Weinstein revisited
One of the charges against Harvey Weinstein has been dropped:
The behind-the-scenes drama spilled into court, with Weinstein looking on, as the Manhattan District Attorney’s office elected to drop the lone charge stemming from Lucia Evans’ allegations that he forced her to perform oral sex on him in 2004, when she was a college student and aspiring actress.
Charges made by two other women are still included in the case against Weinstein, but I wonder how this news will affect the trial as a whole:
Prosecutors said in a letter unsealed Thursday that they learned weeks ago that a woman who was with Evans the night she met Weinstein had given the police detective a contradictory account of what happened, but the detective had instructed her to keep quiet, telling her that “less is more.”
The woman, prosecutors said, told the detective in February that Weinstein had offered them money to flash their breasts during the restaurant encounter. They initially declined but Evans later told her she had gone ahead and exposed herself to the film producer in a hallway.
The woman also told the detective — identified by Weinstein’s lawyer as Nicholas DiGaudio — that sometime after Evans’ office meeting with Weinstein, she had suggested what happened was consensual. Weinstein had promised to get her an acting job if she agreed to perform oral sex and she agreed.
According to the witness, who was not named in the court filing, Evans had been drinking and “appeared to be upset, embarrassed and shaking” when she told the story.
Evans was among the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual assault.
In the court of public opinion—the only court in which Weinstein has been tried so far—the charges against him have been almost universally considered so strong that his guilt is pretty much assumed. And yet he has not had his day in court.
Of course, the fact that one woman may have lied—or been mistaken, because perhaps she was drunk—about the nature of their sexual contact does not mean they all have lied or been mistaken. As I’ve said before, each accusation must be taken on its own merits (although few people seem to do that): even assuming that the weight of accusation indicates that Weinstein is guilty of some violations “does not mean that all his accusers are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
I also hark back to this post I wrote during the initial furor over Weinstein:
I don’t automatically believe or disbelieve anyone. When I hear charges of abuse, I try to evaluate the truth or falsehood of those allegations in a systematic way. I consciously try to apply the same standards to all, and to be consistent.
Here are just some of the elements I think people ought to take into consideration in terms of seriousness and/or truthfulness (most of these relate more to adult victims than to children):
Was the coercion overt? What was the age of the victim? Was “no” communicated by the victim (for adult victims only; for a child it’s irrelevant)? Was it just a verbal proposition by the accused with no behavioral follow-up? Was the offender a therapist or teacher or priest or parent? When did the victim report it—was there an enormous time lag? Does the victim have a separate grudge against the accused that might have motivated a false accusation? Is there any other evidence to back up the victim’s report? If so, how persuasive is that evidence? Was there any violence involved? Is the accused a politician who is currently running for office—and has the revelation come out right before the vote, with very little time to evaluate its truth or falsehood? Does the accuser have a history that indicates she/he is a habitual liar? Does the accused have such a history? Are there other alleged victims, and (this next part is very important and not often taken into account) did all the other victims tell their stories only after the initial accusations got a lot of publicity, or had their stories been told earlier? If the latter, was the story told to the police or other authorities, or to some friend or relative whose word we have to take for it? If we have one or more very credible accusations and then a new accusation comes out, is the new one in the mold of the old ones or does it up the ante dramatically? Has each accuser’s story remained consistent, or has it morphed?
There’s much more, but I think you get the idea. Since we don’t usually have a smoking gun (Anthony Weiner’s emailed photos, for example), we have to rely on this sort of thing.
I hate to see abusers go undetected and unpunished, free to continue their abuse with others. But I also hate to see people empowered to make false accusations that are insufficiently scrutinized and could ruin the life of a possibly innocent person. I’ve described the best way I know to try to figure out how to minimize both of these occurrences. Despite its flaws, I can’t think of a better way.
With Weinstein, there are so many stories that it is easy to think that most of them must be true. But that temptation must be resisted. The trouble is that truth and falsehood can be fiendishly difficult to ascertain in cases such as this. And here I’m going to say something that might be surprising—I’m not so sure that even Lucia Evans knows whether she gave consent or not.
