Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

N&P: Discuss governments, nations, politics and recent related news here.

Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital

User avatar
Coop D'etat
Jedi Knight
Posts: 713
Joined: 2007-02-23 01:38pm
Location: UBC Unincorporated land

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Coop D'etat »

Dartzap wrote: 2017-10-31 12:19pm
TheFeniX wrote: 2017-10-31 11:58am Also of note, while slimy, there are employment contracts that require you to forgo informing law enforcement, instead forcing you into HR arbitration, even in the case of criminal acts. I wouldn't think it's too much of a stretch for companies with known offenders in this area to do more than the average Arby's to protect the big fish from themselves.
There are contracts that explicitly state someone is not able to contact the police even if they are a victim of crime at the hands or behest of a colleague?

Am I understanding that correctly?

How the hell is that legal? That's entrapment, surely?
Sexual harassment is entirely a civil matter in American law, so it can be subject to these rules. The non-disclosures cannot bar a report of a sexual assault, which would be a criminal act. While the two things are frequently related, they are legally quite distinct.

The nefarious bit of it is that allegations of criminal behaviour can easily be wrapped up into allegations of civil misconduct which could be governed by the non-disclosure agreement, which can put an accuser in a legally precarious position, especially if they are like the bulk of the population and can't easily afford to get the aid of legal consel in navigating this minefield. So their is a chilling effect on conduct that can go far beyond the mere letter of the law in these situations.
User avatar
Gandalf
SD.net White Wizard
Posts: 16285
Joined: 2002-09-16 11:13pm
Location: A video store in Australia

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Gandalf »

More come out about Spacey.
CNN wrote:Kevin Spacey made the set of Netflix's "House of Cards" into a "toxic" work environment through a pattern of sexual harassment, eight people who currently work on the show or worked on it in the past tell CNN. One former employee told CNN that Spacey sexually assaulted him.

The former production assistant, whose account has never previously been disclosed, told CNN that Spacey sexually assaulted him during one of the show's early seasons. All eight people, each of whom spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions for speaking out, described Spacey's behavior as "predatory," saying it included nonconsensual touching and crude comments and targeted production staffers who were typically young and male.

The new accusations follow an explosive article published less than a week ago by BuzzFeed News, in which actor Anthony Rapp said Spacey made sexual advances toward him in 1985, when Rapp was 14 years old.

On Monday, Spacey released an apology in response to Rapp's account. "I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago," Spacey said. "But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years."

Spacey's publicist said in a statement on Wednesday that the actor is seeking unspecified treatment following Rapp's allegations.

On Thursday, that publicist -- Staci Wolf -- said she and Creative Artists Agency were parting ways with the actor.

Production of Season 6 of the series was shut down this week. Netflix and the production company Media Rights Capital issued a joint statement Tuesday to say that they are reviewing the "situation and to address any concerns of our cast and crew." Spacey is also one of the show's executive producers.

The former production assistant who spoke with CNN said Spacey sexually assaulted him one afternoon when the assistant was assigned to drive to an offsite location to pick up Spacey and bring him to the "House of Cards" set, which is located about 30 miles outside of Baltimore.

The production assistant says that when he and Spacey were just minutes away from the set and while the car was moving, Spacey, who was driving, put his hands down the production assistant's pants. The production assistant told CNN that the touching was nonconsensual.

"I was in a state of shock," he said. "He was a man in a very powerful position on the show and I was someone very low on the totem pole and on the food chain there."
The production assistant asked that what happened next in the car not be described, for fear that it would identify him.

Once they had arrived on set, the production assistant says he helped the actor take his belongings from the car to Spacey's trailer on set. While the two men were in the trailer, the production assistant says, Spacey cornered him, blocked his exit and made inappropriate contact with him.

"I told him, 'I don't think I'm ok with this, I don't think I'm comfortable with this,'" the production assistant said. That's when the actor became "visibly flustered," fled the trailer, got in his car and left for the remainder of the day, according to the production assistant.

