Harvey Weinstein

what's your view on the women who have now been given a chance/voice to come forward and still don't? we hear all the time that women are afraid to come forward with their claims, but now we have many with allegations against HW. there are undoubtedly many hundreds(?) more actresses not coming forward even though they have the chance/opportunity to do so. what about victims who decide to stay silent even when they have the chance to come forward?
It is only my opinion, but every person who has been sexually assaulted or raped has to deal with it in the best way they know how. They are the only person who genuinely knows what that is. People are all different. How they react, cope, and survive is a unique and very personal thing. As far as what Harvey has specifically done, I feel some women still will feel it's too personal or too traumatic to open that wound to the masses. I respect their right to speak out or be silent, they were the victim, not me. I feel at times because they work in an industry that puts them on the big screen we feel we "know" them or have a right to say whatever we want typically behind a screen. People are people. These women in this industry deserve the same respect each and every other woman deserves.
 
what's your view on the women who have now been given a chance/voice to come forward and still don't? we hear all the time that women are afraid to come forward with their claims, but now we have many with allegations against HW. there are undoubtedly many hundreds(?) more actresses not coming forward even though they have the chance/opportunity to do so. what about victims who decide to stay silent even when they have the chance to come forward?

They are not under any obligation to come forward just because others see this as “their chance” to do so.

Just because other women have come forward does not mean it will be “easier” for others to relive the trauma, or to deal with the judgment (and now the added judgment here of “why did you wait so long” and “are you really telling the truth or just want to jump on the bandwagon” or “so that is why you won an award” and on and on).

This was their experience, the violations were against their bodies, and their own likely sense of security, was violated. They are entitled to remain private about it if they choose, to decide how they do or don’t put their very personal experiences out in public, and they aren’t lesser for it.
 
Harvey Weinstein expelled from motion picture academy

Embattled film mogul Harvey Weinstein — a once-dominant force in the Academy Awards who rewrote the rules of Oscar campaigning — has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in response to mounting allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him.

The film academy’s 54-member board of governors, which includes such industry luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kathleen Kennedy and Whoopi Goldberg, voted in an emergency meeting on Saturday morning to remove Weinstein from the organization’s ranks in an unprecedented public rebuke of a prominent industry figure. The move marked the latest blow in Weinstein’s stunning downfall and, in symbolic terms, amounts to a virtual expulsion from Hollywood itself.

In removing Weinstein from the organization’s ranks, the academy’s board said in a statement, “We do so not simply to separate ourselves from someone who does not merit the respect of his colleagues but also to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over. What’s at issue here is a deeply troubling problem that has no place in our society. The Board continues to work to establish ethical standards of conduct that all Academy members will be expected to exemplify.”

The board noted that its members had “voted well in excess of the required two-thirds majority” to immediately eject Weinstein.

A representative for Weinstein told The Times he would not be commenting on his expulsion.

Since reports of Weinstein’s alleged misconduct toward dozens of women first surfaced in the New York Times on Oct. 5, the academy had been under increasing pressure to take action against him. A petition on Change.org demanding his ouster gathered more than 140,000 signatures from the general public. On Tuesday, the National Organization for Women joined the calls for Weinstein’s removal, stating, “A sexual predator doesn’t deserve the privilege of an academy membership — and all the opportunities to wield outsize power that come with it.”

Twenty-one members of the film academy’s board are women — as is its chief executive, Dawn Hudson — and in recent years the organization has taken steps to dramatically increase the number of women in its historically overwhelmingly male ranks.

In the past several days, a number of academy members expressed their feelings both privately and publicly that Weinstein had no place in the film industry’s most prestigious organization. CBS Films President Terry Press, who regularly battled Weinstein on the awards trail during her tenure as a marketing executive at DreamWorks, vowed in a Facebook post to quit the academy if he was allowed to remain. “The idea that anyone would give him a second chance or entertain the notion that he can change is beyond absurd,” wrote Press.

Even Weinstein’s brother, Bob — with whom he ran Miramax Films and then Weinstein Co. — said in an interview published Saturday in the Hollywood Reporter that he felt the academy should expel him, adding that he planned to write a note to the group to that effect.

But within the academy some wrestled with the decision, fearing that it could set a precedent that would require the academy to police its members’ behavior going forward. As many have pointed out in recent days, other Hollywood figures who have come under attack for their treatment of women and other behavior that could be seen as violating what the academy now calls “ethical standards of conduct” — including Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski and Mel Gibson — remain members of the academy in good standing.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...ey-weinstein-film-academy-20171014-story.html
 
Continued...

The academy’s bylaws give the board of governors free rein to expel members “for cause,” but that power has very rarely been exercised. The last member to be banished from the group was actor Carmine Caridi, who was booted in 2004 for sharing promotional copies of films that were later pirated. Sources close to the academy say that other members had been more quietly suspended in years past for selling their tickets to the Oscars ceremony, but nothing ever rose to the level of attention surrounding Weinstein.

