Sunset and Wein: a tale of old Hollywood

[broncofan]

https://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenint...-james-toback/

Kind of a nauseating read but gives you a good idea of what he is accused of with two high profile cases.

Realize this broke a couple of days ago but I haven't been reading much news.

[bluesoul]

[bluesoul]

btw he said he's been degraded in unimaginable ways yet he did this:

[Stavros]

Since this story became front page news, one reputation after another has been opened to scrutiny, the most obvious recent one being that of Kevin Spacey. Netflix has stopped production of House of Cards while the actor, as is now standard, is seeking 'help'. Dustin Hoffman has been accused, though more serious allegations have been made against James Toback whom most people had never heard of, though they might know his films.

In the UK, however, the exposure of certain men could have significant repercussions on the government of Mrs May. A list claiming to identify Tory MPs and their particular traits (one is accused of being 'handsy' with women, another 'permanently drunk') may be partially correct but in many cases is clearly not, as it transpires Amber Rudd and Kwasi Kwarteng were having an affair when Rudd's marriage to Times journalist AA Gill (now dead from cancer) broke down. What we do know is that a former candidate for leader of the Tory Party and self-proclaimed 'devout Christian' and 'family man' Steven Crabb bombarded a young woman with sexually explicit texts, while junior Minister with a brief on international trade, Mark Garnier asked his secretary -whom he regularly referred to as 'sugar tits' to to buy him two vibrators from a Soho sex shop while he stood outside on the naughty step. He may yet go in the mini-shuffle May must now do, as the highest profile casualty has been the resignation of Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.

The odd thing with Fallon is that he has admitted touching the knee of the journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer for whom it was of no consequence, which therefore makes one wonder if Fallon resigned before something more serious about him was exposed. One must say, however, that these days it is rare for a politician to resign as a matter of principle, though Fallon's defence of British arms sales to Saudi Arabia and his claim that their war in the Yemen is not illegal should have seen him sacked long ago.

Whatever happens, the question is, can we find the right words to describe what we think is wrong, and that deserves punishment, but that there is a difference between an act that is against the law, and an act that we find ethically unacceptable?

We can agree that rape is both illegal and unacceptable, whoever does it. But if a woman or a man is groped at a party by someone, drunk or sober, famous and/or powerful, it may be ethically unacceptable, but how far should punishment go for that incident, and, is it really news, or even scandalous news? One of the issues here is that allegations concerning some people suggest this is not incidental, but chronic behaviour, that it was not just a case of X having too much to drink at a party and pinching someone's bottom, but that X at every opportunity groped and/or made sexual suggestions way beyond what the situation allowed.

As an example, in the 1970s I met a woman, then in her 50s who had been interviewed for a secretarial position by the eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell, only he spent most of the interview chasing her round the office in an attempt to relieve her of most of her clothes (she claimed), and Russel was once described by someone who didn't like him as having the sexual manners of an alley cat. These days, Russell, one of the most admired men in his day -as admired as David Attenborough is today- would not survive the scrutiny of the press.

This does not attempt to minimise the problem, rather, I would prefer to see something done about real cases of harassment and assault, than trivial examples of an actor or producer making suggestive comments to someone else that can easily be brushed aside without causing harm or distress, which must be the yardstick used to measure the gravity of the incident.

[filghy2]

I agree that it's a tricky issue, Stavros. Regulating social behaviour is difficult because so much depends on the situation and the people involved. Different people may also perceive the same behaviour quite differently.

That said, I'm not sure we should take the view that anything short of rape or very serious harassment should be a private matter. Non-consensual groping is defined by the law as a form of sexual assault, although most cases are probably not prosecuted. Also, where there is a power imbalance the risk of public exposure (and possible career/financial implications) may be the only thing that inhibits bad behaviour by the powerful.

Yes, there is a risk that isolated instances may be blown out of proportion, but we should also bear in mind that persistent sexual harassment may impair women's ability to have rewarding careers and social life. Aside from questions of the law, there are also issues around employers' responsibilities to provide a non-threatening workplace, which presumably require a higher standard than criminality.

[Stavros]

The week has ended with more exposures among MPs, two Tory -if you include Fallon- and now two Labour MPs, all but Fallon denying they have done anything wrong. There is even a theory that the exposure of Michael Fallon by Andrea Leadsom has more to do with the two of them arguing over Brexit than him touching someone's knee, though there might be other incidents to emerge in his case.