The production assistant did not report the incident to any managers of the series or the police, but he did tell a coworker at the time. CNN has spoken to the coworker to corroborate the production assistant's story.

The alleged sexual assault came months after the production assistant had, he told CNN, complained to a supervisor that Spacey was sexually harassing him. The supervisor's solution was to never let the production assistant be alone with Spacey while they were on set, the production assistant says.

The assistant said the harassment then stopped for long enough for him to feel comfortable driving with Spacey to the set.

"I have no doubt that this type of predatory behavior was routine for him and that my experience was one of many and that Kevin had few if any qualms about exploiting his status and position," he said. "It was a toxic environment for young men who had to interact with him at all in the crew, cast, background actors."

The other people who worked on "House of Cards" with whom CNN spoke all supported the idea that the set could be toxic for young men because of Spacey.

A crew member who worked on the show for all six seasons said that Spacey routinely harassed and touched him.

"He would put his hands on me in weird ways," the crew member said. "He would come in and massage my shoulders from behind or put his hands around me or touch my stomach sometimes in weird ways that in normal everyday conversation would not be appropriate."

This crew member said he did not "feel comfortable" telling Spacey to stop. "That's the worst part about this whole thing. I would love to be able to speak out about this kind of stuff and not fear."

CNN spoke to a close friend of the crew member, who says that the crew member had told him about Spacey's behavior over the course of the six seasons of the show that it happened.

When asked on Thursday about the new allegations, Netflix said in a statement to CNN that they sent a representative to the "House of Cards" set on Monday. Spacey did not respond to CNN's request for comment about the new allegations.

"Netflix was just made aware of one incident, five years ago, that we were informed was resolved swiftly," the statement said. "On Tuesday, in collaboration with MRC, we suspended production, knowing that Kevin Spacey wasn't scheduled to work until Wednesday. Netflix is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on-set. We continue to collaborate with MRC and other production partners to maintain a safe and respectful working environment. We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the production, and have nothing further to share at this time."

MRC, the production company behind "House of Cards," told CNN in a separate statement on Thursday that they have implemented "an anonymous complaint hotline, crisis counselors, and sexual harassment legal advisors for the crew."

"We are deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations that are being made to the press concerning Kevin Spacey's interaction with members of the crew of House of Cards," the MRC statement said. "As the producer of the show, creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our cast and crew has always been our top priority. We have consistently reinforced the importance of employees reporting any incident without fear of retaliation and we have investigated and taken appropriate actions following any complaints. For example, during our first year of production in 2012, someone on the crew shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey. Immediate action was taken following our review of the situation and we are confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved. Mr. Spacey willingly participated in a training process and since that time MRC has not been made aware of any other complaints involving Mr. Spacey."
MRC did not elaborate about the complaint it cited in the statement. They added that they will continue to investigate all claims brought to their attention.

Other people with whom CNN spoke describe behavior similar to that recounted by the crew member.

A former camera assistant, who said he witnessed Spacey's behavior but was never harassed by Spacey, said the touching largely occurred in an open space and that "everybody saw."

"All the crew members commented on his behavior," the former camera assistant said. "What gets me is we have to sign sexual harassment paperwork before the start of the show and apparently [Kevin Spacey] doesn't have to do anything and he gets away scott-free with this behavior." CNN confirmed that Spacey was given guidelines regarding sexual harassment in the workplace.

Colleagues never complained because they were afraid of losing their jobs, the former camera assistant said.

"Who is going to believe crew members?" he said. "You're going to get fired."

A former female production assistant who worked on several seasons of "House of Cards" said she witnessed Spacey's sexual misconduct with crew members on set.
"It was very known that Kevin was inappropriate, and males I worked with complained to me about how they felt uncomfortable," she said. "Kevin does this thing which was play fights with them in order to touch them." She said she saw Spacey approach "multiple people" to "say hello, greet them, shake their hand and pull their hand down to his crotch and touch their crotch. I have friends say he reached up their shorts on set."

