Why isn't Hollywood turning against Harvey Weinstein?

[Badger]

Um, they aren't?

[pbrower2a]

What Polanski has done is worse and Hollywood keeps working with him and giving him (undeserved) awards.

We can question whether a person of his record should be eligible for Academy Awards at all, but if you were referring specifically to "the Pianist", then you are wrong.

It's the perennial debate about art and the artist. Polanski is a horrible man, but he makes good films quite regularly. Woody Allen is a horrible man, but he makes good films as well (once or twice every decade or so.) Does a work of art cease to be appreciable simply because of who made it?

A question also fitting Richard Wagner, who was a thoroughly-awful person. Or Carlo Gesualdo, a Renaissance composer who murdered a man that his wife was cheating with -- and his wife.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Hollywood isn't the only hypocrite here, the Weinstein scandal is attracting them like flies descending upon a rotting corpse.  While Hollywood hasn't been defending Weinstein the way they did in the past, there's definitely rampant hypocrisy there (more on this later).  However, the media really shouldn't get a pass here either.  NBC News executives repeatedly and actively worked to kill this story prior to the NYT and New Yorker articles.  Additionally, Harvey Weinstein was apparently able to (with help from Matt Damon and Russell Crowe) successfully lobby the NYT to remove all references to the various sexual assault allegations against him in an article one of their reporters wrote back in 2004 (the Times did this at the last minute without even telling the reporter who wrote the article).  And that's just what we know about...

This sort of stuff is a big part of why victims are often so reluctant to come forward: look at when the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, etc first started becoming public knowledge.  Many of these things were public knowledge long before the media gave any of the victims the time of day.  Often when folks go public, no one notices or the industry in question just looks the other way which causes people to assume their case will be no different. 

Of course, the biggest Hollywood hypocrisy here is who it doesn't condemn.  Bill Murray, Johnny Depp, Christian Slater, Terrence Howard, and Sean Penn (to name a few) have well documented histories of violent behavior (in Murray's case not even just toward women) and it hasn't slowed down their careers.  Aside from Nicolas Cage and a couple others, few in Hollywood have publicly and consistently condemned Roman Polanski for raping a 13 year-old girl.  Many such as Tilda Swinton, Martin Scorsese, Alexander Payne, Alfonso Cauron, and David Lynch have even gone out of their way to defend Polanski (a letter opposing his extradition was signed by over 100 top directors), in some cases even claiming that he should be pardoned due to the "cinematic value" of his work. 

Then you have Ben Affleck who (among other things) has groped a co-star and definitely knew about Weinstein's behavior according to one of the victims, but no is trying to make a show of how shocked and disgusted he is by Harvey Weinstein's behavior.  Speaking of which, Casey Affleck has a history of sexually harassing women and publicly retaliating against those who reject his advances, but Matt Damon and the brothers Affleck threatened to refuse all interview requests from any paper or magazine that covered the allegations prior to the Oscars.  Sure enough, the Hollywood trades stopped writing about the multiple lawsuits Affleck's victims had brought against him and Casey Affleck won Best Actor.  I could go on, but you get the idea. 

I'd also recommend listening to the audio recording Manhatten D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. had of Harvey Weinstein trying to pressure a clearly terrified woman (whom he admits to having groped the previous day IIRC) to watch him take a shower and implying that he'll use his influence hurt her career if she refuses.  Vance Jr. personally made the decision not to prosecute Harvey Weinstein even with this evidence after Weinstein's lawyer donated $10,000 to his re-election campaign.*  If a victim learned something like this, I can easily see why it'd make them feel like the whole system was rigged against them. 

Look at Donald Trump's victims; what he did to those women simply didn't matter to millions of Americans even though Trump was caught on tape bragging about it and still claims he did nothing wrong.  Anyone who voted for Trump is at least as big a hypocrite and enabler of sexual harassment and sexual assault as those in Hollywood and the media who refused to condemn Harvey Weinstein despite knowing full well what a monster he was.  Both were happy to take their thirty pieces of silver when push came to shove whether that was a role with Oscar potential, money from a box-office hit, a Supreme Court seat, or a huge tax cut. 