Are people usually that clearly in touch with their own behavior, thoughts, and feeling around complicated situations of a sexual nature, in which fear mixes with desire to advance one’s career, and in which all of it is mixed with the liberal consumption of alcohol or other substances? The vagaries of memory are part of the problem as well, and revisionism can occur either much later or very shortly after the act in question. Regret, confusion, trauma, forgetfulness, defensiveness, rationalization—all can play into it in various ways for the alleged victim.
I have no idea what really happened between Harvey Weinstein and Lucia Evans. I have no idea which time she was telling the truth and which time she was lying or mistaken. Even further, I’m not at all sure whether we’ll ever be able to find out. And what’s more, I’m not so sure that either Harvey Weinstein or Lucia Evans themselves know the correct answer, either.
And that is the problem: At what point does a pass become sexual harrasment? At some point in the dance we call human courtship, someone has to be bold. If we set the bar for delicacy and subtlety too high, none of us are ever going to have sex again.
im recused… i know him and some of the people..
which nothing surprises me given how much i know
It’s always been the case that entertainment is a business where women will either seek sex or cooperate with it in order to advance their careers. So some of these women were willing participants for career reasons. Some of them probably are actual victims of sexual assault. The trick is to find out which are which. As Neo says, the only way to do this is case by case. If there’s no evidence, and it was true, the Weinstein gets away with it. But there needs to be evidence.
Everyone in Hollywood knew Weinstein was a pig, and everyone knew that if a woman went to his hotel room alone she was going there for sex, whether to trade sex for a role in a movie, or to have sex with a powerful Hollywood producer, or just to have sex. Were there women who naively went to his room not knowing that? It certainly is possible. But virtually all of them who were in the industry, or wanted to get into the industry, knew it and went there voluntarily.
Same with Bill Cosby. I was told back in the late ’80s by a woman who had lived in Las Vegas and had connections with the entertainment industry, “Oh, everybody knows about Bill Cosby and his magic medicine cabinet.” If a woman went to his room, she knew it was for sex and drugs. (Again, there may have been exceptions, but not many.)
Trading sex for advancement in Hollywood is so old that there are jokes about it: “Did you hear about the starlet who was so dumb she slept with the writer?”
I despise pigs like Weinstein, but to all these women who are now retroactively claiming that they were “sexually assaulted,” I say, “it takes two to tango, baby!”
This ‘she said’ stuff is all grotesquely overblown, especially when decades old, and signals a change in our societal fundament in favor of hysteria (Greek root=wandering uterus) over fact and reason.
Not good, not good at all.
And, BTW, who cares? Who should care? To what extent? And why?
Cicero;
I care because I have always cared about guilt and innocence.
I care because accusations are becoming common tools, especially in political life. What happened to Kavanaugh could happen to anyone.
When I first heard of the #MeToo movement from Hollywierd and the accusations against Weinstein I wondered who didn’t know about the casting couch. Mario Puzzo wrote about it in the Godfather back in the 70s. Infamita! A horse’s head ended up in the bed of a producer/director’s bed who had just screwed a potential child star. Who didAn’t know about the casting couch?
Lucia Evans knew. She willingly gave Weinstein oral sex for role in a movie. She didn’t get a role in a Weinstein movie, so she changed her mind and accused him of rape.
None of this is meant to excuse anyone of anything. Weinstein’s a pig. So are the starlets who crawled over broken glass to orgasm him for a part in a movie.I am so glad I went into the military and retained my interest in hunting where I could above-board indulge in good, honest killing.
Some of the accusers say they were trapped into being alone with him, having gone to offices or other public or sometimes private meeting places where other people were present and then left unexpectedly, or where other people were supposed to have been present but did not show. Certainly they would have thought they were protected from danger in such situations, but they were instead exposed to it.