Spacey also made sexually-charged comments on set, according to a former crew member.

"There was one instance [when] a grip bent over to pick something up and his ass crack was showing, and Kevin Spacey made a sexual comment about it," he recalled, adding that the comment Spacey made was "nice ass."

The allegations about Spacey also come as the entertainment world is reckoning with fallout from the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal. Dozens of women have accused him of sexual harassment and police are investigating assault claims. Weinstein has apologized for his behavior, but he denies all allegations of nonconsensual sex.
Ugh. And once again we see that not only was Spacey acting a predator, but seemingly the whole HR infrastructure was behind him.
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"

- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist

"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
User avatar
LaCroix
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5193
Joined: 2004-12-21 12:14pm
Location: Sopron District, Hungary, Europe, Terra

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by LaCroix »

I retract my objection, he's just the same as the others... May he step on a lego.
A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay

I do archery skeet. With a Trebuchet.
User avatar
TheFeniX
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4869
Joined: 2003-06-26 04:24pm
Location: Texas

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by TheFeniX »

Makes you pine for the days when Kirk Cameron was slut-shaming his female costars or when Brett Butler was showing her boobjob off to her on-screen son. I have to ask, why is this an issue now? No, I'm not being one of those "oh man, it's always happened, so why are we making a big deal about it now?" This shit should have had the light shined on it so long ago. Why did this one article gain so much traction when even the industry has been lampooning it forever?

30 Rock had a joke along the lines of "I'm not afraid of danger. I've turned down Harvey Weinstein for sex. 3 times... out of 5." More recently, Bojack Horseman had an episode near solely dedicated to this "powerful guy no one wants to take down."

Did... did Trump do this? Did electing the biggest molesting piece of shit to head office finally just make people in the industry crack? Is it like "I got nothing to lose now, Donald Fucking Trump runs this country?" I got... nothing else. What else has changed in the past 20 years to make this an issue RIGHT. FUCKING. NOW? Do people finally believe it CAN happen or something? Even though the evidence has been... just goddamn everywhere.

I really don't want to be all "Thanks Obama" here, but I got nothing else. No other explanation. Yea, it's the Internet age, but that was 15 years ago. And it's not like people just suddenly started caring about social justice either.
User avatar
Elheru Aran
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 13073
Joined: 2004-03-04 01:15am
Location: Georgia

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Elheru Aran »

TheFeniX wrote: 2017-11-03 11:58am Did... did Trump do this? Did electing the biggest molesting piece of shit to head office finally just make people in the industry crack? Is it like "I got nothing to lose now, Donald Fucking Trump runs this country?" I got... nothing else. What else has changed in the past 20 years to make this an issue RIGHT. FUCKING. NOW? Do people finally believe it CAN happen or something? Even though the evidence has been... just goddamn everywhere.

I really don't want to be all "Thanks Obama" here, but I got nothing else. No other explanation. Yea, it's the Internet age, but that was 15 years ago. And it's not like people just suddenly started caring about social justice either.
A few quick thoughts:

Yes, it's 'the Internet age' but on the other hand, we're only just starting to see the generation that really grew up with it coming to maturity. Certainly it was part of our lives (people born in the 80s or so)... since adolescence, when we've already gotten much of our understanding of the world established. Go back further than that, and it doesn't start becoming a thing until people are already adults. I don't think you can say it really started changing society THAT much until the 00s at least.

That said. People born in the late 70s-early 80s are starting to make their way in the world, getting into their mid 30s. Starting to fill positions of at least moderate authority, while the baby-boomers are starting to retire and lose their power. There are enough young people around in their early 40s on down to early 20s that I would say we (the 'young people') are starting to feel like we can say something and be taken more seriously by more people. That when some shit happens, we can pipe up and say 'hey this happened' and count on supportive moral outrage. And older people that have been victimized are noticing this, and seeing that they CAN come out and say something.