The academy’s move follows the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ decision earlier this week to suspend Weinstein’s membership. The Producers Guild of America is set to hold a meeting on Monday morning to decide whether to take similar action.

During his years at the helm of Miramax and Weinstein Co., Weinstein’s films — including such hits as “Pulp Fiction,” “The English Patient,” “The Artist” and “The King’s Speech” — racked up more than 300 Oscar nominations. He himself took home a best picture statuette in 1999 for producing “Shakespeare in Love.” Weinstein’s ability to mint awards nominations was so renowned that, in 2003, when he had a hand in four of the five best-picture nominees, The Times wrote that the ceremony should be renamed “the Harveys.”

A 2015 analysis by the website Vocativ found that Weinstein was second only to Steven Spielberg in the number of times he had been thanked in Oscar acceptance speeches. (God ranked sixth.)

But beneath the surface, the brash, fiery-tempered outsider from Queens had long rankled many in the academy. His aggressive, spare-no-expense style of campaigning for his films sometimes stirred animosity and created a kind of arms race with other distributors, and he was accused on a number of occasions of starting whisper campaigns against rival films. (“What can I say?” Weinstein once said, professing his innocence. “When you’re Billy the Kid and people around you die of natural causes, everyone thinks you shot them.”)

Some in Hollywood had used the platform of the Oscars not to thank Weinstein, but to make sharp digs at him. In 2002, at the 74th Oscars, Nathan Lane, presenting the award for animated feature, quipped, “Gosh, up until now I thought ‘Monsters, Inc.’ was a documentary on the Weinsteins.”

In 2013, host Seth MacFarlane, after announcing the nominees for supporting actress alongside actress Emma Stone, said, “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.”

In an interview with The Times on Saturday, actress Kate Winslet said she had deliberately avoided thanking Weinstein from the Oscars stage when she won the lead actress award for “The Reader” in 2009 due to his “disgraceful behavior” during the film’s production.

“I remember being told, ‘Make sure you thank Harvey if you win,’” Winslet said. “And I remember turning around and saying, ‘No I won’t. No I won’t.’ And it was nothing to do with not being grateful. If people aren’t well-behaved, why would I thank him?”

Among the academy’s board, several members have worked on Weinstein projects over the years, including Laura Dern, who starred in Miramax’s “Citizen Ruth”; screenwriter Larry Karaszewski, who co-wrote and produced Weinstein Co.’s “Big Eyes”; and governor-at-large Reginald Hudlin, who produced Weinstein Co.’s “Django Unchained.” Christina Kounelias, a governor for the academy’s public relations branch, and David Linde, who serves on the executives branch, both worked at Miramax earlier in their careers.

Other academy members have worked on movies that have gone head to head against Weinstein’s films at the Oscars, including Hanks and Spielberg, who respectively starred in and directed “Saving Private Ryan.” That film was beaten out for the best picture prize in 1999 by “Shakespeare in Love” in what is still regarded as one of most bitterly fought contests in Oscars history.

Over the years, a few board members had aired less than warm feelings toward Weinstein, including producer and former studio executive Bill Mechanic. Speaking of Miramax’s bullying tactics to author Peter Biskind in the 2004 book “Down and Dirty Pictures,” Mechanic said, “Bad behavior doesn’t get punished in this business, and theirs certainly doesn’t. People just ignore it and say, ‘They’re good at what they do,’ which they are.”

Speaking of the Weinstein revelations this week on the talk show “The View,” Goldberg made a plea for women to stop taking payouts in exchange for keeping silent about harassment. "We need to start talking to our sisters and say, ‘You do not have to take this,’” Goldberg said. “’Your career does not rise and fall on this. Because if you take this, people are going to assume that you’re OK with the behavior.’”

For his part, Hanks — who famously almost never has an ill word to say about anyone — told the New York Times this week, “I’ve never worked with Harvey. But, aah, it all just sort of fits, doesn’t it? ... I’m not the first person to say Harvey’s a bit of an a**.”
 
I wish I would have looked up the statistics of how many woman do Not move forward with calling the police, going and having a rape kit done, going to trial and testifying. You know she was dressed like she wanted it. She was drunk and didn't say no. She said no, but she had gone too far and I just couldn't stop. How many men has she slept with. I could go on and on and on. But my better sense tells me, why bother. If you have not been sexually assaulted or raped, you have No Right to Judge anyone who has. Thank God that your loved one hasn't been either. Because until you do, you don't even have a clue.
I do have a loved one. A minor. What she went through- it would make you sick. It made me something I didn't even know I could be. She testified. I just deleted what I wrote. I need her privacy to matter more that trying to make a point to people I don't even know. You call people that were sexually assaulted and raped hypocrites and accomplices. I call the women who survived the best way they new how survivors. I am glad they survived- any way they could. On their terms. Not yours and not mine. I will tell you this, life can change in an instant. Your entire world can implode and you won't even see it coming. I have never regretted having compassion. I have never regretted putting myself in someone else shoes. People see these women as rich I suppose, but at the end of the day- they were trying to make a living do something they loved. If this were in an office setting and the woman being assaulted was going to lose her job, I wonder if the reaction would be so harsh...

