From Facebook to Harvey Weinstein, America’s scandals amount to a giant crisis of maturity.
Peggy Noonan writes: I want to write about something I think is a problem in our society, that is in fact at the heart of many of our recent scandals, and yet is obscure enough that it doesn’t have a name. It has to do with forgetting who you are.
It has to do with refusing to be fully adult and neglecting to take on, each day, the maturity, grace and self-discipline that are expected of adults and part of their job. That job is to pattern adulthood for those coming up, who are looking, always, for How To Do It—how to be a fully formed man, a fully grown woman.
“The signal fact of Mr. Zuckerberg is that he is supremely gifted in one area—monetizing technical expertise by marrying it to a canny sense of human weakness. Beyond that, what a shallow and banal figure.”
It has to do with not being able to fully reckon with your size, not because it is small but because it is big. I see more people trembling under the weight of who they are.
Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has been on this message for years. Are voices like his finally being being heard?
Laura Ingraham got in trouble for publicly mocking one of the student gun-control activists of Parkland, Fla. She’s been unjustly targeted for boycotts, but it’s fair to say she was wrong in what she said, and said it because she didn’t remember who she is. She is a successful and veteran media figure, host of a cable show that bears her name. As such she is a setter of the sound of our culture as it discusses politics. When you’re that person, you don’t smack around a 17-year-old, even if—maybe especially if—he is obnoxious in his presentation of his public self. He’s a kid. They’re not infrequently obnoxious, because they are not fully mature. He’s small, you’re big. There’s a power imbalance.
As of this week, it is six months since the reckoning that began with the New York Times exposé of Harvey Weinstein. One by one they fell, men in media, often journalism, and their stories bear at least in part a general theme.
They were mostly great successes, middle-aged, and so natural leaders of the young. But they treated the young as prey. They didn’t respect them, in part because they didn’t respect themselves. They didn’t see their true size, their role, or they ignored it. Read the rest of this entry »
Katie Roiphe writes: No one would talk to me for this piece. Or rather, more than twenty women talked to me, sometimes for hours at a time, but only after I promised to leave out their names, and give them what I began to call deep anonymity. This was strange, because what they were saying did not always seem that extreme. Yet here in my living room, at coffee shops, in my inbox and on my voicemail, were otherwise outspoken female novelists, editors, writers, real estate agents, professors, and journalists of various ages so afraid of appearing politically insensitive that they wouldn’t put their names to their thoughts, and I couldn’t blame them.
Of course, the prepublication frenzy of Twitter fantasy and fury about this essay, which exploded in early January, is Exhibit A for why nobody wants to speak openly. Before the piece was even finished, let alone published, people were calling me “pro-rape,” “human scum,” a “harridan,” a “monster out of Stephen King’s ‘IT,’?” a “ghoul,” a “bitch,” and a “garbage person”—all because of a rumor that I was planning to name the creator of the so-called Shitty Media Men list. The Twitter feminist Jessica Valenti called this prospect “profoundly shitty” and “incredibly dangerous” without having read a single word of my piece. Other tweets were more direct: “man if katie roiphe actually publishes that article she can consider her career over.” “Katie Roiphe can suck my dick.” With this level of thought policing, who in their right mind would try to say anything even mildly provocative or original?
For years, women confined their complaints about sexual harassment to whisper networks for fear of reprisal from men. This is an ugly truth about our recent past that we are just now beginning to grapple with. But amid this welcome reckoning, it seems that many women still fear varieties of retribution (Twitter rage, damage to their reputations, professional repercussions, and vitriol from friends) for speaking out—this time, from other women. They are, in other words, inadvertently creating a new whisper network. Can this possibly be a good thing?
Most of the new whisperers feel as I do, exhilarated by the moment, by the long-overdue possibility of holding corrupt and bullying men such as Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer to account for their actions. They strongly share some of its broader goals: making it possible for women to work unbothered and unharassed even outside the bubble of Hollywood and the media, breaking down the structures that have historically protected powerful men. Yet they are also slightly uneasy at the weird energy behind this movement, a weird energy it is sometimes hard to pin down.
