Harvey Weinstein story in New Yorker...truly shocking

[Justin V]

21 hours ago, jazzbo said:

Trump can tend my lawn. I might even tip him if he does a good job. But that's about it.

Are we sure that his tiny hands would be sufficient for lawn duty?

[jazzbo]

2 hours ago, Justin V said:

Are we sure that his tiny hands would be sufficient for lawn duty?

You got me there. . . .

[Scott Dolan]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

 

It's easy to blame "being in love with money", but it's more than that, it's about "career", which is only partially about money. Ego, insecurity, actual honest to god ambition to play on the biggest stage to see what you can do, it's not all about money all the time, that's too easy.

Never having been "career oriented" myself, that's easy for me to say. But I have seen so many people in so many walks of life who are willing to compromise on some pretty basic things in the interest of career advancement.

I'll call a weasel a weasel, but I've compromised on some things, pretty sure we all have. It just motivates me to do better myself.. What other people do...never surprises me, however it goes. Although, the bigger the weasel, the greater the odds. At some point, you go from coward to asshole to weasel, and by the time you make weasel scout...good luck.

All excellent points. I should have been more careful about painting with such a broad brush. 

[JSngry]

hey, it's a pretty broad canvas, right?

[Dmitry]

I'll make it even simpler...many, if not most of them Hollywood actOrs would take it up any orifice, from anyone who would guarantee a speaking role. And if it's a leading role, name you game, baby. Oh the vanity...

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Dmitry said:

I'll make it even simpler...many, if not most of them Hollywood actOrs would take it up any orifice, from anyone who would guarantee a speaking role. And if it's a leading role, name you game, baby. Oh the vanity...

Wait, are you saying that Weinstein was simply playing the odds? Would you fault a man (or a woman) for playing the odds?

That's too simple.

But as long as we're at it, why you wanna limit that to Hollywood and actors? It's not like predators only live there, or even mostly live there.

Or is this going to turn into a YouTube Hollywood Illuminati thing before it's over? Because believe me, I came up in the age of the REAL Illuminati conspiracy theory. It's so far from the Bildebergers & Trilateral Commission  to Hollywood shit-eating devil worship animal sacrifice parties, not even in the same league, this Hollywood stuff, that's just rank hedonism, excessively "common", if you ask me.

[Dmitry]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Wait, are you saying that Weinstein was simply playing the odds? Would you fault a man (or a woman) for playing the odds?

That's too simple.

 

Read my first post here.

I like simple, simple works, so why change what works?! Harv, along with many-many others in the film business before him, have gotten laid with that 'simple' business, since the brothers Lumiere laid the first moving pictures on celluloid.

Guy has been getting young aspiring actOrs in the sack for 3 decades. Why this stuff came out now, and not 15-20 years ago, for me that's the real conundrum here, not the unesthetic images of him huffing on top of an ingenue from the plains of North Dakota, while she was dreaming of standing on THE red carpet. 

 

[Scott Dolan]

So that makes it right? 

[medjuck]

On 10/10/2017 at 0:04 PM, Dmitry said:

Do I really have to tell you why noone did anything about it? You're a pretty sharp guy.

OK, I'll say it. The only reason this is all coming out now is because Hillary is not in the White House. There.

One of the reasons Hillary isn't president is that the NY Times broke the story about her personal e-mail server and then rode that story for all it was worth so I hardly think her being president would keep them from breaking this one. As to everyone in Hollywood knowing about this-- make that everyone but one. I heard he was a jerk but never  that he was a sexual predator.  And having been both a university professor and a film producer  I'd say there was more hanky panky in Academia than in Hollywood.  (Though I was a teacher in the '60s and '70s and an old married man by the time I got into the film business.) 

[jlhoots]

6 hours ago, Dmitry said:

I'll make it even simpler...many, if not most of them Hollywood actOrs would take it up any orifice, from anyone who would guarantee a speaking role. And if it's a leading role, name you game, baby. Oh the vanity...

You may be right but way too cynical, even for me. You may need to go back to doing root canals to relax.

[Brad]

Are we back to talking politics.  If so, I have some thoughts on some of the comments made in this thread. 

Moderators, what’s the story?

Edited October 12, 2017 by Brad

[lipi]

5 hours ago, Brad said:

Are we back to talking politics.  If so, I have some thoughts on some of the comments made in this thread. 

Moderators, what’s the story?

This was already asked by an astute reader on the first page. What are your thoughts?

[Jazzmoose]

I'm willing to bet that the actresses who have spoken out against him will still see a downturn in their careers, even if everyone on the planet despises him.

[BERIGAN]

4 hours ago, Jazzmoose said:

I'm willing to bet that the actresses who have spoken out against him will still see a downturn in their careers, even if everyone on the planet despises him.

I don't know about that...of course, several are over 40 , so that downturn in their careers boat has already sailed

There are going to be so many more that are going to come forward in the coming days/weeks....don't you feel Harvey was mainly in the film business just so he could be a serial predator? In the real world people that look like Harvey or Roger Ailes are still virgins.

 

[Dmitry]

2 hours ago, BERIGAN said:

In the real world people that look like Harvey or Roger Ailes are still virgins.

 

Hey, be nice. You just described half of the posters on this forum.

[JSngry]

12 hours ago, medjuck said:

 And having been both a university professor and a film producer  I'd say there was more hanky panky in Academia than in Hollywood.  (Though I was a teacher in the '60s and '70s and an old married man by the time I got into the film business.) 

Bingo - this is not a "Hollywood" problem, this is a predator problem. Shifting it off to be Hollywood or political or whatever is a diversion away from the core issue.