Young women have gone to Hollywood since the 1920s (at least) with the dream of getting into the movies. There’s a glut of beautiful girls in L.A. as a result. Much of the time the film roles they’re after require little acting talent or personality, not even any genuine ability to memorize lines. So how should they be cast? On what basis? The young females are almost interchangeable. Choosing one girl over another to look pretty in a film is a completely arbitrary, whimsical decision.
Each girl has an interview, a casting call, a screen test. Do you like her? Is she someone’s friend? Can you do a favor for someone important by putting her before the camera for five minutes or so, less time a stunt double takes her place?
And so many become unreliable or lose their looks or use too much alcohol or drugs after one or two roles. Remember Jean Seberg, Sue Lyons, Tuesday Weld. The young blonde is beyond being a cliché, she’s long been a joke.
It’s no wonder such young women are also lined up and begging for work at Los Angeles escort agencies, brothels and strip clubs. Why do females so want to be SEEN? But that’s hard to think about, isn’t it? It’s too complicated, mysterious — much easier to blame the hungry male gaze. Why do men want to look?
I need to clarify. What I did in my Naval service and in the hunting field was about giving and preserving life. Not about dealing death.
What meat I couldn’t use at once went to food banks or in some cases an Alaskan Indian village for the sled dogs to eat that winter. Because not even they with their strong stomachs could eat the hormone-riddled meat of the caribou I killed at the height of the rut.
But their dogs would. And their dogs were and are life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFs0t5qyxxw
“Coast Guard C130 fly-by in Kodiak, Alaska”
FWIW, Tuesday Weld compiled just north of 100 film and television credits over the period running from 1956 to 2001. About half her appearances were prior to 1963, so you could call her a teen actress. However, she continued acting until late middle age. Seberg was pretty strictly a film actress; she appeared in a couple of pictures a year from late adolescence until she was on the cusp of middle age.
“And that is the problem: At what point does a pass become sexual harrasment? At some point in the dance we call human courtship, someone has to be bold. If we set the bar for delicacy and subtlety too high, none of us are ever going to have sex again.”
@Roy Nathanson
Not necessarily. There’s a theory that social changes are caused by technological changes. Perhaps you could apply this to the #MeToo movement. Previously, you had to allow men to make advances to women in daily life. If you don’t, then it’s really hard to form relationships, which is not a desirable outcome for anyone. So it’s harder to call people out for sexual harassment unless the harassment is truly egregious.
The technology which replaces this is internet dating sites. On an internet dating site, it’s clear that both parties are interested in and desire a relationship, especially those which require dual opt-in. So it’s no longer necessary for men to make advances to potentially uninterested women in real life. Thus a movement to make such advances immoral becomes plausible.
miklos000rosza,
“Why do females so want to be SEEN? But that’s hard to think about, isn’t it? It’s too complicated, mysterious — much easier to blame the hungry male gaze. Why do men want to look?”
Is that a serious question? If so, it’s time to revisit sexuality 101. And no, it’s not too complicated or mysterious. In fact it’s obvious. The reality of biological evolution has wired men to be visual and look for the signs of physical fecundity. Women instinctively know which side of the bread is buttered. Physical attractiveness is a biological advantage. Even babies recognize symmetry in facial features, as does every culture on earth. The classic but exotic beauty of an Ivanka Trump is recognized by everyone.
In a woman’s third trimester, she has no choice but to rely upon her partner. That today, so many women have no partner forces them to look to the State, which of course is entirely intentional, thanks to the Left.
Many, if not most, if not all, lovely actresses have agreed to use their lovely bodies in a sexual fashion for movies. (Even Julie Andrews showing a lovely breast.)
Normal women WANT to be attractive sex objects — to the men they are attracted to. But not so much to the other men, except to enhance the status of the man they’re with…
It’s pretty hypocritical to spend time and money on “making up”, so as to be a more attractive sex object, but then object to being objectified.
Harvey is mostly interested in the sex AND power (like a rapist?), but including the power to get the woman to agree. What do the women even see Harvey for? To get a movie role — to “convince” Harvey to give them a role.
