Sexual Assault and the Culture of Hollywood

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Sexual Assault and the Culture of Hollywood

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Southpaugh posted:

Francos said things along the lines of "I'm gay right up until the point of sex" before, which ofc is horseshit. He's just a loving a creep.

Kinda sounds like a roundabout way to say "I only enjoy women for their bodies".

# ¿ Jan 26, 2018 11:59

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:49

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

exquisite tea posted:

While "separate the work from the artist" is a comforting thought and I totally understand why people say that, it's uneasier but perhaps more truthful to admit that we don't get to pick and choose what elements of a person inform the works they create, it all arrives in one discrete package. And it's more uncomfortable still to consider that the output of someone like Louis CK is unique and noteworthy BECAUSE of their personal failings as people, rather than in spite of it. Like, it would be clean and convenient to believe that Polanski's pedophilia never once influenced any aspect of his filmmaking, or that it only informed the aspects we didn't like, but it would also be extraordinarily naive to think that. I don't really have a good answer for this other than to say that art entangles the whole effort of the individual, both the noble and the hosed up, and you can't just isolate them whenever it's helpful to preserve your own sense of morality

This is a pretty circuitous way of saying that people who enjoy Polanski's movies are pedophiles. :v:

In any case, aside from what you wrote above, there is always the fact that the artist which you're supposedly separating the work from might still be benefiting from you consuming their product - and even if they somehow don't, you might still be supporting the corporate culture which allowed them to keep working despite their crimes.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 16:07

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

chitoryu12 posted:

When it comes to a collaborative effort like a film, I'm also loathe to try and erase it from history or retroactively condemn it because it's not a sole creation by one person. Roman Polanski was one of (according to IMDB) 41 actors and 84 crew members who put the film together. As terrible as he is, I'm sure the rest of the 125 people who worked on the film didn't assist him in his raping and deserve credit and recognition for their own contributions.

How many of those are recognized as "co-creators" alongside Polanski, within Hollywood circles? I really don't think it's possible, in a practical sense, to recognize the works of everyone who worked on a movie if it's basically seen as "Artist Name's Movie" - any recognition will be perceived as supporting that artist, unless perhaps you explicitly make a "Let's recognize all the people who aren't (to the best of our knowledge) rapists" festival. Also, as I mentioned, who gets paid? I doubt makeup artist #3 is receiving residuals on movies they worked on, more likely it's going entirely to the people who decide what Hollywood culture should be. If financing child rapists continues to make financial sense, because a lot of moviegoers happily pretend like they can divorce art from artist, then Hollywood is gonna support child rapists - simple as that.

That said, at least Chinatown might be defensible to "support" given that it predates Polanski being outed as a child rapist, since his collaborators might legitimately not have known. Assuming that you watching the movie doesn't put money into his pockets.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 16:56

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

James Woods Fan posted:

But what does Lars von Trier think? Someone call Lars von Trier.

"There's a little Weinstein inside all of us."

# ¿ Feb 11, 2018 22:07

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Vegetable posted:

What does it mean to be Single White Female'd by somebody, I still don't understand

From what I gather, it means copying someones life essentially.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2018 20:16

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Groovelord Neato posted:

separating celebs down with a gradation like a list and a minus list is bizarre. just use letters.

I think it makes a lot of sense to gradate like that, if you want to be able to distinguish better between anonymized celebrities. Plus the gradation itself mirrors the American grading system, so it seems as sensible and easily understandable as any other suggestion? Contrary to an A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H/I/J/K/L-list system would clash horribly with the more general idea of A/B/C/D-list celebrities used outside the site itself.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 12:53

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Groovelord Neato posted:

i think a/b/c/d (and z if you wanna be real mean) works fine.

Works fine for what? General celebrity talk? Because the whole "anonymous references to the heinous crimes of specific but not openly stated celebrities" aspect of it certainly seems like something that could require more gradation in your code, and it's not like it's super complicated either.

Basebf555 posted:

I think there's also a distinction between regular A list, and Permanent A List, which some celebrities reach and then they get a free pass on the A list for life. Like Seth Rogan was regular A list about ten years ago, when he was starring in multiple movies every year, how he's kinda faded a bit and I'd probably not call him A list anymore. But guys like Bruce Willis or Al Pacino are always A list regardless of how much direct to video schlock they put out.

Which is really just the other side of the system that makes sure some people get shut out of Hollywood for the most minor "slights".

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 14:09

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Magic Hate Ball posted:

He's always been an edgy iconoclast

Pretty sure the #1 job of an iconoclast is to challenge institutions, not defend them.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2018 23:23

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Magic Hate Ball posted:

Iconoclasty isn�t anathema to moral turpitude, martyrdom, or just garden variety wrongheadedness. Gilliam absolutely believes himself to be tilting at an oppressive institution, that doesn�t mean he isn�t a clod.

Self-styled iconoclast then. I'm not gonna support his wrongheadedness by not including that qualification.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2018 08:25

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

exquisite tea posted:

What Gilliam is saying isn't even ideological, it's just loving heinous and wrong.

Everything is ideology.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2018 10:41

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

exquisite tea posted:

What I mean is that Gilliam's statements are not in any way ideologically consistent with "tilting at oppressive institutions" or w/e, they're just wrong.