I also don't think you can really discount the highly public Access Hollywood tape of Trump talking about grabbing pussies, either, or the similarly highly public fact that he got freaking elected despite that. That's the kind of thing that makes people sit up and go 'wait what the FUCK. NOT. COOL.'
It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way.
User avatar
Flagg
CUNTS FOR EYES!
Posts: 12797
Joined: 2005-06-09 09:56pm
Location: Hell. In The Room Right Next to Reagan. He's Fucking Bonzo. No, wait... Bonzo's fucking HIM.

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Flagg »

This is why I don’t waste benefit of the doubt on these people. Same with athletes accused of steroids (with actual basis for the accusation). It never fails, you find out that there was never an isolated example but rather a pattern of behavior far worse than you could have thought.

People just need to accept that no matter how cool or nice or “down to Earth” they seem in interviews, this is no more than a public persona, you don’t know them, and at the end of the day they almost always have more power than the accusers which is why they can do the shit they do for so long until their personal sewer backs up and they become a liability and everyone stops protecting them. I learned my lesson several times with Jackson, Simpson, and Jones.
We pissing our pants yet?
-Negan

You got your shittin' pants on? Because you’re about to
Shit. Your. Pants!
-Negan

He who can,
does; he who cannot, teaches.
-George Bernard Shaw
User avatar
Elfdart
The Anti-Shep
Posts: 10644
Joined: 2004-04-28 11:32pm

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Elfdart »

Gandalf wrote: 2017-10-31 10:38am
Broomstick wrote: 2017-10-31 10:08am In the case of the elder Bush there's the possibility of dementia setting in. Which doesn't make it OK, but people of diminished capacity do things like that and since their capacity is diminished they can't be held as fully responsible as non-demented people.

If he's not suffering from dementia then he should be punished as any other offender but let's get real, it's highly unlikely a former PotUS is going to be subjected to anything of the sort.
There's also the possibility that Bush just knows he's untouchable as a rich, well connected, white guy in America.
AND he's an ex-president and guarded by the Secret Service, so it's not like she could slap him or throw a drink in his face like he's a perv at a club.
Image
Ralin
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4329
Joined: 2008-08-28 04:23am

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Ralin »

Elfdart wrote: 2017-11-04 10:48pm AND he's an ex-president and guarded by the Secret Service, so it's not like she could slap him or throw a drink in his face like he's a perv at a club.
I mean, she might get tackled but that also means she has some probable witnesses on the record.
User avatar
Broomstick
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 28724
Joined: 2004-01-02 07:04pm
Location: Industrial armpit of the US Midwest

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Broomstick »

Yeah, witnesses who will state they saw her assault an old guy in a wheelchair who is also a former PotUS
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. Leonard Nimoy.

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by cosmicalstorm »

He hired former Mossad operatives from Black Cube to stalk his victims for years after the rapes.
They even contacted the victims under the guise of being womens rights activists.

Some of his victims also died under suspicious circumstances... makes you wonder :lol:
User avatar
The Romulan Republic
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 21559
Joined: 2008-10-15 01:37am

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by The Romulan Republic »

cosmicalstorm wrote: 2017-11-08 04:02am He hired former Mossad operatives from Black Cube to stalk his victims for years after the rapes.
They even contacted the victims under the guise of being womens rights activists.
I wonder if their are grounds for fraud charges for that last one?
Some of his victims also died under suspicious circumstances... makes you wonder :lol:
I wouldn't laugh about that. It seems outlandish but... for a serial rapist with that much money, those connections, and a history of personal violence... its not impossible.

Edit: Regarding the Louis C.K. story, I'm not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. I'd heard some ugly rumours about him.