Here are some things these professional women said to me on the condition that their names be withheld:
I think “believe all women” is silly. Women are unreliable narrators also. I understand how hard it is to come forward, but I just don’t buy it. It’s a sentimental view of women. . . . I think there is more regretted consent than anyone is willing to say out loud.
If someone had sent me the Media Men list ten years ago, when I was twenty-five, I would have called a harmlessly enamored guy a stalker and a sloppy drunken encounter sexual assault. I’d hate myself now for wrecking two lives.
One thing people don’t say is that power is an aphrodisiac. . . . To pretend otherwise is dishonest.
What seems truly dangerous to me is the complete disregard the movement shows for a sacred principle of the American criminal justice system: the presumption of innocence. I come from Mexico, whose judicial system relied, until 2016, on the presumption of guilt, which translated into people spending decades, sometimes lifetimes, in jail before even seeing a judge.
I have never felt sexually harassed. I said this to someone the other day, and she said, “I am sure you are wrong.”
Al Franken asked for an investigation and he should have been allowed to have it; the facts are still ambiguous, the sources were sketchy.
Why didn’t I get hit on? What’s wrong with me? #WhyNotMeToo
I think #MeToo is a potentially valuable tool that is degraded when women appropriate it to encompass things like “creepy DMs” or “weird lunch ‘dates.’” And I do not think touching a woman’s back justifies a front page in the New York Times and the total annihilation of someone’s career.
I have a long history with this feeling of not being able to speak. In the early Nineties, death threats were phoned into Shakespeare and Company, an Upper West Side bookstore where I was scheduled to give a reading from my book The Morning After.That night, in front of a jittery crowd and a sprinkling of police, I read a passage comparing the language in the date-rape pamphlets given out on college campuses to Victorian guides to conduct for young ladies. When I read at universities, students who considered themselves feminists shouted me down. It was an early lesson in the chilling effect of feminist orthodoxy.
But social media has enabled a more elaborate intolerance of feminist dissenters, as I just personally experienced. Twitter, especially, has energized the angry extremes of feminism in the same way it has energized Trump and his supporters: the loudest, angriest, most simplifying voices are elevated and rendered normal or mainstream.
In 1996, a six-year-old boy with Coke-bottle glasses, Johnathan Prevette, was suspended from school for sexual harassment after kissing a little girl on the cheek. This was widely interpreted as a sign of excess: as the New York Times put it, a “doctrine meant to protect against sexual harassment might have reached a damaging level of absurdity.” Yet I wonder what would happen today. Wouldn’t feminists be tweeting, “Don’t first grade girls have a right to feel safe?” Wouldn’t the new whisperers keep quiet?
One thing that makes it hard to engage with the feminist moment is the sense of great, unmanageable anger. Given what men have gotten away with for centuries, this anger is understandable. Yet it can also lead to an alarming lack of proportion. Rebecca Traister, one of the smartest and most prominent voices of the #MeToo movement, writes:
The rage that many of us are feeling doesn’t necessarily correspond with the severity of the trespass: Lots of us are on some level as incensed about the guy who looked down our shirt at a company retreat as we are about Weinstein, even if we can acknowledge that there’s something nuts about that, a weird overreaction.
At first glance, this seems honest and insightful of her. She seems, for a moment, to recognize the energy that is unnerving some of us, an anger not interested in making distinctions between Harvey Weinstein and the man looking down your shirt—an anger that is, as Traister herself puts it, “terrifyingly out of control.” But weirdly, she also seems to be fine with it, even roused. When Trump supporters let their anger run terrifyingly out of control, we are alarmed, and rightly so. Perhaps Traister should consider that “I am so angry I am not thinking straight” is not the best mood in which to radically envision and engineer a new society. Read the rest of this entry »
Disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein settled on a $10 million sale price for a Hamptons mansion he bought three years ago for $11.4 million
The hits just keep coming for publicly pilloried and legally embattled film and television super-producer Harvey Weinstein and his red carpet gown designer soon-to-be-ex-wife Georgina Chapman who took a staggering $1.4 million loss, not counting carrying costs, improvement expenses and real estate fees, on the sale of a bay front mansion in the sleepy Hamptons community of Amagansett, New York.
