So Hollywood has finally bared its moral fangs, expelling disgraced Harvey Weinstein from the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences.
He’s the first person ever to be banished on grounds of ‘sexually predatory behaviour’.
Which, when you consider who still remains a member of the Academy, might just strike you, as a little odd, if not bloody, shamefully ridiculous.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, admitted having unlawful sex with a minor, and then fled the country before he was sentenced.
He remains a member.
Woody Allen ran off with and later married his wife Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi. He was then accused of repeatedly sexually abusing his own adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, when she was just seven years old.
He remains a member.
So Hollywood has finally bared its moral fangs, expelling disgraced Harvey Weinstein from the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences – the first person ever to be banished on grounds of ‘sexually predatory behaviour’. Which is shamefully ridiculous.
Woody Allen ran off with and later married his stepdaughter Soon-Yi. He was also accused of repeatedly sexually abusing his own adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, when she was just seven
Bill Cosby, accused of raping or sexually assaulting 59 women, remains a member. Mel Gibson beat up his girlfriend and told her, ‘You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n****rs, it will be your fault’. On another occasion, he said: ‘F***ing Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.’ He remains a member
Bill Cosby has been accused of raping or sexually assaulting 59 women.
He remains a member.
Mel Gibson beat up his girlfriend and told her, ‘You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n****rs, it will be your fault’. On another occasion, he said: ‘F***ing Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.’
He remains a member.
So forgive me if I’m not massively convinced by Tinsel Town’s panicky little bout of ethical house cleaning.
In fact, the whole on-going torrent of nauseating hypocrisy surrounding the Weinstein scandal makes me puke.
It’s epitomized by British actress Kate Winslet, who is suddenly very, VERY keen for all of us to know exactly how far she went to stand up to Weinstein.
Winslet, 42, told the LA Times she deliberately refused to thank him when she won an Oscar in 2009 for starring in his movie The Reader.
The torrent of hypocrisy surrounding the Weinstein scandal is epitomized by Kate Winslet, who wants all of us to know she stood up to Weinstein and deliberately refused to thank him when she won an Oscar in 2009 for starring in his movie The Reader
‘I remember being told, “Make you sure you thank Harvey if you win”,’ she recounted. ‘And I remember turning around and saying, ‘”No, I won’t. I won’t.” And it was nothing to do with not being grateful. If people aren’t well-behaved, why would I thank him?’
Lest we be in any doubt as to what happened, Ms Winslet emphasised:
‘That was deliberate. That was absolutely deliberate.’
I think we get the drift, Kate.
It was a very DELIBERATE decision of yours not to thank Harvey Weinstein and send him a very DELIBERATE signal that he was not well enough behaved.
Of course, this bold, courageous and DELIBERATE action wouldn’t have done a single thing to stop him abusing more women, but I guess it might have dented his ego for a few seconds.
Winslet added: ‘The fact that I’m never going to have to deal with Harvey Weinstein again as long as I live is one of the best things that’s ever happened and I’m sure the feeling is universal. I stand up for myself and I don’t pander to what you’re supposed to do and what you’re not supposed to do. This is disgraceful, despicable behaviour. I hope Harvey Weinstein is absolutely punished within the fullest extent of the law that should be the case.’
Wow.
Powerful words from one of the world’s most successful actresses – right?
And I’m sure we all concur with her comments too – right?
Powerful words… right? ‘The fact that I’m never going to have to deal with Harvey Weinstein again as long as I live is one of the best things that’s ever happened and I’m sure the feeling is universal. I stand up for myself and I don’t pander to what you’re supposed to do and what you’re not supposed to do. This is disgraceful, despicable behaviour. I hope Harvey Weinstein is absolutely punished within the fullest extent of the law that should be the case.’
How could any reasonably minded person not agree with everything she says given the welter of appalling allegations now pouring out about Weinstein – right?
Yet how does the same Kate Winslet square all this with the fact that has no problem at all working for both Woody Allen and Roman Polanski?
Last month, Ms Winslet gave an interview to the New York Times in which she explained why she recently agreed to make Allen’s film “Wonder Wheel”.
‘Here’s the catalyst,’ she said, ‘(I) probably wasn’t going to get another go-around with Woody Allen, so it’s now or never. Plus I knew my parents would be incredibly proud of me working with Woody Allen.’
The Times then asked: ‘Did the allegations against Woody Allen give you pause?’
