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crazycoke-addict · 6 years

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My Thoughts on the Me Too Movement

The Me Too Movement has been having media attention since the fall of Harvey Weinstein in October. Since, than many survivors have come up and said that a certain powerful human being has either harassed, assaulted, raped or abused them at some point in their lives and majority of the times, they aren’t the only person whose the victim of the powerful. However, although I’m all for survivors keeping out and speaking, there are parts where I sometimes not all for the me too movement when it comes to Hollywood.

Many people believe that the Me Too Movement started because white celebrities like Alyssa Milano started the hashtag on twitter. The Me Too Movement was founded by a black woman named Tarana Burke in 2009, it was movement to help unprivileged black women who have been sexually assaulted, abused, harassed or rape in workplace find a voice and don’t be silence anymore. In October 2017, Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault, harassment and rape by many women including A list actresses like Angelina Jolie. Although you could say it’s brave that these women has come and said there story, Harvey Weinstein has been in the Hollywood industry since 1979. Since than he has met a lot of celebrities like Quentin Tarantino, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. He’s also met the Clintons and the Trumps. Harvey Weinstein was around a lot of celebrities and most of them have said that they knew about what Weinstein was doing behind the scenes and I’m pretty sure other celebrities who have become the victim of Harvey Weinstein probably knew that they weren’t the only ones. I sometimes I have a problem when victims come out and their incident took place in 1980s, like I understand that people have a right to choose if they want to talk, but you need to understand there are going to be some consequences. To me, it seems like your career and fame was more important, you takes photos of you and your abuser together knowing what he has done, rather than speak up after what happened so another women doesn’t become a victim. Harvey Weinstein has victims who were non-famous, but the famous ones didn’t do or say shit and look what happened, you were the 15th victim, you probably known he added 75 or more victims after you and you didn’t say anything at all and when you do you act like you didn’t know even though it’s a possibility that you could have known.

My problem with the me Too is it seems like the victims are racing to social media rather than go to the police or they aren’t doing anything to take down their abuser. It’s ok to share your story, but saying that you won’t press charges on the person who caused you pain is going to affect the other victims that they’ll have in the future or if only one victim decides to press charges, you aren’t going to press charges to help her out. This is why I can’t show any sympathy towards the women who accused Roman Polanski of assault back in the 1970s. It’s like “Where were you, when Samantha Geimer was going through the trial and the media at the age of 14?”. Not only that, they want Samantha to help them out, but this time, you are your own. She went through with the trial, she had to hear what media had to say about her and also it’s choice if she wants to forgive Roman Polanski as well. That all goes out to Charlotte Lewis who also accused Polanski of rape back in 2010, the incident took place in 1983. Since these allegations on Polanski happened during the 70s, while they were only a teen and Charlotte Lewis started speaking out in 2010, her being the only one to do so like Samantha Geimer was the only victim to speak out back in 1977. those same victims who were upset with Samantha would’ve been an adult in 2010, but you still stay silent letting Samantha and Charlotte to suffer not at the hands of Roman Polanski but also at hands of the media as well. When you choose not to speak out early, it’s gonna cause some consequences.

False Accusations are Real and we need to be careful, who we believe when it comes to the me too movement. Just become someone talked about how they were disrespected by a celebrity or that celebrity touched them inappropriately that doesn’t mean that they are telling the truth or even 100% victim because when their story gets out, they’ll have a lot of praises saying how “brave” they are for speaking, but when somebody finds the evidence that a whole different story. Junot Diaz was accused of “misogynistic” and “bullying” when a girl asked him about a character in his book. The girl also stated that he yelled and public humiliated her, but someone found the audio of the incident and uploaded it to sound cloud, in the audio you can clearly can tell that he is defending his work but he isn’t yelling at her or saying misogynistic words towards her or even public humiliated her as what she stated in her story. 49ers player Rueben Foster was accused by his ex of domestic violence, but it was revealed by the ex that it was all a lie because she’s still bitter about the break up. Catfish star, Nev Schulman was accused of harassing a woman and also “reevaluate” her sexuality by sleeping with her. The allegations on Schulman was found not credible and without merit. I’m also skeptical when it comes to the four victims of Ed Westwick and it’s not because he’s handsome, but it’s weird that two of victims dated the same producer, changed their months when it was revealed that Ed Westwick wasn’t in LA as she said and also how the biggest mistake was that fourth victim didn’t leave but instead took a show after what happened. People accusing celebrities of something that they didn’t do isn’t new. Brian Bank has been falsely accused of rape. Keanu Reeves was falsely accused of hypnosis and impregnating a woman. False Accusations do happened and before you started hating on the guy who’s been called a “Rapist” even though he isn’t convicted as one, you should understand that the “victim” you support might be a money grabber or trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.