I'll say this much for him, though- he apparently came right out and acknowledged and apologized for it. Maybe he's not sincere, but at least he hasn't, to my knowledge, gone to "attack the victims to cover my own ass".
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by cosmicalstorm »

The Israeli elite soldiers who spent years harassing the rape victims want you to know they are very sorry about that.
Israeli intelligence firm apologises for working with Harvey Weinstein

Black Cube reportedly hired to help stop publication of abuse allegations
‘We apologise to whoever was hurt by this. It’s a shame we took the job’
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/n ... black-cube


Brittany Murphys parents believed she had been poisoned, her husband died in the same bedroom 5 months later.
Drug use is epidemic in showbiz so who knows.
A lab report suggesting "Clueless" actress Brittany Murphy died from poisoning is "ridiculous" and "baseless," an expert said Tuesday.
The Los Angeles County coroner ruled pneumonia killed Murphy, 32, in December 2009, and that her husband, Simon Monjack, 39, died from the same illness five months later.
The similarities between their deaths -- in the same bedroom of their Hollywood Hills home -- prompted a search for answers beyond natural illness. Murphy's father Angelo Bertolotti sent a strand of her hair to a private lab which tested it for signs of poisoning this month.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/19/showb ... index.html
User avatar
Wild Zontargs
Padawan Learner
Posts: 360
Joined: 2010-07-06 01:24pm

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Wild Zontargs »

Are we putting all the noteworthy accusations here? Because George Takei made the list.
George Takei Accused of Sexually Assaulting Former Model in 1981

The 'Star Trek' icon denies a claim by Scott R. Brunton, who says he was groped at the actor's Los Angeles condo.
A former model and actor is accusing Star Trek icon George Takei of sexual assault in 1981. The accuser, Scott R. Brunton, who was 23 at the time of the alleged incident, claims that Takei took advantage of him when he was most vulnerable.

"This happened a long time ago, but I have never forgotten it," Brunton tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview. "It is one of those stories you tell with a group of people when people are recounting bizarre instances in their lives, this always comes up. I have been telling it for years, but I am suddenly very nervous telling it."

Brunton says he was living in Hollywood in 1981, working as a waiter and beginning a career as a commercial actor and model when he met a 43- or 44-year-old Takei one evening at Greg's Blue Dot bar. The men exchanged numbers and would call one another from time to time as well as run into each other at clubs, Brunton says. When Brunton broke up with his then-boyfriend, he spoke with Takei. "He said, 'Let me know what your new number is' and I did. And not long after we broke up and I moved out, George called me," Brunton recalls.

Takei, as Brunton tells it, invited him to dinner and the theater. "He was very good at consoling me and understanding that I was upset and still in love with my boyfriend," Brunton says. "He was a great ear. He was very good about me spilling my heart on my sleeve."

The two men went back to the actor's condo for a drink the same night. "We have the drink and he asks if I would like another," Brunton recalls. "And I said sure. So, I have the second one, and then all of a sudden, I begin feeling very disoriented and dizzy, and I thought I was going to pass out. I said I need to sit down and he said sit over here and he had the giant yellow beanbag chair. So I sat down in that and leaned my head back and I must have passed out."

"The next thing I remember I was coming to and he had my pants down around my ankles and he was groping my crotch and trying to get my underwear off and feeling me up at the same time, trying to get his hands down my underwear," Brunton says. "I came to and said, 'What are you doing?!' I said, 'I don't want to do this.' He goes, 'You need to relax. I am just trying to make you comfortable. Get comfortable.' And I said, 'No. I don't want to do this.' And I pushed him off and he said, 'OK, fine.' And I said I am going to go and he said, 'If you feel you must. You're in no condition to drive.' I said, 'I don't care I want to go.' So I managed to get my pants up and compose myself and I was just shocked. I walked out and went to my car until I felt well enough to drive home, and that was that."
Takei denies it ever happened, but appears to admit in a recent Howard Stern interview that he groped men without their consent (but that it was OK because he didn't have a position of power over their job):

