Insane Hypocrisy Over Weinstein Allegations Outs the Wimps by Jamie Gilcig 101017

Cornwall Ontario –  Oy gevalt!   Such hypocrisy in Hollywood as the knives are out for legendary Producer Harvey Weinstein.

I have no doubt about many of the allegations.  Harvey is a total a hole.  I have no doubt that he traded in the currency of the Entertainment Industry which since its inception has been a fruitloopy hot mess of psychosis.

Power, sex, opportunity, money, praise, and the attempt to fill empty chasms in people’s souls that never can  be filled are the currency in Hollywood.

When I was working at developing my own filmmaking career in the 90’s I experienced it first hand.   While trying to put together my own feature in Los Angeles, with no major credits to my name I had an actress asking if I wanted to feel her breasts to prove that they were real.  That I hadn’t asked that question made the scenario a bit odd?  (no I didn’t test them, nor am I very good at picking melons in the supermarket either)

While Harvey is being shredded, by some who literally owe their careers and homes to him,  the simple reality is that his biggest crime is no longer being on top.

Mr. Spielberg wrote the first cheque for my project.   He took his name off of it after it turns out elements of my treatment for what turned out to be the worst Indiana Jones flick ended up in the final cut.   His first wife was an adorable good Jewish girl who happened to be an actress, but his current long term wife was a blonde bombshell.  Would he have landed her if he’d been a shoe salesman or is Kate Capshaw just really into beards?

Agents, producers, directors, and even we writers are a path to a career that many value.   A director once told me an off color and double entendre racist joke.

“How do you tell the Polish actress on a film set?  She’s the one sleeping with the writer.”

One of the first lessons, that many of those screaming Mimi’s on anti-social media didn’t seem to learn,  is that in the Entertainment biz you’re always supposed to be nice because you never know when someone rebounds, and if Mel Gibson can come back from his drunken anti-semitic rant, Harvey will be getting an Oscar and then probably produce a bio pic about his ordeal in five years.

God I love Jennifer Lawrence.  Besides being sexually gorgeous she’s an amazing and talented actress.   But is she that good an actress that her body language is fake in the video above or does she simply have strong feelings for the nasty pit bull who helped put her where she is today, the star of a movie that really tanked?   I jest, Jennifer is going to have a long lovely career, in no small part due to the support of Harvey Weinstein and his company to establish said career.   (And email me as I have a great treatment you’d be perfect for!)

But now if you voice support, or simply sanity, a bunch of screaming overly hormoned freaks will try and kill you on twitter.  Already people are boycotting Donna Karan for simply showing support for Harvey.

Back in the 90’s we talked about pitching to him, but the buzz was that he was tough to work with.  That’s putting it mildly.   An Oscar winning director once shared with me what it was like to meet and audition some of the same talents that have been linked to Weinstein.  He stated one starlet who showed up ripe and unhygienic, which was supposedly to ward off Oscar winning directors and producers getting too close.

Harvey has 331 producer credits according to the IMDB.  I’m not sure most viewers will understand what a body of work that is, even if mostly as an Executive Producer.

As misogynistic as this may sound, we’ve had too much birth control residue in our waters and too many generations of single mommies training their sons to pee sitting down.  Mix in facebook and other social media and you can see how insane the world is.     And it truly is.  Honestly who cares what some of these people really think?

The reality is that if you’re an actor or filmmaker you’d kill to have Harvey backing your project or career,and there have always been those whose only currency is their short lived beauty, and not every producer or director is buying. And women are not the only victims. Many a beautiful young man has been the object of lust as he climbs those stairs to success.  Remember rumors about Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves in their early careers?

While talent is important, the ability to navigate those waters is just as important.  It’s why I walked away from Hollywood after my first credit was nominated for an Oscar.  I had three projects ripped off in the process and managed to hold on barely to a credit on a project that I created and worked nearly five years on.

It is a tough business.  It is brutally hard to succeed in Hollywood.  It’s not a business for nice sweet people who cry and take to twitter when things go bad.    When I was totally ripped off I could’ve gone to contingency lawyers and screamed my head off.  A wise veteran said that I could go for it, but Hollywood is a small town with a long memory.

Frankly I’m tired of victims coming out decades after.   As hard as it is if you really have been abused you have to file those charges and get things “on the record”.   Taking a cash settlement frankly makes you as guilty as your abuser.

In Harvey’s case there apparently have been at least eight settlements.   That doesn’t mean he’s guilty. It just means it was cheaper or his lawyers advised him to settle which itself could lead to others attempts to scam cash because people talk and are afterall, human, and it probably was a tax writeoff.

None of us are all good or all bad, but when one of these “Victims” settled without going public and pressing a charge it could mean that the next victim was nailed because of it.   That’s as wrong as wrong can be.

It’s time that people stop it with the witch hunts and look at decades of people that overlook issues, instances, and in many cases crimes, and then start screaming only after the “Boogeyman” or “Boogeylady” loses their seat of power or dies.    That’s not a lesson we should be educating next generations with.  That’s simply being gutless, cowardly, and hypocritical.

There are only a handful of producers who’ve grossed more cash than Harvey Weinstein.   Did he mess up?  Did he mess up more than so many in the entertainment biz?  Is he a bigger monster than so many pointing fingers now or even some that are pointing fingers at him?

Of course going up against the NRA with a Republican President doesn’t help either, but at the end of the day all anyone can hope for is sanity, truth and good lawyers to sort this out.   And knowing a bit about character arcs this scribbler thinks that some screen caps have been made of some of those tweets and comments.

And Meryl Streep I’m very disappointed in some of the quotes attributed to you on this count as you know this business just about as well as any actress to ever have been on the screen.   I’m sure you’ve seen the best and worst, and as much as I still adore you I hope that at some level you make this right.

It’ll be an interesting story to follow.   And many will be following it; at least until there’s something else to scream about on Twitter…..

The reality is that bad things happen all the time.   But people have to speak up and speak out.  They have to file charges.   There is never a time that sexual assault in any form should be accepted or not responded to.   Being afraid is not an excuse for silence.  It just leads to more injustice.

 

5 Comments

  1. We all know that Hollywood is Sin City but this happens everywhere. When I worked I the federal government here in Ottawa there were a couple of men that I saw hit on the women and most were not good looking man nor woman. It happens everywhere. Both are to blame for inviting this to happen.

  2. Well, it is Hollywood after all.

  3. Hugger it is everywhere including in the church. The Vatican is full of sin including the churches of all faiths. Hollywood and Los Vegas are two sin cities and the world has plenty of those. I have seen it in the federal government and private industry and everywhere else. I have seen my fellow classmates who were alter boys back in the 1950s who were sexually abused by priests.

  4. I was just on yahoo.ca site and there was a picture of Kim Kardashian with an outfit that is completely inappropriate to go shopping, etc. Women with boobs exposed, etc. and you blame the man for coming onto you. What any cop would ask what were you wearing. The women that I knew in the government were fully clothed but they didn’t resist and asked for it.

  5. There will be many more called out, just search Corey Feldman and his interview on being a child star and all the sexual abuse to kids. He said he would love to name names, but knows what will happen to him if he does, but that hollywood is full of pedofiles and guys like Harvey. And are we still going to turn a blind eye to Podesta’s “art work”, of kids and all his aligations?

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