The May-December former couple, he’s nearly 25 years her senior, settled on a sale price of $10 million for the estate they purchased in June 2014 for $11.4 million from nine-time Tony winning Broadway producer Roy Furman (“Spamalot,” “The Book of Mormon” and the recent revival of “Hello, Dolly”). Read the rest of this entry »
The posters appeared in several locations in Los Angeles.
In posters that appeared in several locations in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Meryl Streep was seemingly depicted as a Harvey Weinstein enabler by anonymous street artists.
Posters hung early in the morning, before the sun came up, feature an image of Streep next to Weinstein with a red strip across her face with the text “She knew,” an apparent reference to Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse of women over the course of decades.
The posters are a riff on the work of artist Barbara Kruger, whose signature text in red banners has been adapted and copied for decades.
” …people are wondering how Harvey can live with himself after all he’s done — the years of sexually predatory behavior. The answer is: with the help of a lot of drugs.”
Emily Smith writes: Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was spotted aboard a commercial flight in first class with a huge haul of prescription drugs.
As revealed exclusively on “Page Six TV” Thursday, Weinstein was photographed opening a sturdy silver case filled with an astonishing amount of prescription pill bottles and medications as he sat in first class on a plane at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in December last year before his sexual harassment scandal broke — in full view of other passengers and the flight crew.
The source, who gave the picture exclusively to Page Six, said, “Many people are wondering how Harvey can live with himself after all he’s done — the years of sexually predatory behavior. The answer is: with the help of a lot of drugs.”
The source said that when another passenger on the plane who recognized Weinstein asked about his impressive pharmaceutical stash, Weinstein explained, “Oh, I’ve got a cold.”
A different source familiar with Weinstein over the years told us, “He always had that briefcase of drugs. He carries his whole medicine cabinet with him — even stuff he isn’t taking at the time.” Read the rest of this entry »
Brent Lang and Elizabeth Wagmeister report: Harvey Weinstein’s implosion has been cathartic for Lauren Sivan, one of the dozens of women who have come forward in recent days alleging that the once-celebrated mogul was a serial sexual harasser and abuser. It’s a moment of justice and public condemnation that seemed all but impossible to imagine mere weeks ago when Weinstein enjoyed a position as one of the most powerful figures in media, a skilled operator whose connections stretched from Capitol Hill to Wall Street and whose sense of entitlement knew no bounds.
“You reap what you sow,” says Sivan. “I know that he believed for years that he was untouchable, and a lot of people helped him be untouchable.”Weinstein’s precipitous fall has been stunning, if not a long time coming. He’s been fired from his own company, ostracized by his longtime friends and collaborators in the entertainment industry, transformed from power player to butt of late-night talk-show jokes, ditched by his wife and abandoned by the Democratic political leaders who once coveted his endorsement. The Weinstein Co. is weighing a sale to Colony Capital.
Along with Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly and L.A. Reid, Weinstein is a sign that the old methods that stars and top executives used to cover up their sins isn’t working. Their praetorian guards of lawyers and spin-makers, their penchant for paying hush money to victims and making them sign draconian nondisclosure agreements that prevent them from going public, can no longer buy silence.
Hollywood’s veil of secrecy has been pierced, and such complicity and enabling may no longer be tolerated in a company town that has long protected its own.
“We are shining a bright light on aggressors and powerful offenders as an example to every other employee out there,” says TV commentator Wendy Walsh, one of O’Reilly’s accusers.