The problem is that this threatens to run out control and eclipse the gloom hanging over Parliament because of the Brexit negotiations. The moral argument puts it in perspective: if, as Michael Fallon said in his resignation letter, his behaviour fell short of the standards expected by his office as Secretary of State for Defence, does that mean it is ok if he is just an MP? One Tory and one Labour MP have had the whip withdrawn, but the reality is that neither May nor Corbyn can force them to resign and fight a by-election because the Commons majority is so fragile. Yet the irony of all this might be the collapse of Mrs May's government, not because of internal conflict over Brexit, but a series of exposures of sexual harassment and possibly worse that nobody predicted a month ago. As for the public's perception of its governing class, how low can it go?

[Stavros]

Sony TriStar has pulled the new film from Ridley Scott from the AFI Festival. All the Money in the World is about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III but features Kevin Spacey and the producers did not want other stars like Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams to be questioned in public about Spacey, sexual harassment, and so on. Netflix has also decided not to show Gore, with Kevin Spacey (it is about Al Gore, it is not a horror movie, I think there is a difference), while those who have worked on House of Cards now claim Spacey has been a serial groper, pest, call it what you will.

Looks to me like that phrase 'You'll never work in this town again' is going to mean we may have seen the last of Spacey for some time...but would that be fair, would it be just? He has not been arrested and charged with a crime (yet) let alone convicted.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a8041576.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a8035026.html

[fred41]

Would it be fair? Sure. There are plenty of jobs that pay peanuts, yet still have employment standards, that at the very least, don't allow you to go around grabbing genitalia. I like to think there's occasionally a price to pay for being an asshole like that. Incredibly hard to land a job and keep successful at it the way Spacey has. Which of course is one of the many reasons sexual harassment has gone unpunished for so long in Hollywood. He's lucky he already got to amass plenty of wealth in his middle years.Give someone else a chance. Fuck him. (Chances are he will one day land on his feet again anyway)

Just a quick correction. The Kevin Spacey film "Gore" for Netflix is about Gore Vidal.

[broncofan]

Sony TriStar has pulled the new film from Ridley Scott from the AFI Festival. All the Money in the World is about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III but features Kevin Spacey and the producers did not want other stars like Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams to be questioned in public about Spacey, sexual harassment, and so on. Netflix has also decided not to show Gore, with Kevin Spacey (it is about Al Gore, it is not a horror movie, I think there is a difference), while those who have worked on House of Cards now claim Spacey has been a serial groper, pest, call it what you will.

Looks to me like that phrase 'You'll never work in this town again' is going to mean we may have seen the last of Spacey for some time...but would that be fair, would it be just? He has not been arrested and charged with a crime (yet) let alone convicted.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a8041576.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a8035026.html

I agree with some individual points of yours, which I think are important but disagree in the conclusion. The presumption of innocence is important even when someone is accused of sexual assault and this is sometimes ignored by people. If the defendant is adamant he didn't do what he's accused of then nearly any defense is going to look like victim shaming or is going to involve calling the person accusing him a liar. How else can someone assert their innocence in these cases? This unfortunately means that when the person is actually guilty, the way he asserts his innocence is likely to add injury to the victim. This very unfortunate fact should not deprive someone of their right to defend themselves.

But I don't know if there should be something called the Weinstein Rule or the Cosby Rule where we're strictly talking about the probability that someone in the public eye has committed at least one assault. If a person is accused by more than a dozen people of attacking them, it becomes very unlikely that everyone either misread a situation or is lying. And it becomes very safe for social and not legal purposes to assume the person has done something wrong. Admittedly grabbing is not nearly as serious as what Weinstein did but it's not right either.

There's also the fact that the initial accusation against him was an attempt to commit statutory rape, which he basically admitted. The grabbing, while not as serious, also took place on the job, which adds power to the equation which makes it worse because the person cannot easily tell him to fuck off.

[broncofan]

Whatever happens, the question is, can we find the right words to describe what we think is wrong, and that deserves punishment, but that there is a difference between an act that is against the law, and an act that we find ethically unacceptable?

We can agree that rape is both illegal and unacceptable, whoever does it. But if a woman or a man is groped at a party by someone, drunk or sober, famous and/or powerful, it may be ethically unacceptable, but how far should punishment go for that incident, and, is it really news, or even scandalous news? One of the issues here is that allegations concerning some people suggest this is not incidental, but chronic behaviour, that it was not just a case of X having too much to drink at a party and pinching someone's bottom, but that X at every opportunity groped and/or made sexual suggestions way beyond what the situation allowed.

This is the other point I agree with in general but just think that employers are right to part with Kevin Spacey. There is a continuum from ethical, to unethical, to unethical and illegal. But as these cases are in an employment setting and so persistent they probably could have been pursued legally as sexual harassment claims.