I might sound harsh, but that’s how I feel ok. I don’t think me too is a witch hunt and it’s also seems like saviours to the real victims, but when it comes to false accusations and how Hollywood acted like they started the me Too because actresses started speaking out even though they were silence because the career and fame was more important than a non-famous victim’s pain and suffering. I do have a fair share of Favourite celebrities but some of them are fake as well. I sympathise with the victims who have been trying to expose people like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Tambor and R.Kelly before the me too movement. I also sympathises with victims like Samantha Geimer, Charlotte Lewis, Dylan Farrow and Sparkle who didn’t chose to be quiet and wait for social media to blow up and went through with the courts and trials. celebrities say they side with the victims, but they work with people like Woody Allen or even Roman Polanski and call them the greatest directors of all time. Academy Awards banning Polanski and Cosby is nothing more than a publicity stunt to make themselves look good because this is the same award that Roman Polanski won for best movie director. ‪I also sympathise with people like Corey Feldman who is using his voice to expose the pedophilia ring that been going in Hollywood because we have IT and Stranger Things Kid who could be a fallen victim of these powerful men who want to abuse their power.‬

#me too movement #tarana burke #alyssa milano #angelina jolie #rose mcgowan #oprah winfrey #quentin tarantino #harvey weinstein #kevin spacey #bill clinton #roy moore #donald trump #junot diaz #ed westwick

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nclkafilms · 6 years

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Between pain and anger

(Review of ‘Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri’, seen in Nordisk Film Biografer Kennedy in Aalborg on the 16th of January 2018)

There is a lot of pain and equal amount of anger flowing from every corner of fictional town Ebbing, Missouri in Martin McDonagh’s (In Bruges) newest film featuring said town in its title. However, it is in between the often explosive (and outrageously funny) instances of pain and anger that the film find its true power with some gut-wrenching and heart-breaking scenes showcasing the love, sorrow and longing for redemption that hides behind the hard-hitting facades of every character. Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is certainly the most well-rounded of McDonagh’s films to date as it takes him beyond his Tarantino-like and Coen-esque style, positioning himself as a unique film maker with heart, humour and a perfect sense for the hard-hitting obscurities of everyday life.

The title’s trio of billboards is the driving force that kick starts the film’s story of pain, anger and redemption as Frances McDormand’s Mildred puts up the three billboards asking the police chief in huge capital letters (literally) how come her daughter’s murder has never been solved. This sets off a series of events that places Mildred and the local authorities in a face-off fuelled by Mildred’s sorrow-induced anger towards the police and their incompetences. What could so easily have become a singular, superficial revenge story becomes an intricate, surprising and deepfelt story of looking for meaning in a seemingly meaningless life in the hands of McDonagh, who never choses a side in the battle.

Despite the cast being pure class judged solely on the names involved, I was still surprised as to just how well they portrayed the damned, defeated and more or less lost souls that is the citizens of Ebbing, Missouri. Leading the lot is the lady, rightfully, on everyone’s lips: Frances McDormand. Her turn as Mildred is not just a perfectly tailored fit for her persona and abilities, it also feels as one of these rare occasions where an actor and her character blends perfectly to create something that lifts a film to another level. Mildred is explosive in her aggression, razor-sharp in her societal critique and, yet, painfully vulnerable in her unresolved sorrow that she so desperately tries to deal with in her constant confrontations with the people surrounding her.

The supporting cast is awe-inspiring as well. Sam Rockwell is the definition of a showstopper as racist, violent, bigot police officer, Dixon, who seems to be the personification of the dumb-witted, yet superior, white police officer. A character that it almost seem impossible to have the slightest empathy towards as he fights his way through town spewing one hateful slur after the other. However, McDonagh has written a character of such complexity, masterfully portrayed by Rockwell, that it’s hard not to feel for him at all as he becomes more and more lost in his unresolved anger. In a more controlled, yet equally hard-hitting, role, Woody Harrelson portrays the police chief mentioned in the billboards. His character - as nuanced as Mildred and Dixon - is in many ways the pivotal axis around which the entire story unfolds. His meetings with Mildred are poignant and increasingly powerful and his chemistry with Dixon is both hilarious and sad. Also turning in great performances are the likes of Lucas Hedges (as Mildred’s struggling son), John Hawkes (as Mildred’s violent ex-husband), Caleb Landry Jones (as the advertiser selling the billboards) and Peter Dinklage (as the town midget).