Доверяй, но проверяй
"Ugh. I hate agreeing with Zontargs." -- Alyrium Denryle
"What you are is abject human trash who is very good at dodging actual rule violations while still being human trash." -- Alyrium Denryle
iustitia socialis delenda est
User avatar
Alyrium Denryle
Minister of Sin
Posts: 22224
Joined: 2002-07-11 08:34pm
Location: The Deep Desert
Contact:

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Yep. And as per my protocol, I am provisionally believing the accuser and resigning myself to the fact that I don't get to have good role-models outside the sciences.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
User avatar
Wild Zontargs
Padawan Learner
Posts: 360
Joined: 2010-07-06 01:24pm

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Wild Zontargs »

This is extra sad because Takei has been one of the people leading the charge for victims to speak up. It's unfortunate that he appears to be one of the people who had been misbehaving.
Доверяй, но проверяй
"Ugh. I hate agreeing with Zontargs." -- Alyrium Denryle
"What you are is abject human trash who is very good at dodging actual rule violations while still being human trash." -- Alyrium Denryle
iustitia socialis delenda est
User avatar
mr friendly guy
The Doctor
Posts: 11235
Joined: 2004-12-12 10:55pm
Location: In a 1960s police telephone box somewhere in Australia

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by mr friendly guy »

Alyrium Denryle wrote: 2017-11-11 02:50pm Yep. And as per my protocol, I am provisionally believing the accuser and resigning myself to the fact that I don't get to have good role-models outside the sciences.
Yeah I know what you mean. As a kid I admired Hulk Hogan (racist), the Ultimate Warrior (homophobe), Chuck Norris (Christian fundamentalist fool), Kevin Sorbo (racist and Jews control Hollywood apparently) and Nelson Mandela. Ok, Mandela still intact. John Barrowmen still seems alright.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.

Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
User avatar
ray245
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 7954
Joined: 2005-06-10 11:30pm

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by ray245 »

I'm not sure if we should look up to people in the entertainment industry as a paragon of virtue. Admiring people in an industry that basically revolves around cultivating a certain idealised image feels like it's not the best thing to do.

Especially when this grants them all sort of power and influences over wider society. Or maybe I just don't feel like we should be looking up towards people who seek a glamorous lifestyle.
Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.
User avatar
Alyrium Denryle
Minister of Sin
Posts: 22224
Joined: 2002-07-11 08:34pm
Location: The Deep Desert
Contact:

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Wild Zontargs wrote: 2017-11-11 04:11pm This is extra sad because Takei has been one of the people leading the charge for victims to speak up. It's unfortunate that he appears to be one of the people who had been misbehaving.
Revising:

Everything boils down to Bayesian priors, it is usually a safer bet to believe the accuser (92-98% of rape and sexual assault accusations are true, if not in the exact details, then in the fact that it happened. Hell, sometimes they even get the perp wrong for various psychological reasons). In some cases, that doesn't hold true.

Celebrities tend to draw in...interesting people (the guy who shot Reagan thought Jodi Foster told him to do it). That is a factor. The Werther Effect is another factor (when an event happens that is under human control like a publicized suicide or mass shooting, it will tend to repeat as people are inspired to do the same thing. True accusations can be followed by false ones, or more true ones). Plus, this just...doesn't seem like something George would do.

Does that cancel out the 92-98% odds that a general-case accusation is true? I don't know. Those other effects are not quantified as well.
Ways to resolve it would be things like additional independent accusations that move the probability slider toward Yes, or disinterested witnesses who remember an interaction between the two men that would demonstrate that Takei is being dishonest or has an unreliable memory.

I'd be lying if I said that the fact that I've admired George Takei for a long time is not coloring my judgement. It is. If this accusation is true, I will have lost a hero and a big part of me doesn't want to confront that. If it is true, I'll accept it and likely become more bitter and cynical about the world, if that were even possible.

But right now, I am leaning toward what I like to call Provisional Non-Disbelief. Have fun parsing that. I'm certainly not.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
AniThyng
Sith Devotee
Posts: 2760
Joined: 2003-09-08 12:47pm
Location: Took an arrow in the knee.
Contact:

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by AniThyng »

At least the late Carl Sagan was not a sexual predator...