I’m sorry for what happened to your loved one, I really am. She’s blessed to have someone as compassionate as you by her side.

Yes, Rose Mcgowan is a hypocrite and accomplice! When you defend a pedophile bc he’s paying you, you’re scum! Where was was all her moxie when that director was raping children? I have no sympathy for her. Guess I’m just a judgey kinda gal.
 
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I’m sorry for what happened to your loved one, I really am. She’s blessed to have someone as compassionate as you by her side.

Yes, Rose Mcgowan is a hypocrite and accomplice! When you defend a pedophile bc he’s paying you, you’re scum! Where was was all her moxie when that director was raping children? I have no sympathy for her. Guess I’m just a judgey kinda gal.
Thank you. She is my blessing.

I'm sorry, but I haven't ever heard anything with regard to what you are talking about with Rose. So I don't have an opinion.
 
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You are her blessing. I wish you and your loved one wonderful and beautiful blessings going forward.
Thank you Ceeyahd. She is mine, truly. When I I tried to not be mad at God, and that took me a long time. What I finally came to realize is her life was spared. For that I am forever grateful. Thank you for your kind words and your blessings. Bless you.
 
There have been a number of posts commenting about harassment across many industries and professions, so why single out Hollywood?

I'll tell you why.

Regardless where it happens, all instances are bad, obviously.

The entertainment industry and countless celebrities are very publicly vocal about preaching to America in what to believe, who to support, who to consider vile, what our values should be, and love to hold themselves up as defenders of women's rights and all sorts of causes. Every televised Celebrity Awards show is replete with soapbox lecture speeches from these uber-wealthy, self-anointed, holier-than-thou "I-know-better-than-you" famous people. I notice they never promote independent thought. It's all their way or the highway and if you don't agree you're ridiculed and torn apart, and if you're in "the industry", you'll probably never work again.

Yet it's these same people who covered for Harvey Weinstein and still defend Roman Polanski.

The common denominator of the most publicly outspoken celebrities is a net worth in the many millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Since they can afford to mouth off to America about what OUR values should be, why did they defend HW?

They're not the people who depend on their minimum wage jobs to make the rent. And other moms and dads busting their butts in jobs they hate and realize that if they rock the boat they could be on the street.

Their House of Cards has been exposed as defending sex offenders while sipping champagne in their mansions and holding themselves up as paragons of virtue.

Most of the gasps of "Didn't know!" are not credible.
You’re talking about a small percentage of people, the majority of actors are earning minimum wage and don’t have a public voice... look up the statistics. It’s a cushy glamorous well paying job for a very small percentage of people.

Should those well paid outspoken people in the industry walk the walk before talking the talk? Absolutely... but they aren’t that different from people i know, most people I know want to do better it’s great in theory but difficult in practice.

Is HWood hypocritical? Sure they are always have been, they revolve around the cult of personality and the Harvey thing has revealed their underbelly in a way that hadn’t been done before. It could be the best thing that ever happened to them or it could be a massive crack in their facade that they never recover from.

I question anyone who would be using HWood as their moral compass but you know I look around the world and see how many organizations(religious or otherwise whose job it is to provide moral guidance) are looking the other way and supporting people who are the opposite of what they claim to stand for because it gets them this little thing that they really, really want and I wonder who exactly is providing good guidance.
 
Let's not forget all the victims that came forward and claimed harassment and worse by President ******* as well as the current President. As has been stated and likely experienced right here within our poster's experiences, there are predators in every field, every echelon of power, from the Capital to the tiniest of companies. The sports industry is rampant with abuse of women, newscasters too. It's an epidemic as old as time. Women have always been prey and will probably always be prey. How are elderly women being raped in nursing homes today? Age isn't a factor, and don't tell me they were dressed provocatively.

The laws aren't making men stop. Brock Turner served only 3 months for raping an unconscious woman. The message is pretty loud and clear, it's not that big a deal to victimize the weak. As long as people walk free after minimal time served, IF and WHEN they're actually prosecuted and convicted, things aren't likely to change. Right now the media is having a blitz of coverage on HW, great for click bait and ratings, but will we see laws enforced or even changed to be strong enough to deter this behavior moving forward? Perhaps if the law were more stringently enforced across the board, more victims would feel compelled to come forward for the greater good. Presently, all they gain is the scorn and contempt of their actions being judged and picked apart by the gallery of public opinion.
 
I don't think much of the celebrities who are coming out now against Harvey. Too little, too late. They are only speaking against him now for the same reason they kept silent before, because they see it as being beneficial to themselves and their careers. None of them are taking any kind of personal risk anymore but they want to be perceived as if they're doing something important.