CREDIT: PETER STRAIN FOR VARIETY
As the chorus of accusers grows daily and as Weinstein finds himself isolated and abandoned by the A-list stars and directors he once claimed as friends, the conversation in Hollywood is pointing to a major shift. The hope in the industry is that the alleged abhorrent behavior by Weinstein and the other perpetrators will trigger some genuine soul-searching across the entertainment business and beyond.
Instead of simply inspiring big names in the industry to release anodyne statements that are light on substance and heavy on synonyms for deplorable, there’s an urge to have a deeper conversation about how to improve the climate and culture in Hollywood so whistle-blowers are supported and predators aren’t rewarded with corner offices, private jets and a license to operate with impunity. Read the rest of this entry »
Media outlets ironically wrung their hands and asked in big, bold block letters: How could this have gone on for so long? If everyone knew, why didn’t anyone say anything? And the inevitable: What can be done?
To answer these questions, let’s look beyond the Harvey-shaped elephant in the room. Behind the touted veneer of creative genius and imagination, the Hollywood studio system (an umbrella term that now encompasses movie studios, television networks, news organizations, tech companies and new media) was built on top of the cushions of the casting couch. And, as we’ve seen several times this year, that couch was never retired.
I witnessed a lot at Page Six — only a fraction of which ever hit the paper (for a multitude of reasons). But I will share one incident in May 2004 that has always summed up for me how this industry really feels about women.
I had gone to dinner with a friend who was in town for the upfronts (the big annual congregation where television network executives fly in from Los Angeles and present their upcoming slates of new shows). He worked at United Talent Agency and was psyched when I scored us an 8 p.m. reservation at the hottest place in town, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market, unfortunately, next to a table of three drunk and loud television executives, one of whom I knew headed up a cable network.
“I need a hooker while I’m in town,” one man quasi-yelled.
“Dude — the top-shelf whores go for $1,000 an hour, $5,000 a night,” the cable exec bragged to his friends.
“That’s all? All night?”
“All night — whatever you want — and these are working actresses.”
“No way — who are we talking about?”
The executive, in between ordering more bottles of Patron silver, proceeded to bray out the names of women who were indeed working actresses as well as models — including one woman who was cast in a show on his network. He was her boss.
“How do you think she got the job?” the executive joked, as the others high-fived him.
That incident always ate at me — it was the crystallization of just how lousy it is out there for women trying to either get a job, do their job or advance in one of the most powerful industries in America. Read the rest of this entry »
The FBI has opened an investigation into disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein for alleged sex crimes, DailyMail.com has learned – on orders from Trump’s DoJ.
The FBI has opened an investigation into Harvey Weinstein for alleged sex crimes, DailyMail.com has exclusively learned on Wednesday
Three women, including Actress Asia Argento and Lucia Evans, have come forward and claimed the producer forced himself on them sexually
The DOJ’s order is likely to be seen in a political light given Weinstein’s friendship with President Trump’s defeated rival Hillary Clinton
Weinstein donated heavily to Clinton and although she said she was shocked and dismayed by his actions, she hasn’t returned any of his contributions
The 65-year-old is said to be planning to depart for Europe in order to receive professional treatment and go to sex therapy in wake of the scandal
His hasty international departure sparks fears of a Roman Polanski-style situation, where he dodges prosecution in the U.S
Polanski has managed to avoid US officials since he plead guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old in 1978
Ryan Parry reports: The FBI has opened an investigation into Harvey Weinstein, DailyMail.com has exclusively learned.
DailyMail.com understands the move came at the behest of the Department of Justice, run by Donald Trump‘s Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which instructed the bureau to investigate the mounting allegations leveled at the movie mogul.
While it is unknown whether the DOJ order came directly from Sessions, the move is likely to be seen in a political light given Weinstein’s friendship with Trump foe Hillary Clinton.
The move by the DOJ came amid rumors that Weinstein plans to head to Europe for sex rehab – leading to fears of a Roman Polanski-style situation where he dodges prosecution in the U.S.