” fear mixes with desire to advance one’s career, and in which all of it is mixed with the liberal consumption of alcohol or other substances?”
<< I don't think there's really much "fear" in the sense of physical danger, altho there is a fear of failure, fear of not getting the movie role — but I call this all part of the desire to advance one's career over that of another cute bimbo, not really fear-fear.
The actresses and actress wannabees are, actually, lovely whores — and Harvey was a John who often didn't pay his promised payment.
That's not rape. It's also not nothing.
It would be good for Hollywood culture to change. Including the ending of "talent" as a way to allow predators to commit crimes without punishment. To me, it looks like Harvey was a pig, a very very greedy sexual pig, but one who kept on the legal side of the voluntary casting couch.
There are many stories of women leaving — including leaving and not getting roles and getting blacklisted. Also stories of women accepting / allowing the sex — but if they're not saying no, there's very very reasonable doubt that they weren't in agreement with the deal of voluntary sex for a movie role.
It’s reasonable for actresses to strongly object to any system where the successful have to be whores. Not quite rape accusations leading to real punishment seem a good way to do this.
False accusations, like against Kavanaugh, are not at all good.
neo on October 12, 2018 at 3:04 pm at 3:04 pm said:
Some of the accusers say they were trapped into being alone with him, having gone to offices or other public or sometimes private meeting places where other people were present and then left unexpectedly, or where other people were supposed to have been present but did not show. Certainly they would have thought they were protected from danger in such situations, but they were instead exposed to it.
* * *
That’s what I remember from some of the stories.
IIRC, the same situation occurred with some of the other men who were in the news — the invitation was not a solo trip to his bedroom, but a “meeting” that should not have devolved into a pseudo-casting-couch but did.
Part of the disgust at the perps also extends to those folks who deliberately left the lamb with the known wolf, or knew that was his MO and didn’t warn anyone.
On the other hand, the women who were actually willing participants at the time (knowing the game and wanting to play) are not in the same classification as the ones who were intimidated or forced to do something they did not want to do.
* * *
Richard Saunders on October 12, 2018 at 1:23 pm at 1:23 pm said:
Trading sex for advancement in Hollywood is so old that there are jokes about it.
* * *
I know it’s a serious subject, and I’m fully on-board with treating it seriously.
But the casting couch is so famous, that my college drama director could tell us this true story in the seventies and get a laugh:
He once was in a stage production that was so bad – so really, really bad – that the lead actress was overheard asking who she had to sleep with to get out of the show.
“…On an internet dating site, it’s clear that both parties are interested in and desire a relationship, especially those which require dual opt-in. So it’s no longer necessary for men to make advances to potentially uninterested women in real life. Thus a movement to make such advances immoral becomes plausible.”
It’s an interesting summation, but I hope you’re not seeing this as a good idea. The last thing that this current, highly dysfunctional, generation needs is another reason to conduct what should be interpersonal business through a computer.
These are the same little broken train wrecks that sit in their bedroom alone with their phone because they can “meet” more people that way in an evening than if they were to go out in person to a bar, club, or other gathering/event where there are other live human beings.
If you read RJ Wagner’s memoirs, as I have, you will find his description of a visit to Errol Flynn’s dressing room when he was a young extra. He opened the door and found Flynn being serviced by a “starlet.” This has been going on in Hollywood since 1920, if not before.
Such actions with underage children, like LB Mayer with Judy Garland should be exceptions but I notice Roman Polanski is still popular.
Art Deco — Yes, Tuesday Weld was in quite a few productions, notably as a teen actress on The Dobie Gillis Show (which also introduced Bob Denver as beatnik Maynard G. Krebs). Tuesday was memorable as young femme fatale opposite Anthony Perkins in Pretty Poison. Robert Stone’s novel Children of Light stars her (under a pseudonym) as Stone has come to know her during the filming of his National Book Award-winning novel Dog Soldiers — a very good film retitled Who’ll Stop the Rain? (after a Creedence Clearwater song) with Nick Nolte in a memorable role.
