting — and now that seems likely to be borne out of his kinky fantasies. Though when he cleans up his act, I do find his outlook to be quite funny (e.g. Everything’s wonderful and no one’s happy).
That he did these things does not surprise me. But, I was nearly moved to tears when reading his response. It FELT genuine.
It WILL be interesting to see if he survives it. I suspect he’ll lay low for 5 years or so and re-emerge. It seems Hollywood and audiences were able to forgive Mel Gibson — after his own decade long exile.
One thing that makes me think the Louis’ response was written by a pro (besides being so wonderfully crafted) is that Richard Dryfus just released a response that seemed to follow the same outline.
I’ve seen the Mel Gibson comparison made several times. The Post even wrote a big article about it, but the sticking point is this: what Gibson did is not on the same level of what Louis C.K. is being accused of doing. Mel Gibson was more like an NFL player who had an off-the-field incident which resulted in a suspension. He said horribly hateful things while drunk, and had a domestic violence incident with his girlfriend. For that, he had to go off into B-Movie ville for years, be humbled, but also prove that his name can still be a draw for European financiers fronting the budgets for movies like Get the Gringo. Then he had to largely self-finance an Oscar contender to prove he still had the goods as an artist. Now, he’s co-starring in a goofy Christmas comedy.
It’s the playbook they’ll all study now, but it’s going to be harder for the Louis C.K.’s because they’re mostly being accused of abusing their position of power. Gibson was more punished for something(s) he said; they’re to be punished for things they allegedly did. And the environment is so toxic now it might be harder for them to keep friends in the industry who will stick by them, like Jodie Foster did with Gibson and cast him in that Meet the Beaver comedy she directed.
That makes sense.
My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but if all CK did is expose himself and masturbate in front of women, how bad is that, really? No coersion. No forcing himself on anyone. No groping. No hints that he’ll ruin their careers if they don’t play along.
I mean, yeah, it’s disgusting behavior, but it doesn’t seem to rise to the level of Winestein or Spacey, right?
It is sad that we have to establish a continuum of offenses, but that’s kind of the state of things, isn’t it? So, C.K. abused his position of power in the comedy community by asking several women if he could masturbate in front of them, not realizing how wrong that was or how that kind of thing isn’t okay as long as you ask first; you shouldn’t ask at all. Spacey and Weinstein’s accusations are clearly a level or several levels above that. They both might be officially charged with rape before all is said and done.
I’m gonna masturbate to some girls now. Dont worrry I will ask first. I will take silence or shock to be a yes though.
I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s still allowed. It’s when you do it in front of women without asking or ask first but are asking women you have power over – that’s when it’s a Louis C.K. move.
But apparently, now while you’re on the phone with a woman.
What about if a girl asks me to do it in front of her? Yes sometimes that happens?
Then have fun, you two.
Except that decades from now she could say she didn’t ask you to do that and accuse you of sexual harassment and automatically ruin your career.
So, if a girls requests that of you, make her sign a disclosure. 🙂
Exactly
Kelly, I have liked this blog for the past year, but as one white male to another, i feel as you are really writing this from a place of privilege, ignoring the decades of toxic culture and how hard it is for victums to come forward.
I was also pretty surprised to find you defending Roy Moore. The woman who was molested by him as a 14 year of is a life long Republican voter, since you said you do not believe the one accuser since she is not part of Moore political party.
In general, the entire conciet of your argument is way to close to the victim blaming response that Geraldo Rivera had to Weinstein: “Now any women-making any allegation of harassment vs celeb-however old or uncorroborated-gets near unrebuttable presumption”.
I am realy disappointed, Kelly. I think you need to re-examine how how it is for victims to come forward and how little they have had to gain before you start pointing fingers and calling people frauds.
(14 year old) sorry for the typo
I in no way intended to defend Roy Moore. I only brought him up as a counterpoint to what is happening in the entertainment industry right now. In politics, Roy Moore’s accusers are already victims of a smear campaign, and the quoted text I included argued we have a history of failing these women in these situations and the GOP might sadly do it again with Moore.
In Hollywood, though, the opposite is happening in terms of supporting and embracing those who come forward to share their story. And that’s good. I agree. I pointed to Anthony Edward’s example for how hard it is to come forward and the good it can do not just for the individual but also those who have been similarly afflicted but have remained silent for now. As someone else mentioned in the comments section, I don’t have a better alternative here. If the alternative is of going back to silencing accusers and enabling or condoning clearly condemnable behavior than the current environment is clearly preferable, and I in no way mean to diminish the strength and courage it takes for the #MeToo people to share their stories and come to terms with what was done to them.
However, it strikes not just me but someone who works for The Hollywood Reporter (who I quoted) that in this environment it’s possible someone who is actually innocent will have their career ruined. However, I closed with the question as to whether that possibility is simply acceptable considering the untold lives that have been ruined in the old way of men abusing their power.
If I didn’t make any of that clear enough in the article or if you still feel like I’m speaking from a place of unsympathetic privilege then I apologize.