It may well be that the "natural instinct" is for the strong to hunt the weak, and it may also well be that the "natural instinct" is to give in hopes of getting in return, but to just accept that natural instincts should not be directed and/or evolved towards more ennobling ends than just getting what you want at any cost is not going to result in a civilization built on mutual trust and empowerment.

Of course, there will always be those who look at it differently. They're Makers and the rest of us are in their debt. After all, God made man in his own image, so if you don't look at yourself and see God, the problem is you're not looking hard enough.

[Larry Kart]

About politics on this thread, my stance at the moment is that as long as the posts lean towards sincere analysis, as I think Medjuck's does above, rather than advocacy or denigration of particular figures or parties, then I think we're OK for the time being. After all, this is a social/behavioral/moral/you name it matter that inevitably has some actual or potential political implications. As to where the line should be drawn, I for one think that claims that it all comes down to "the fix being in from a partisan point of view/for partisan reasons" probably are on the other side of the line, barring solid further evidence that that was the case. I say that in part because my own direct experience of the news business, and testimony from others here about their lives in the entertainment industry, tells me that such cut-and-dried conspiratorial thinking doesn't match the fairly shaggy realities (ugly, stupid, venal, etc. as they may be) of those industries or any business and the realities of politics as well. One tends to forget that in all these fields people are of course trying to get ahead, to protect themselves, to denigrate rivals, push policies, etc., but they also have fairly complicated and demanding jobs that tend to take up a good deal of their time and energy.

Is Weinstein then an exception of any sort? Not at all in his impulses, which are broadly shared. Rather, it's a matter of the considerable power he had in his industry and that his industry by its nature placed him in a position where rewarding or not rewarding attractive women (who also appealed to his basest impulses) was a big part of the game/what he did. He could have been the same person psychologically and been a successful car dealer, and his opportunity to sexually exploit would have been far more restricted, if that field had been open to him at all. Instead, he was a predator/carnivore who presided over/chose to preside over a potential meat market.

[JSngry]

Like the legendary Soapy Slabberwocky, who pioneered laser butchering in the back lot of his brother Slippy's equally legendary Slippy's Chop Shop. Yes, he would only remove the part of the cow that was needed to fill an order, which allowed the animal to live longer, if misshapened lives, while at the same time giving customer's the absolutely freshest cuts of me imaginable. You have to eat the cow alive yourself to get it any fresher, and your teeth are NOT that sharp.

People loved it for a while, but then attitudes and mores changed, and Soapy became a pariah, had to go underground, literally, built a tunnel system to move him and his beloved cowmeats to safety somewhere off the Atlantic coast of New Jersey, where the cows finally learned how the lasers worked and ate him all the way down to the bones. And then, without a dominant and/or predictable lead user/abuser, they did what all cows do when they follow somebody deep into a tunnel - they forgot how to get back out, and died. Somewhere off the Atlantic coast of New Jersey is buried a unique piece of Americana.

Now, some might bemoan the loss of all that delicious meat, and others the loss of a brilliant scientific butchermind, but hey - they knew the job was dangerous when they took it, and Soapy himself didn't really give a fuck about stuff like that.

A lesson for us all, that's what it is.

[medjuck]

8 hours ago, Jazzmoose said:

I'm willing to bet that the actresses who have spoken out against him will still see a downturn in their careers, even if everyone on the planet despises him.

I'll take that bet. 

Not to add to the conspiracy theories but.... When all this came out The Weinstein Company was already in deep shit financially and Harvey certainly didn't wield the power he did a decade ago.  When Mike Ovitz  really was "the most powerful man in Hollywood" only Joe Eszterhas ever took him on in public. Once he fell from power everybody started started piling on.     

Edited October 12, 2017 by medjuck

[Guy Berger]

 

20 hours ago, Dmitry said:

I'll make it even simpler...many, if not most of them Hollywood actOrs would take it up any orifice, from anyone who would guarantee a speaking role. And if it's a leading role, name you game, baby. Oh the vanity...

This is an odd way to characterize sexual assault and rape

[Dmitry]

2 hours ago, medjuck said:

I'll take that bet. 

Not to add to the conspiracy theories but.... When all this came out The Weinstein Company was already in deep shit financially and Harvey certainly didn't wield the power he did a decade ago.  When Mike Ovitz  really was "the most powerful man in Hollywood" only Joe Eszterhas ever took him on in public. Once he fell from power everybody started started piling on.     

That could very well be THE reason it's all coming out now. The King is dead, long live the King.

Joe, who is the biggest player in Hollywood now?

 

[Scott Dolan]

3 hours ago, Guy Berger said:

 

This is an odd way to characterize sexual assault and rape

Hey, man. They had it coming! 

At least, that seems to be Dimitry's take on this. 

[Dmitry]

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

About politics on this thread, my stance at the moment is that as long as the posts lean towards sincere analysis, as I think Medjuck's does above, rather than advocacy or denigration of particular figures or parties, then I think we're OK for the time being. 

Larry, I'm sure you'll do your most impartial best to contain it, but I'll make a prediction : because Weinstein and the Democratic politics are so tight, some here will experience a real cognitive dissonance, as new information starts to surface. 

 

[Scott Dolan]

That's shockingly hilarious coming from the one poster in this thread that looks at sexual assault as just another ho hum day at the office. 

[medjuck]

2 hours ago, Dmitry said:

That could very well be THE reason it's all coming out now. The King is dead, long live the King.

Joe, who is the biggest player in Hollywood now?

 

Jeff Bezos.  And Weinstein never was. He just got a lot of publicity.