The FBI can both look at whether he has committed any federal crimes in the U.S. and prepare extradition proceedings if he remains in Europe.
The FBI has opened an investigation into disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein for alleged sex crimes, DailyMail.com has exclusively learned
Among the allegations against Weinstein, which the FBI is expected to examine, is that he forced Lucia Evans, a student who wanted to be an actress, to perform oral sex on him in New York in 2004.
New York State has no statute of limitations on rape and criminal sexual acts – its legal term for forced oral or anal intercourse.
The move came at the behest of the Department of Justice, run by Donald Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The move is likely to be seen in a political light given Weinstein’s friendship with Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton.
Hollywood powerhouse Weinstein has traveled the globe promoting his movies and the belief is that he could have committed sex crimes in several countries.
So far five accusers have given accounts of attacks in France, while allegations of attacks in London have also surfaced – any of which could lead to charges there.
The FBI has field offices in both countries and could assist prosecutors there with their cases.
A spokesperson for the FBI in New York said: ‘We do not confirm or deny the existence of ongoing investigations.’ Read the rest of this entry »
In a now-deleted Instagram post, Lohan faces the camera and offers support for the mogul rather than his alleged victims: ‘I think everyone needs to stop; I think it’s wrong. So stand up.’
Chris Gardner reports: On a day filled with explosive news about Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced and troubled film mogul has found an ally in Lindsay Lohan.
The actress attempted to throw water on the fiery Weinstein story by posting a series of clips on Instagram’s Stories feature. After introducing herself on her own account with, “Hi, this is Lindsay Lohan” followed by a wave to the camera, the 31-year-old announces that she is “home” in Dubai. Then came a plea to get everyone to stop.
“I feel very bad for Harvey Weinstein right now. I don’t think it’s right what’s going on,” Lohan said. “I think Georgina [Chapman] needs to take a stand and be there for her husband.”
The latter statement came in a second clip added to the same story, this one with an angel emoji inserted under the name “Harvey.”
Apparently Lohan missed the breaking news from earlier in the day when the Marchesa designer Chapman, who has been married to Weinstein since 2007, announced to People that she was leaving him in the wake of a new batch of horrifying allegations published in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Chapman asked for privacy as she cares for the couple’s two young children. “My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions,” she said. Some of those women went on the record in today’s published reports, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Rosanna Arquette, Asia Argento, Mira Sorvino, Lucia Evans, Judith Godrèche, Tomi-Ann Roberts, Katherine Kendall and Dawn Dunning.
In her clip, Lohan said that she was not among those hurt by Weinstein. “He’s never harmed me or did anything to me. We’ve done several movies together. I think everyone needs to stop; I think it’s wrong. So stand up,” she said, before signing off.
lindsay lohan (and her whack accent) is defending Harvey Weinstein on her insta rn. GOODBYE TO YOU FOREVER. pic.twitter.com/aMzvAOXPYp
Wrong is a word that has been used many times, but on the other side of the fence by those who have spoken out against Weinstein’s alleged misconduct. Barack and Michelle Obama picked “disgusting” for their statement as they were just two of the many high-profile names who released statements today, showing how far-reaching this scandal is. Read the rest of this entry »
The liberal talk show host and conservative Breitbart editor tried to find common ground during an 11-minute discussion, which made national headlines earlier this week after previously scheduled Real Time guest The Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill dropped out of the show to protest Yiannopoulos’ booking.
“The Democrats are the party of Lena Dunham. These people are mental, hideous people, and the more that America sees of Lena Dunham, the fewer votes that the Democratic Party is going to get.”
James Hibberd reports: Bill Maher and Milo Yiannopoulos had their controversial showdown on HBO’s Real Time on Friday night, though there were fewer sparks than some had perhaps expected.
“I wrote a bad review of the movie. I said she look like a dude, she does. I said she’s barely literate, she is.”