He wasn't, right?
I do know how to spell
AniThyng is merely the name I gave to what became my favourite Baldur's Gate II mage character :P
User avatar
Vain
Padawan Learner
Posts: 345
Joined: 2004-10-01 12:26pm
Location: Baltimore, Maryland

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Vain »

Alyrium Denryle wrote: 2017-11-11 07:47pm
Wild Zontargs wrote: 2017-11-11 04:11pm This is extra sad because Takei has been one of the people leading the charge for victims to speak up. It's unfortunate that he appears to be one of the people who had been misbehaving.
Revising:

Everything boils down to Bayesian priors, it is usually a safer bet to believe the accuser (92-98% of rape and sexual assault accusations are true, if not in the exact details, then in the fact that it happened. Hell, sometimes they even get the perp wrong for various psychological reasons). In some cases, that doesn't hold true.

Celebrities tend to draw in...interesting people (the guy who shot Reagan thought Jodi Foster told him to do it). That is a factor. The Werther Effect is another factor (when an event happens that is under human control like a publicized suicide or mass shooting, it will tend to repeat as people are inspired to do the same thing. True accusations can be followed by false ones, or more true ones). Plus, this just...doesn't seem like something George would do.

Does that cancel out the 92-98% odds that a general-case accusation is true? I don't know. Those other effects are not quantified as well.
Ways to resolve it would be things like additional independent accusations that move the probability slider toward Yes, or disinterested witnesses who remember an interaction between the two men that would demonstrate that Takei is being dishonest or has an unreliable memory.

I'd be lying if I said that the fact that I've admired George Takei for a long time is not coloring my judgement. It is. If this accusation is true, I will have lost a hero and a big part of me doesn't want to confront that. If it is true, I'll accept it and likely become more bitter and cynical about the world, if that were even possible.

But right now, I am leaning toward what I like to call Provisional Non-Disbelief. Have fun parsing that. I'm certainly not.
Given the fallible nature of human memory, and that this happened almost 40 years ago and the situation involved alcohol, I think it's possible that they're both telling the truth as they remember it, and that neither is remembering things 100% correctly. For me, at least, it's possible to support and sympathize with the experiences of Scott Brunton without throwing out all of the work George Takei has done, in and outside of showbiz.

Also, for what it's worth, I resigned myself to separating the art from the artist a long time ago. There are many problematic great men and women, and I have decided to enjoy their achievements without idolizing them or ignoring their mistakes. It is a matter of public record that Roman Polanski is a capital-R Rapist who should have gone to prison. Chinatown is still a masterpiece.
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by cosmicalstorm »

Steven Spielberg was accused of molesting boys (including Michael Jackson?) in the past. That accusation is now brought back into the light.

https://squawker.org/culture-wars/a-200 ... oung-boys/
User avatar
Gandalf
SD.net White Wizard
Posts: 16285
Joined: 2002-09-16 11:13pm
Location: A video store in Australia

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Gandalf »

Alyrium Denryle wrote: 2017-11-11 02:50pm Yep. And as per my protocol, I am provisionally believing the accuser and resigning myself to the fact that I don't get to have good role-models outside the sciences.
As I've learned over the years, look to the aspects and the works as opposed to the whole person, because people pretty universally let you down.
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"

- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist

"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
User avatar
Dragon Angel
Jedi Knight
Posts: 753
Joined: 2010-02-08 09:20am
Location: A Place Called...