Which is evidence that any supposed iconoclasm on his part isn't that solidly founded - probably being more of the "stop oppressing ME!" variety than an actual universal opposition to oppression. Though I suppose that is pretty much the ideological equivalent of being wrong, so this is probably more of a semantic exercise than real disagreement.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2018 13:32

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

STAC Goat posted:

Yeah, my takeaway was that he was filming those Netflix specials right as MeToo was taking off and his initial reaction was "Oh, that guy's evil but some of this is too far..." and then he kind of started to say "...wait, am I part of the problem?" and then he was done. I'm kind of curious to see if he took the next step.

I don't know. I guess I'm kind of judging it through the prism of that transgender joke that he defends, then addresses the backlash of, kind of dismisses the backlash and explains himself, then actually reconsiders and questions if he's wrong, expresses regret that he hurt someone, and then makes a joke again. I might be giving him too much room he hasn't actually ventured down publicly.

Been a while since I watched it, so I don't remember exactly how he finished that bit, but I remember it being a million times more reflective than anything I've seen from other comedians about "causing offense" - though obviously that is like the ultimate damning with faint praise.

I don't know how the dude is in private, but I could see it being the case that he's simply far more able to lay his cards on the table in the setting of doing a comedy special than having a heart to heart with someone on the subject - explaining why he goes through his entire thought process (including making it clear that he doesn't think he has the right answer) instead of making the usual definitive statement that dismisses the idea that the comedian could ever be wrong about anything.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2018 14:18

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

I just want to point out that these cases aren't about cops infiltrating criminal gangs and accidentally ending up in relationships with suspects during a lengthy undercover assignment* - they're about a deliberate tactic, employed by the state, to infiltrate political groups that threaten the status quo. As in cops going into their undercover work with the explicit intent to establish sexual relationships and even have kids, as part of their infiltration of these groups. Like, this basically comes down to where you stand on the rape by deception question, because the guy literally having the power of the state support his deception definitely satisfies the consent being based on deliberately false information.

*Which is ethically fraught enough.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2018 18:14

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

DrVenkman posted:

There's also an issue in that the French feminism movement can be... questionable at times, and some of their reaction to #metoo has been interesting to say the least.

AFAIK, European feminist movements in general can be a bit guarded vis-a-vis the American feminist movement, because the latter effectively rewrites history. Not purposefully, it's just that the internet has given the American feminist movement as much cultural power as American pop culture - and thus young feminists in Europe are taught a history of feminism that's just downright false within their own context. Basically leading the younger generation to lash out at their older compatriots for poo poo they had no part in at all.* Obviously none of that actually justifies defending this poo poo, it's more a thing to keep in mind if you get mystified by the stuff coming out of non-American movements in general.

*I wouldn't be surprised if this was true for non-American movements in general, though it seems like a it'd be a bigger issue in more culturally assimilated countries.

DrVenkman posted:

I mean, it's not that surprising that these places were welcoming of Polanski after he went on the run (and continued to enjoy his particular lifestyle because hey, it's what the Europeans do).

Which countries have actually been welcoming of Polanski? Isn't it just France? Which is at least half about standing up to America, some stupid chauvinist beef rather than anything else.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2018 21:39

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

DeimosRising posted:

Would you mind explaining what you�re referring to

The basic issue is that (Continental) European feminism comes from a different tradition than American feminism, due to the very different societies from which they first spawned. American feminism has traditionally been liberal in nature, focusing on issues that are/were important to upper-middle-class white women while ignoring the perspectives of working class or non-white women. A lot of European movements on the other hand have been directly worker-focused since their inception around the start of the 19th century - though conversely, some took an explicitly anti-socialist tack as a reaction. These worker-focused European movements have probably also been more structural in their critique, given their socialist bent.

Anyway, this liberal American approach unsurprisingly failed to serve the needs of a lot of women, so feminism in the US eventually evolved into a more intersectional direction as a result - with a lot of criticism directed at the previous waves. Which is entirely fair, but clearly you shouldn't just take those criticisms and direct them at a movement with an entirely different history. Like, there's probably still a lot of useful lessons from the modern American movements, but it probably doesn't make much sense to critique a socialist feminist movement for not caring about working class women.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Oct 6, 2018

# ¿ Oct 6, 2018 19:28

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

DeimosRising posted:

I guess I�m not sure what this has to do with the muted response to sexual harassment/assault in the European film industries so I didn�t understand it as a response to the post you quoted

You can't divorce the reaction to something like #metoo in France from the general interaction between American and French feminism. The interaction is not happening in completely isolated incidents, but as part of a continuing conversation of sorts - and if American feminists are in "bad standing" among French feminists, that makes it far easier to dismiss American movements or play up their bad parts. That goes the other way too obviously, if the general feeling in America becomes that French feminists continue to defend sexual harassment.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2018 19:03

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:49

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Alhazred posted:

That's not more accurate or better. Calling it "child pornography" makes it worse for the victims because it's using the same terms that the abuser uses and because it is not something rthat any sane person would think of as pornography. It's better to call it for what it is "documented child abuse".

"Documented child abuse" really undersells it. Like, child abuse covers everything from neglect to crippling violence and rape. A nanny cam filming a nanny slapping a kid is not just a difference of degree from someone making a tape of them raping a child. Really, going off the existing term, it should just be called a child sex tape, except sex with children is rape, so child rape tape. (To distinguish from the likely plentiful just regular rape tapes of other celebrities.)

# ¿ Jul 14, 2019 21:39

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Sexual Assault and the Culture of Hollywood