*Incidentally, Vance Jr. has a history of this sort of thing.  He also overruled his own prosecutors (who apparently felt they had an airtight case against each would-be defendant) and refused to indict Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump for fraud in 2012 three months after meeting with Marc Kosowitz to discuss the case with no other lawyers or prosecutors present.  Kasowitz was Donald Trump's personal lawyer at the time and had donated $25,000 to Vance Jr.'s re-election campaign just before the meeting.  Apparently Kasowitz simply used the meeting to ask Vance Jr. not to indict Trump's kids and after that meeting Vance Jr. did a complete 180 about whether to bring charges.

[pbrower2a]

Abuse of power happens when the powerful people learn that they can get away with anything because people comply with the demands just for survival, which includes enduring the initial abuse and covering up for those who abuse power. There are campaign contributions to be made. High-profile careers can be broken. At the extreme (with organized crime and dictatorial regimes) someone who runs afoul of the rich-and-powerful might be killed.

We wanted a black sports star who acted like a white guy after his athletic career was over. We got O J Simpson. We wanted a black comedian who kept his language clean, someone we could laugh with instead of laugh at. We got Bill Cosby. We wanted cinematic masterpieces to enjoy indefinitely. We got Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein. Many of us wanted someone as President who would cut down liberal elites with contempt for PC values and with respect for the superstitious, vulnerable, and especially for white people being treated badly. We got Donald Trump.   
 

[°Leprechaun]

Who is Harvey Weinstein and why should I care?

If you've managed to miss this entire story (or his entire career) until now, the explanation will not be worth the payoff.

Or, if your search engine is broken: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Harvey+Weinstein

Actually, I have seen the story, although, fortunately, I hadn't heard of him until the media started going apesh**t over it. My comment wasn't to be taken literally, my point being that it is 100% not the least bit important, just like all the gossip stories the media covers, and just like the hype of the NFL non story. I am only interested in news that matters and this story obviously doesn't. The media is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer, all nonsense all the time. (not literally, but you get my point).

[Person Man]

Who is Harvey Weinstein and why should I care?

If you've managed to miss this entire story (or his entire career) until now, the explanation will not be worth the payoff.

Or, if your search engine is broken: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Harvey+Weinstein

Actually, I have seen the story, although, fortunately, I hadn't heard of him until the media started going apesh**t over it. My comment wasn't to be taken literally, my point being that it is 100% not the least bit important, just like all the gossip stories the media covers, and just like the hype of the NFL non story. I am only interested in news that matters and this story obviously doesn't. The media is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer, all nonsense all the time. (not literally, but you get my point).

America is becoming Italy 2.0.

[pbrower2a]

Regrettably, much of what goes on in America sounds like either stories from the National Enquirer, dystopias out of science-fiction novels, and bad spy novels.

Dostoevsky, anyone? Dickens? Kundera?

[Gustaf]

Who is Harvey Weinstein and why should I care?

If you've managed to miss this entire story (or his entire career) until now, the explanation will not be worth the payoff.

Or, if your search engine is broken: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Harvey+Weinstein

Actually, I have seen the story, although, fortunately, I hadn't heard of him until the media started going apesh**t over it. My comment wasn't to be taken literally, my point being that it is 100% not the least bit important, just like all the gossip stories the media covers, and just like the hype of the NFL non story. I am only interested in news that matters and this story obviously doesn't. The media is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer, all nonsense all the time. (not literally, but you get my point).

You think powerful men abusing women is "not important"? Great point, it's a shame you don't get to run the justice system.

While it is likely (and disgusting) that many people looked the other way and let him get away with this, as someone who has been part of an informal process expelling a sexual predator from a community I have to say that it is a lot harder to do the right thing than you imagine in theory. One of the big reasons is that no single individual usually sits on all the information and most people, including victims, don't speak up enough about it, often out of fear. And because you give the benefit of the doubt to someone you know and is friends with, you don't reach the correct conclusion as fast as you should.