Finally. Some abuse from a female. Demi moore. Soo hot yet apparently a kiddie fiddlier if you follow the hype.
Mariah Carrie has also been accused of sexual harrassment — though it’s by a body guard firm that is also complaining she canceled a 2 year contract, so it’s a bit dubious.
Whoa, really? I completely missed that story. It does sound dubious.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mariah-carey-accused-of-sexual-harassment
It is entirely possible to see things differently and NOT have it be due to race or “white privilege”.
–> “I was also pretty surprised to find you defending Roy Moore.”
Where in Kelly’s post did you get THAT? I saw zero defense of Roy in his post. He didn’t really give an opinion on it at all, other than to point out how Republicans are trying to make it go away.
BTW, there are an awful lot of Republicans in congress that are treating Roy as guilty, so it’s not like the GOP is united for Roy Moore.
–> “In general, the entire concept of your argument is way to close to the victim blaming”
Wow! Only someone who’s either overly sensitive or out looking for a fight could interpret anything Kelly wrote as a victim blaming. He actually seems to be leaning towards assumption of guilt for the accused. Where are you getting that from?
I wish I could say that these sex scandals shock me, but they honestly don’t. The fact Harvey Weinstein was a womanizer was not unknown in Hollywood otherwise they wouldn’t have talked about it on 30 Rock. While I sympathize with innocent people whose livelihoods are at stake, this the unfortunate consequence when those who have power abuse it. Whether the person is a celebrity, a politician, a religious leader or a family member they need to be held accountable if there is truth to the claim. Not doubting that there can be false accusations, which is why there needs to be discernment when it comes to something as sensitive as sexual abuse.
“While I sympathize with innocent people whose livelihoods are at stake, this the unfortunate consequence when those who have power abuse it. Whether the person is a celebrity, a politician, a religious leader or a family member they need to be held accountable if there is truth to the claim. Not doubting that there can be false accusations, which is why there needs to be discernment when it comes to something as sensitive as sexual abuse.”
Well said. You did a better job of summing it up than I have so far.
I think it is safe to say there is a mass lack of discernment in the news when it comes to this tooic. Being cleared of charges spares you jail time but careers are almost permanently damaged.
So place your bets on which other well known celebs are likely to get outed? Charlie Sheen? Or are people being nice to him these days for sympathetic reasons? Jack Nicholson? I see that bloke from the transgender show and arrested development has been picked. Gene Simmonds done something wrong too.
Funny you would mention them. Charlie Sheen has already been accused of something (raping Corey Haim), I just read Gene Simmons has been forbidden from entering the Fox News building for being crude and verbally abusive to staff, Amazon is feeling more and more pressure to do something about Jeffrey Tambor and Transgender since another accuser has come forward. Nicholson surely did some shit in coked up days in the 70s. So, that’s always out there. And even Ron Jeremy has been accused of raping several actresses and getty handsy with certain fans at conventions who weren’t necessarily asking him to do that. Plus, Matthew Weiner just got buried by Marti Noxon, who came out and supported his accuser and claimed she witnesses and heard of similar stories when she worked on Mad Men.
Is it that shocking that a member of KISS might be a bit crude? Or that a porn star might get a bit handsy with his fans? I mean what exactly are they fans of? His eloquence?
Very True Map2. Ron Jeremy raping KK? No way. That’s like working in Starbucks and stealing coffee in your spare time. Did not know about the Sheen r*ping one of the Coreys. Will always wander if that led to their social distruction. Well thought about it for 2 mins. I assume its the now deceased one. So no one has answred who is likely to be next. Who has the potential to be a sexpest? Definately Swartznegger. I know he got outed when he ran for office. Jim Carrey has this streak. Prob Mel Gibson too at 5-1. Either way I think this may be a game changer with brand new actors and producers running the film industry and film stories changing so they are less about the guy giving the orders and the girl being the love interest. I saw Valerium and the 1000 planets and what not. Was visually impressive but all over the shop. Anyway just watching the dynamics of the male lead givign the order and the female asking questions made me think about what is happening today and how dated that kind of characterisation is despite it being a new movie. I am gonna move to asia. Women know their place there. Just joking. Hey that would have been funny 10 years ago.
From what I read about Jeremy, what he’s accused of is improvising the scripts. In the middle of the scripted porn scene, he’s start doing something else — something MORE –and the director would insist the “actress” just go with it. Stuff like that. I don’t recall reading any accusations that he raped anyone outside of “official” work. But, it’s really the fan accusations that get me. What kind of woman watches the kind of films Jeremy starred in and idolizes him? And then that same woman is shocked and offended when he displays that same kind of behavior to her? Very odd.
Oh man. That is just splitting hairs. So he was creative and went a different way. What good actor doesnt. He starred in a tonne of movies and shook it up. The director should have called cut if there was a problem and a fault. Ridiculous. What next. Ronald McDonald a bit too happy and friendly with kids. Smiling and joking all the time. Someone lock him up.