TV/Movies Megathread

[CountDeMoney]

Apparently 30 Rock had a joke about Harvey Weinstein in it so yeah was very much an industry knowing it/some people being willfully blind.

It was a joke in an actual Academy Awards show a few years back.

Movie studio moguls being sexual predators, i'm shocked, shocked.

JOHNNY FONTAINE DOESNT GET THAT MOVIE

[dps]

Regarding the sudden influx of sexual abuse/rape allegations, I remember when I lived in NYC that Weinstein's behavior was one of the town's worst kept secrets. "If you're a woman never meet Harvey Weinstein alone" is a sentence that I heard, more than once.

I guess it's good that the omerta has been broken, but damn, the business needs to really take hard look at itself.

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do about a situation, though.  You can know that something's going on without having any evidence that would hold up in court. 

[frunk]

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do about a situation, though.  You can know that something's going on without having any evidence that would hold up in court.

I'm not sure what second or third hand people can do that we would hear about.   They can talk to the press about it, but they have no evidence or direct experience so it'll mostly get a shrug and "why are you talking about that?".  They can warn people and support/help the victims, but that's mostly behind the scenes and isn't going to get publicity.

[dps]

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do about a situation, though.  You can know that something's going on without having any evidence that would hold up in court.

I'm not sure what second or third hand people can do that we would hear about.   They can talk to the press about it, but they have no evidence or direct experience so it'll mostly get a shrug and "why are you talking about that?".  They can warn people and support/help the victims, but that's mostly behind the scenes and isn't going to get publicity.

Yeah, I've read several quotes from celebrities along the lines of, "I'd heard about Weinstein, but I never actually saw anything, so all I did was warn women I knew to watch out around him"  I've seen similar quotes regarding James Toback.

[CountDeMoney]

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/tina-fey-sitcoms-making-harvey-weinstein-references-article-1.3557120

[The Larch]

Apparently 30 Rock had a joke about Harvey Weinstein in it so yeah was very much an industry knowing it/some people being willfully blind.

It was a joke in an actual Academy Awards show a few years back.

Movie studio moguls being sexual predators, i'm shocked, shocked.

JOHNNY FONTAINE DOESNT GET THAT MOVIE

IIRC it was Seth McFarlane the one that did the Weinstein joke at the Oscars (he also included a "Kevin Spacey is a sexual predator for young kids" joke in Family Guy plenty of years ago). AFAIK Robert Rodríguez specifically casted Rose McGowan in Grindhouse also as a FU to Weinstein, as he had blacklisted her from any Miramax movie. Asia Argento did a kinda autobiographical film in the early 2000s in which there's a character modelled after Weinstein. Courtney Love mentioned it in an interview as a warning for young actresses in 2005. Gwyneth Paltrow made a reference to it back in 1998 on Letterman. Lots and lots and lots of actors and actresses have talked about it over the years. It's the kind of thing that I assume is something widely (if not universally) acknowledged within the industry behind closed doors and a relatively semi-open secret to the society at large (or at the very least something that society closes its eyes on), except for these brief moments in which the curtain is pulled by insiders in the form of jabs, comments, inside references and jokes, and not writ large for fear of repercusions, and any case that was denounced were branded as bad apples. When the curtain is finally pulled and the horrendous truth is revealed comes the pearl grasping, monocles falling and screams of "there's gambling going on in this establishment", as if ignorance could be claimed after so long, after so many denounces and allegations.

The article on Weinstein's case on wiki has, at the moment, the names of 77 women that have gone public with alegations against Weinstein for sexual harassment since the 90s, from big names like Angelina Jolie, Paltrow, Cara Delevigne, Lupita N'yongo, Kate Beckinsale or Eva Green to plenty of anonymous employees. This guy was a predator, it was known and both industry and society closed their eyes on it until it became untenable. Now that Weinstein's case's lid was blown up, others come out denouncing their own harrowing experiences, feeling reinforced, emboldened or simply aware that they'll now have media and people willing to listen to them and give them, as the very least, the benefit of the doubt. The "you won't work in this industry anymore" threat simply doesn't carry the same weight anymore. And it's not as if these denouncements are anything new, plenty of other people have been denouncing this systematic abuse for years (f.i. Megan Fox has spoken about it several times, but nothing came out of it and her career suffered severely from it, and Corey Feldman has been speaking about Hollywood's pedophile ring since the 80s). Besides Weinstein and Spacey, AFAIK also Brett Ratner is in hot water because of it, shit's appearing on Dustin Hoffmann as well, Terry Richardson has been finally blacklisted by many magazines...it's a bit of a "nobody is safe anymore" moment. I mean, even Terry Crews has come out saying that he was once groped by a producer at a party in front of his wife. Anyone in show business has stories to tell about sexual abuse and harassment.

As you say, exploitation in the entertainment industry is something that predates this generation, the concept of the "casting couch" is almost universal in show business (cinema, theatre, music, television, you name it) and all over the world (AFAIK it comes or was first talked about in the Broadway scene of the early XXth century). Hollywood's studio system, in which the studios basically "owned" its actors as cattle basically institutionalized it. Simply put, it's the way in which the industry works. People are surprised because this is tolerated less and less as time goes on, other powerful men have already fallen because of it, like half of Fox News, starting the domino effect, and it gets plenty of media attention because of society's fascination with celebrities and bright lights, coupled with the glimpse at the underbelly of the "factory of dreams".

[CountDeMoney]

You don't even want to know what grumbler used to make vestal virgins do in order to get their likenesses on Grecian urns. 

YOU WANT THE URN YOU GOTTA EARN THE URN IN THIS BUSINESS BABY

Horrible.  Horrible.

[Gups]

You don't even want to know what grumbler used to make vestal virgins do in order to get their likenesses on Grecian urns. 

YOU WANT THE URN YOU GOTTA EARN THE URN IN THIS BUSINESS BABY

Horrible.  Horrible.

FEEL THE URN!!!!

[Eddie Teach]

Grumbler would never commit sacrilege with a Vestal!

[Ed Anger]

I would.

[crazy canuck]

I would.

You were never a citizen of Rome.

[garbon]

The Party

I think the most fun I've had watching a black and white film in quite a while.

[Josephus]

The Party

I think the most fun I've had watching a black and white film in quite a while.

They just don't make them like that anymore. That one's a classic.

[garbon]

I really enjoyed how it mimicked a party. A bit slow in plodding before most of the guests have arrived.

[Liep]

Trapped. Icelandic nordic noir. Interesting so far but Bjarne Henriksen still can't act and Icelanders should practice their Danish more.