As in In Bruges, McDonagh has created an insanely clever and extremely funny story with a sharp-tongued script that does not hold back in its criticism of society (and especially the American police). However, where Three Billboards really establishes McDonagh as a masterful filmmaker is when the dark humour, outrageous comedy and bloody violence threatens to derail the story from its core. Time and again he pulled the rug from under me (and the remaining audience) by introducing surprisingly painful, slow paced and emotional scenes. Scenes that hit even harder when surrounded by the kind of humour that we have already come to love McDonagh for.

These scenes are only made even more powerful by Carter Burwell’s beautiful, yet quite anonymous, score that peacefully accompanies the film bringing the pace down and introducing a beauty to the otherwise slightly depressive and god-forsaken tales of Ebbing. That being said, it is in the use of country songs in certain scenes that the film hit its emotional peak. Some scenes still haunt me today and they will continue to do so. The cinematography from Ben Davis is very naturalistic and subtle, which seems like a perfect fit to the sometimes obscure happenings of the story; the images always keep it in a shape that reminds us of how real this is.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is one of the topscoreres of nominations so far in the awards season and seems like a potential Best Picture winner at the Oscars. When watching In Bruges back in 2008, I did not see McDonagh creating a film of such complexity or emotional power as this one, but I am ecstatic that it is the case. An original filmmaker of rare quality. It’s been a long time since a film has made me cry of tears one second only to produce a lump the size of McDormand’s bad-assedness in my throat the next second. That is why I love films.

5/5

#Academy Awards #Oscar Warm-Up #Oscars #Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri #Martin McDonagh #Frances McDormand #Sam Rockwell #Woody Harrelson #Lucas Hedges #John Hawkes #Caleb Landy Jones #Peter Dinklage #Carter Burwell #Ben Davis #film review #movie review

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glittergummicandypeach · 4 years

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How a Stars and Stripes Hijab on ‘Rupaul’s Drag Race’ Reveals America’s Troubling Relationship to Gender, Ethnicity and ‘That’ Religion | Religion Dispatches

Honestly, we blame ourselves.

We should have known that releasing an episode of Keeping It 101 (A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion Podcast) about religion and RuPaul this past Wednesday meant we were in for some goopery when the next episode of Rupaul’s Drag Race aired two days later.

But how could we have known season 12 contender Jackie Cox would bring a freaking STARS AND STRIPES CAFTAN AND HIJAB to the ball? We. Were. Gagged.

That said: if we had known Ms. Cox would be featuring this garment on tonight, we could’ve clocked Jeff Goldblum’s Islamophobic response from clear across the club. We would’ve told you that women who dress like Cox to express modesty are immediately racialized as Muslim, forced to defend Islam against accusations that it is uniquely hostile toward women and queer people, and especially vulnerable to violence.

The Persian Princess of Drag

Cox has made much of her Iranian heritage, dubbing herself “the Persian Princess of Drag” and tearfully thanking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her advocacy work on behalf of immigrants like Cox’s mother, an American citizen born in Iran. But so far this season—as we literally just said!—Cox has claimed her Iranian-ness solely in racial and cultural terms. Even when commending AOC for “working in Congress in solidarity with Congresswoman Tlaib and Congresswoman Omar,” the first two Muslim women elected to serve in Congress, Cox never said the words ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’.

L to R: Jaida Essence Hall, the now-disgraced Sherry Pie, and Heidi entreat viewers to vote in the November 2020 presidential election while Jackie Cox waves from the top of the runway. See? Subtle. (Screengrab from episode 12)

We assumed that Cox or the producers or both had decided to frame Cox’s story explicitly in terms of racism and immigration, which fit neatly into season 12’s pronounced emphasis on urging viewers toward increased political engagement. (In drag’s grand tradition of understated subtlety, every episode now ends with the remaining queens prancing down the runway waving huge “REGISTER TO VOTE” signs. Image left.)

As religious studies scholars, we were thirsty for more explicit engagement with Cox’s religio-racial heritage. But we allowed that the show’s glossing of anti-Iranian hostility as racism was still important political work: though classified as white, Iranians in the United States (religious or otherwise) often face anti-Muslim hostility, which is related—but not reducible—to American white supremacy.¹ American whiteness is fragile, contested, and—especially for folks associated with Islam—contingent on good behavior. On episode 7, Jackie Cox wept while outing herself as the child of an immigrant from a Muslim-majority country and claiming “this part of [her] heritage that [she] hid for so long.” We were prepared to leave our analysis of Ms. Cox at that: viewers might suspect their Persian Princess had a relationship with Islam, but the show left Jackie’s religious commitments (or lack thereof) safely tucked out of sight.

But then SOMETHING HAPPENED, America.