‘Of course one thinks about it,’ she replied. ‘But as an actor in the film, you just have to step away and say, I don’t know anything really… having thought it all through, you put it to one side and just work with the person. Woody Allen is an incredible director.’
Then, unprompted, she added: ‘So is Roman Polanski. I had an extraordinary working experience with both of those men and that’s the truth.’
But this is the same Winslet who is starring in Woody Allen’s latest film. When asked: ‘Did the allegations against Woody Allen give you pause?’ ‘Of course one thinks about it,’ she replied. ‘But as an actor in the film, you just have to step away and say, I don’t know anything really… having thought it all through, you put it to one side and just work with the person. Woody Allen is an incredible director’
She also called Roman Polanski an incredible director and said she ‘had an extraordinary working experience with both’
I’m sure it is.
But again, how does she square this attitude with her uncompromising stance against Harvey Weinstein?
I detailed the horrifying details of Polanski’s child rape conviction in my column last week. They speak for themselves.
But it is also worth reminding ourselves of what Woody Allen is alleged to have done.
In February, 2014, Dylan Farrow wrote a searing letter to the New York Times after Allen was awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Globe.
In it, she said: ‘When I was seven years old, Woody Allen sexually assaulted me. He talked me to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies.’
She explained the toll the alleged abuse took on her: ‘I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Actors praised him at awards shows, networks put him on TV. Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse. Imagine your seven-year-old daughter being led into an attic by Woody Allen? Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with nausea at the mention of his name? Imagine a world that celebrates her tormenter?’
Allen has always denied the allegations but in a damning 33-page legal decision handed down in 1993 after they were first reported to authorities, Judge Elliott Wilk rejected Allen’s bid for full custody and denied him visitation rights with Dylan, stating that Allen’s behaviour towards Dylan was ‘grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.’
The state’s attorney, Frank Maco, announced he wouldn’t be pursuing Allen on molestation charges, despite having “probable cause”, citing his and Farrow’s desire not to traumatise Dylan further.
Dylan’s brother Ronan Farrow, whose devastating Weinstein expose in the New Yorker helped bring down the mogul in breakneck speed, wrote an article for the Hollywood Reporter last year about his estranged father, Woody Allen.
In it, he condemned celebrities and the media for what he said was a ‘culture of acquiescence’ surrounding his father and a ‘collusion to silence victims of sexual abuse while offering a voice to the perpetrators.
‘That kind of silence isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous,’ wrote Ronan, who is Allen’s only biological child. ‘It sends a message to victims that it’s not worth the anguish of coming forward. It sends a message about who we are as a society, what we’ll overlook, who we’ll ignore, who matters and who doesn’t.’
How prescient his words seem today.
I, too, used to think Woody Allen was an unfairly maligned genius. Then I read Dylan’s letter, and Ronan’s article, and spoke at length to Mia Farrow. And I realised I was just another part of the ‘culture of acquiescence’ that helped protect him, so I began speaking out.
It’s a culture that led to where we find ourselves now.
I have tremendous sympathy for all the myriad victims of Harvey Weinstein. These women were treated appallingly and I hope he is made to properly account for his actions in a court of law.
But as Hollywood wrings its hands and feigns outrage, let’s not forget that Roman Polanski was made to account for his actions in a court of law but escaped justice to lead a life of luxury in France.
Hollywood’s reaction has been to pretend the child rape he perpetrated never happened.
Hollywood’s reaction to Polanski has been to pretend the child rape he perpetrated never happened. Here’s Meryl Streep giving his Oscar win a standing ovation
He keeps making movies, big stars like Kate Winslet excitedly queue up to star in them, and when he wins Oscars, Meryl Streep leaps to her feet to give him standing ovations.
The Academy doesn’t even class Polanski’s brand of ‘sexually predatory behaviour’ as being as bad as Weinstein’s, despite HIS victim being a minor.
Hardly surprising, perhaps, when you discover that among the Academy’s 54-member board of governors that decides membership expulsions is Whoopi Goldberg, who said of Polanski’s conviction: ‘I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else.’
No, Whoopi, it was ‘rape-rape’. Of a child who’d been plied with champagne, drugged and sodomised.
Your denial of that simple, provable, admitted fact is one of the reasons, along with Kate Winslet’s breath-taking double standards, why Hollywood remains a morally repugnant and rankly hypocritical place and why predators like Harvey Weinstein felt so emboldened to behave the way he did.