My memory of Jean Seberg (she’s great in Godard’s Breathless) is colored by how she was found dead in a car, overdosed on various barbituates. (Maybe you’ll correct me on the pills.)
Sue Lyons, memorable in Kubrick’s Lolita and Night of the Iguana (with Richard Burton) did little else, was hard to deal with, and met an inglorious end. (I’m just going on memory.)
My point had little really to do with such names, more to do with the “one and done” or the more or less anonymous multitudes of young wannabes and would-be actresses who constitute the throngs besieging casting couches then and now.
If one wants to get historical one can go back to examine Howard Hawks. How did Dorothy Malone get her brief but rather sexy role in The Big Sleep?
“How did Dorothy Malone get her brief but rather sexy role in The Big Sleep?”
I have seen “Big Sleep” many times but missed that it was Dorothy Malone in that role – verified on IMDB.
Not defending Weinstein at all but I really have a problem with accusations made so many years after the fact, if it is a “fact”. While many of these are believable and may be true they are usually impossible to verify.
I don’t care a whole lot about adults in Hollywood. There are a lot of animals out there, going back DECADES.
The thing that gets me are the stories about children. And I suspect there are few children who are not explored to put it euphemistically. Some children had the wherewithal to get out or avoid it (Shirley Temple), some were destroyed by it (Corey Haim.) The Hollywood MeToo thing would’ve gotten a little more of my sympathy if there was more of a focus on real sexual ASSAULT and particularly the abuse and assault of CHILDREN and those predators (who raped Corey Haim?) and less of a focus on sexual harassment whining.
The debauchery of Hollywood is old. Goes way back. Trying to reform it is a great idea but I don’t anything will change
I read some horrible story about a young starlet in the twenties who was given a choice of never being in a film again or going to some studio party out in the boonies — which was really an orgy. Most of the starlets obliged once at the party; she did not. She was raped. High ranking LA cops were at the party. She couldn’t get anyone to press charges. In think she ultimately killed herself.
These stories go on and on and on and on…
Consensual debauchery, and decades of social liberalism. Superior exploitation? #NoJudgment.
Which leads us to consider the motives and progress of #MeToo, not just now, but in that particular frame of reference.
I watched “The Big Country again the other night. Great flick. I was thinking about Carroll Baker, who had been in “Baby Doll” and wondered what had happened to her. I looked her up and she is still alive at 87. I guess she took better care of herself than Sue Lyon who is also still alive at 71.
some were destroyed by it (Corey Haim.)
Haim was destroyed by a couple of decades worth of drug abuse (and attendant profligacy). Hollywood debauchery was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to generate that.
“Haim was destroyed by a couple of decades worth of drug abuse”
So you know for certain that the drug abuse had nothing to do with him being molested?
American toleration for Hollywood is what they are black and blue from being used as slaves and sex slaves by the Deep State. The slaves are partially responsible for their own enslavement, as they refuse to rise up. That includes those in Hollywood, and those here watching Hollywood by paying money to child rapists and various other filth. That’s your entertainment donation right there.
I despise pigs like Weinstein, but to all these women who are now retroactively claiming that they were “sexually assaulted,” I say, “it takes two to tango, baby!”
That’s what they said about the child actresses sold as sex slaves in Hollywood. American and intellectual academic stupidity knows no bounds. They sell the child rapist capitalists the military that they will be enslaved with.
In the current war state, Red vs Blue has no sympathies for the REd if they are Blue and no sympathies for the Blue side if they are Red.
This is war propaganda designed to prepare the population for cannonfodder stupidities.
The fact that the USA tolerates this is why the situation got so bad people wanted Trum to defeat Hillary. But it’s never the people’s fault, they are brave after all in the US of A. It’s always the politicians fault, even though the pols are supposed to work for the people, the Boss.
The Boss is never at fault. It’s always somebody else’s screw up, right America.