Salaam RuPaul Joon

Episode 9, “Choices,” had contestants facing off in a debate to become America’s first drag president.² The pinnacle of every episode is the queen’s final runway looks; this week’s theme was “Stars and Stripes Forever.”³ And heeeeeere’s Jackie:

She’s giving us “a beautiful, [red and white] striped, flowing caftan” and “a midnight blue hijab that is outlined in fifty silver stars.” She’s insisting “you can be Middle Eastern, you can be Muslim, and you can still be American.”

In the immortal words of Latrice Royale: she said THAT.

As Jackie Cox swanned down the runway trailing her patriotic caftan behind her, guest judge, dinosaur Zaddy, and Woody Allen defender Jeff Goldblum let out an “oooooh” or a “nooooo.” Either way, it was clear Cox’s look evoked a strong response from Goldblum. Camera held tight on his face for reactions; Goldblum seemed fixated and (to our trained killjoy eye) bordering on disgust.

A smiling Cox faced the judges with a cheery “salaam RuPaul joon!” Veteran judge Carson Kressley called her outfit “beautiful and touching” and said it “makes a political statement;”4 guest judge Rachel Bloom celebrated that Cox’s “simple outfit…says so much” about what “America really is.”5 This presentation primes the viewer to see Cox’s eleganza as boundary-pushing and indicative of something essential about Jackie Cox as a performer.

If you watched the show or you study religion or you exist on the internet, you already know what happened next.

“Are you religious, may I ask?” Goldblum inquired, because OF COURSE HE DID, eyebrows raised above thick black nerd glasses, elbow propped on the judges’ table, supporting a face slouched casually against his hand. Cox replied that she’s not religious and insisted that the importance of her outfit lies in “the visibility religious minorities need to have in this country.”

“Isn’t this an interesting wrinkle, though,” Goldblum continued, waving his hands around his face with pre-COVID abandon. “Is there something in that religion that is anti-homosexuality and anti-woman? Does that complicate the issue?” (emphasis added, and Reader: feel free to pause and hit the shade rattle button if you need to). “I’m just raising it and thinking out loud and maybe being stupid. What do you think?” he concluded.

We’re so glad you asked us that, Jeff Goldblum. Here’s what we think:

Seeing a hijab-wearing woman and dribbling half-baked, anti-Muslim talking points from out the mouth atop your admittedly striking and grizzled jawline does not make us think you’re interesting, Jeff Goldblum. It makes us think you haven’t done your homework.

Islamophobia is Not an “Interesting Wrinkle”

Here’s the T: religion has always been messy on Drag Race—which makes sense, since religion is messy in general. Keeping It 101, like Marie Kondo, loves mess, so you know we had to get into this gig. Whether it means to or not, Drag Race has always given us characters with complicated relationships to religion: Monique Heart’s devout Christianity despite undergoing conversion therapy; Valentina claiming la Virgen de Guadalupe as her drag mother; debates about whose religiously-inspired garments are culturally appropriate and whose are appropriation.

Religion should be messy on Drag Race, we’ve argued, because religion is what people do, and people are some messy bitches. Lived religious experience changes as people change; rarely are people just one thing or one thing all the time or one thing throughout their whole lives. Jackie Cox has been bringing the complexity of her Iranian identity to us every week. But despite Cox asserting her Iranian-ness in terms of culture, national origin, and ethnicity, the judges read her “Stars and Stripes Forever” outfit exclusively and explicitly as religious.

As RuPaul’s longtime co-host Michelle Visage would say: meh.

Look, we’re not surprised. Americans know disturbingly little about pious fashion, which has led to some truly tragic and dehumanizing feature items on nonwestern modesty practices. Most Americans still seem unaware that how people cover their bodies has far more to do with where they are than whether they belong to a particular religious community (though students always nod when we explain that folks going out on the town in New York City dress differently than in, say, Tuscaloosa). Folks who wrinkle their noses at Muslim modest fashion seldom express the same concerns about conservative Christian women in long skirts and long-sleeved blouses. We know how you do, America. We work on racialization and religious intolerance.

As we discussed on our “Religion Is Not Done with You” episode, we also know that Muslim-coded people don’t get to opt out of Islam: “Arab-looking” folks, folks with “Muslim-sounding” names, Sikhs in turbans, folks who dress in “Muslim garb,” all get read as Muslim. Identifying as atheist doesn’t get anyone who can be read as Muslim out of “totally random” TSA pat downs. This is how we racialize Islam, distilling a billion-person millenium-old global religion into one (terrifying, not-American) thing.