The liberal talk show host and conservative Breitbart editor tried to find common ground during an 11-minute discussion, which made national headlines earlier this week after previously scheduled Real Time guest The Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahilldropped out of the show to protest Yiannopoulos’ booking.
“And I simply don’t accept that the star of a Hollywood blockbuster is sitting in a Hollywood mansion crying over mean words on the internet; get over it. Mean words on the internet don’t hurt anyone,”
“The reason [liberals] want to police humor is they can’t control it — because the one thing all authoritarians hate is the sound of laughter,” Yiannopoulos said.
“Nothing annoys people like the truth. Policing humor for racism and sexism is utterly wrongheaded. Not because normally it’s not there, but because that’s how we build bridges and not how we break them.”
“And also because when people laugh they know it’s true,” Maher agreed. “… You are so helped by the fact that liberals always take the bait.”
“I hurt people for a reason. I like to think of myself as a virtuous troll.”
“Nothing annoys people like the truth,” Yiannopoulos concurred. “Policing humor for racism and sexism is utterly wrongheaded. Not because normally it’s not there, but because that’s how we build bridges and not how we break them.”
Yet Yiannopoulos made blatant sexist comments during the interview, criticizing Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman as people who “used to be funny before they contracted feminism.” Read the rest of this entry »
Congratulations, genius. You’re setting out to make a movie that will annoy more than 60 million Americans who responsibly own firearms. What a great marketing strategy that will be! Why, this new project will take … the same oh-so-courageous-and-tediously-didactic path as the anti-war films Lions for Lambs and Rendition, two films which bombed at the box office in 2007, both of which also starred … Meryl Streep.
“I’m making a movie that the NRA will hate…”
— Weinstein
Let’s muse on the irony, though, of Harvey Weinstein making this declaration. How much gunfire went into Pulp Fiction, which he exec-produced? The 2008 Rambo sequel? Jackie Brown?
‘Like a Pimp Who Thinks He’s Helping Women in the Workforce’
Harvey Weinstein: Makes a fortune on movies featuring obscene gun violence. Enjoys the protection of armed bodyguards. But doesn’t want you, or anyone else, to have guns.
The Five was not amused by big-time Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein saying he’s going to make a movie that basically trashes the NRA, calling him out as a typical Hollywood hypocrite who makes money off violent films. Greg Gutfeld in particular was bothered by Weinstein’s “fundamental hatred of people who have to protect themselves” and called him a “jackass.”
Eric Bolling brought up movies like Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained, violent movies that Weinstein was involved in the production of. Bolling said Weinstein’s just talking out of his ass, and clashed with Bob Beckel over the NRA itself, with Beckel calling them “right-wing jerks” who run a “horrible” organization.
Despite the botched launch of Obamacare, the United States as a whole, because of its opposition to the health-care law and support of gun rights, is still more of an embarrassment than the president, said film executive Harvey Weinstein. He also asserted that then-senator Obama wouldn’t have been “beating” on George W. Bush if Bush had rolled out a dysfunctional program as president.
Weinstein, a big donor to the president, downplayed the problems with Obamacare’s implementation and the misleading promise that Americans could keep their insurance plans, saying:
Obama “made a mistake — he’s human.”
“This is the only country in the world where we don’t have a health-care,” he told CNN’s Piers Morgan over the weekend “Countries embarrass us around the world — this is the only country in the world where we don’t have a gun law.”
“Obama’s not embarrassing — the country’s embarrassing”
Roger L. Simon writes: Every year at this time, my house turns into a version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Disney’s Fantasia, with endless brooms and buckets descending on hapless Mickey Mouse. Only the brooms and buckets are DVDs of the year’s movies sent to me, as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to garner my Oscar vote. Like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the process begins as a benign, hopeful experience but then can turn almost nightmarish, as flick after flick shows up at my door, my will to watch declining with each new arrival. And this year hasn’t even begun so benignly. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re just inviting you to take a timeout into the rhythmic ambiance of our breakfast, brunch and/or coffee selections. We are happy whenever you stop by.