[°Leprechaun]

Who is Harvey Weinstein and why should I care?

If you've managed to miss this entire story (or his entire career) until now, the explanation will not be worth the payoff.

Or, if your search engine is broken: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Harvey+Weinstein

Actually, I have seen the story, although, fortunately, I hadn't heard of him until the media started going apesh**t over it. My comment wasn't to be taken literally, my point being that it is 100% not the least bit important, just like all the gossip stories the media covers, and just like the hype of the NFL non story. I am only interested in news that matters and this story obviously doesn't. The media is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer, all nonsense all the time. (not literally, but you get my point).

You think powerful men abusing women is "not important"?

I didn't say that. You obviously entirely missed my point.

[kyc0705]

Who is Harvey Weinstein and why should I care?

If you've managed to miss this entire story (or his entire career) until now, the explanation will not be worth the payoff.

Or, if your search engine is broken: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Harvey+Weinstein

Actually, I have seen the story, although, fortunately, I hadn't heard of him until the media started going apesh**t over it. My comment wasn't to be taken literally, my point being that it is 100% not the least bit important, just like all the gossip stories the media covers, and just like the hype of the NFL non story. I am only interested in news that matters and this story obviously doesn't. The media is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer, all nonsense all the time. (not literally, but you get my point).

I am of the belief that no news intrinsically matters, unless it directly affects you. In other words, you decide what is relevant. I know very intelligent people who simply have no interest in current affairs or politics, and this forum would simply baffle them. The empirical argument over which news stories matter is a silly one.

[Gustaf]

Who is Harvey Weinstein and why should I care?

If you've managed to miss this entire story (or his entire career) until now, the explanation will not be worth the payoff.

Or, if your search engine is broken: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Harvey+Weinstein

Actually, I have seen the story, although, fortunately, I hadn't heard of him until the media started going apesh**t over it. My comment wasn't to be taken literally, my point being that it is 100% not the least bit important, just like all the gossip stories the media covers, and just like the hype of the NFL non story. I am only interested in news that matters and this story obviously doesn't. The media is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer, all nonsense all the time. (not literally, but you get my point).

You think powerful men abusing women is "not important"?

I didn't say that. You obviously entirely missed my point.

You called it an unimportant gossip story. I don't think sexual harassment and rape is gossip, they're criminal acts. Since it is part of a pattern that is repeated across society it's also important.

[JA]

[Fuzzy Bear]

Who is Harvey Weinstein and why should I care?

If you've managed to miss this entire story (or his entire career) until now, the explanation will not be worth the payoff.

Or, if your search engine is broken: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Harvey+Weinstein

Actually, I have seen the story, although, fortunately, I hadn't heard of him until the media started going apesh**t over it. My comment wasn't to be taken literally, my point being that it is 100% not the least bit important, just like all the gossip stories the media covers, and just like the hype of the NFL non story. I am only interested in news that matters and this story obviously doesn't. The media is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer, all nonsense all the time. (not literally, but you get my point).

You think powerful men abusing women is "not important"?

I didn't say that. You obviously entirely missed my point.

You called it an unimportant gossip story. I don't think sexual harassment and rape is gossip, they're criminal acts. Since it is part of a pattern that is repeated across society it's also important.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I am awaiting the results of the NYPD investigation.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/16/clinton-foundation-to-keep-harvey-weinsteins-250000-donation.html

Clinton foundation spokesperson quoted in the article for the FNC haters.

[heatcharger]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/16/clinton-foundation-to-keep-harvey-weinsteins-250000-donation.html

Clinton foundation spokesperson quoted in the article for the FNC haters.

Putting money from a sexual predator towards HIV/AIDS prevention seems like a good thing IMO.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/16/clinton-foundation-to-keep-harvey-weinsteins-250000-donation.html

Clinton foundation spokesperson quoted in the article for the FNC haters.

Putting money from a sexual predator towards HIV/AIDS prevention seems like a good thing IMO.

They still have $250K in the coffers to return it without withdrawing those other donations.