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by Dragon Angel »

cosmicalstorm wrote: 2017-11-12 12:03amSteven Spielberg was accused of molesting boys (including Michael Jackson?) in the past. That accusation is now brought back into the light.

https://squawker.org/culture-wars/a-200 ... oung-boys/
Since you're known for peddling bullshit on this forum I decided to check the links that blog post linked (which linked to its own blog, natch). I found ... these choice quotes:
A Seth Rogen post wrote:In response to Rogen condemning Trump Jr. for not condemning his father, a Twitter user by the name of Dana Jade (@Dmj10012) accused Rogen of grabbing her breasts and laughing after being asked to stop. Additional accusations by Jade include claims that Rogen had cornered her after the People’s Choice Awards in 2015, forcing her to summon an Uber to escape.

See the accusations:

@DonaldJTrumpJr Lookie here! Any comment Seth?
Truth always comes out pic.twitter.com/Hiz27Z044u

— JP (@jpog1966) October 13, 2017

Dana Jade’s Twitter account was quickly banned by Twitter after making the above accusation.

Seth Rogen, like Harvey Weinstein, is a prominent Jewish figure in Hollywood. The list of affluent Jewish men in the filmmaking industry who have committed sexual assault against men, women, and children is ever-growing. Is Seth Rogen the next Harvey Weinstein? Only time will tell.
a. Citing a Twitter user who may as well just be a sockpuppet, knowing how easily Twitter can be abused--oh wait it actually is a sockpuppet what the fuck.
b. Extensive references to Seth Rogen being Jewish and Jewish men being sexual predators. Hmm.

Image
A Kevin Spacey post wrote:In a flurry of photos gathered from gab.ai, a decentralized social media network, Spacey can be seen in a rather compromising position, as he appears to be removing the pants off of an unconscious person with the help of others. Alcohol is present in the images, and Spacey is red-faced and perhaps a bit tipsy.
Gab, in case no one knows, is a Twitter-like social media site that holds the far right wing assholes and /pol/ jackholes that even Twitter rejects. Given Spacey is already highly confirmed to be a predator in the mainstream, I don't understand why this site has to take sources from known Nazis and channers who are already known to spread truly fake news like Pizzagate, but I can take a guess why in a little bit...

Looking at the blog post itself, it cites a cryptic essay that pulls one line and just ... runs with it. Given the rest of these posts and uh, its About page:
About page wrote:We believe that the counterculture goes beyond the conservative label and that conservatism alone will not save a society from cultural collapse. A conscious rejection of the Frankfurt School and cultural Marxism and the embracing of traditionalism from familial values to the public sphere of life is necessary too maintain national identity. Squawker believes that science reinforces the case for traditionalism and we seek to be on the cutting edge of the countercultural movement with breaking headlines.
I have ... reasons to doubt the authenticity of this blog. And honestly, you peddling your usual alt-reich fake news rumor mill bullshit in here of all places is disgusting, to say the least.

So, I'm going to wait until someone else talks about this that isn't a neo-Nazi, thanks. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this: What a good little Nazi you are, cosmicalstorm.
"I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain.
And my head I'd be scratchin', while my thoughts were busy hatchin', if I only had a brain!
I would not be just a nothin', my head all full of stuffin', my heart all full of pain.
I would dance and be merry, life would be would be a ding-a-derry, if I only had a brain!"
User avatar
K. A. Pital
Glamorous Commie
Posts: 20813
Joined: 2003-02-26 11:39am
Location: Elysium

Re: Harvey Weinstein: fall of Hollywood player they once called ‘God’

Post by K. A. Pital »

Linking to Squawker? Fuuuuck, and here I thought this thread of all places will be free from crap like that.

I'm watching this closely.

In the meantime, a check on the source:
http://mediabiasfactcheck.com/squawker/
Lì ci sono chiese, macerie, moschee e questure, lì frontiere, prezzi inaccessibile e freddure
Lì paludi, minacce, cecchini coi fucili, documenti, file notturne e clandestini
Qui incontri, lotte, passi sincronizzati, colori, capannelli non autorizzati,
Uccelli migratori, reti, informazioni, piazze di Tutti i like pazze di passioni...

...La tranquillità è importante ma la libertà è tutto!
Assalti Frontali
Post Reply