So yeah, when Jeff Goldblum looks at Jackie Cox in a hijab and says “that religion,” of course we know what he means. Goldblum doesn’t say “Islam”—in fact, no one says Islam or Muslim for the rest of the episode. No one has to. With this question-cum-critique, Islam became what was happening On Tonight, and Goldblum became every white dude in any audience or classroom who doesn’t think he’s racist, who doesn’t realize he’s part of the problem, and who definitely didn’t do the reading.

That Religion

Goldblum’s use of that here—making Islam “that religion,” unnamed and unsafe for women and queer people—belies the disgust we clocked on his face as Cox brought modest fashion to the runway. He’s asking (though it’s really more of a comment than a question) whether the religion he projects onto Cox’s queer, feminine-presenting body hates her queer, feminine-presenting self; hates all women and queers.

Goldblum is asking Cox if Islam hates her, the beautiful queen standing before him, who chose to wear this clothing to represent herself and her communities. Goldblum begs the question of Islam-as-oppressive, as though expecting Cox to thank him for liberating her with his tired, basic question.

Dinosaur Zaddy, WYD? Why are you proving our point by assuming folks who look like Muslims must be religious—immediately racializing and pigeon-holing literal billions of people? Why would you assume you already know everything you need to know about Islam?

Oh, right. Because you’re American, and America is that girl. We knew she was.

Cox, to her credit, ignored the bigotry and argued for complexity: “I’m not [religious],” she told Goldblum. “I have my own misgivings about how LGBT people are treated in the Middle East, and at the same time, I am one. But…when the Muslim ban happened, it really destroyed a lot of my faith in this country, and it really hurt my family.” (Jeff Goldblum, open-mouthed, nodded along as Cox spoke.) “I’m here, and I deserve to be in America as much as anyone else.”

In a challenge meant to celebrate American inclusivity, Cox had to share her personal trauma and champion religious freedom (very American of her, no?) so as not to have to defend a religion of 1.9 billion people (Islam), a nation-state of 82 million (Iran), and an immigrant community already under siege.

Goldblum’s comments are dangerous. Characterizing Islam as inherently anti-LGBTQ, anti-women, anti-anything, really, falsely collapses the complexity of Islam and Muslims into a conservative anti-American monolith—while letting America off the hook for the very real damage it’s doing to women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and Muslims every day, and with increased urgency during our nation’s public health crisis.

We the People

Standing on the stage in front of the judges, Cox—like so many women who cover—found the complexity of her identity reduced to the fabric on her head. Despite not being religious, Drag Race stripped her complicated performance down to its proximity to Islam. It might be too much to expect a campy televised game show to give us realness about religion, except that historically, that’s exactly what Drag Race has done.

Shepard Fairey’s “We the People Are Greater than Fear.”

RuPaul loves a reference, but no one on that judges panel seemed to get that Cox’s caftan and hijab were inspired by Shepard Fairey’s “WE THE PEOPLE are greater than fear,” part of a poster series created in response to the 2016 election [image left].

Many people carried this image during nation-wide Women’s Marches in January 2017 to protest the 45th president’s inauguration. The poster inspired praise (for including a modest Muslim woman as a symbol of American patriotism) and criticism (for implying Muslims need to support American militarism and imperialism to be “truly” American).

Not all Muslim women feel liberated by the image Cox is referencing; as Muslim fashion blogger Hoda Katebi says, “Know that Muslims are tired of having to ‘prove’ they are American [and] know that one does not need to be American to deserve respect, humanity, dignity, equality, rights and freedom from hate and bigotry. An over-emphasis on being American as a prerequisite of deserving respect is harmful for immigrants and refugees.”

How a woman (or a man dressed as one) engages with religion (or not) is not something you can tell by looking at her. Muslim women are more than what they put (or not) on their heads. Looking at a woman who covers and assuming she’s an observant Muslim contributes to the racialization of Muslims—the fear that Muslims are too different, too dangerous, to be allowed to be fully American. Asking a female-presenting person who covers her head with a hijab whether Islam hates women or queers implies that the woman needs saving, that she hasn’t chosen to dress herself in a way she knows makes her a more likely target for hate speech and violence. Assuming Islam hates Muslim women or queer Muslims is some white nonsense: Islam hates nothing; all religions are made up of people.

Assuming a Muslim woman or a queer Muslim must be especially at risk because of their religious belonging collapses a long, complex history of gender relations in Islam into a soundbite that makes the internet yell at you, Jeff Goldblum. It ignores that many religions, including Islam, can and do contribute to both the empowerment and the oppression of women. Because religion is what people do, DinoZaddy, and history has shown us that people oppress women.

When you look at a woman who covers her head and assume you know everything worth knowing about her, Jeff Goldblum, you make an ass out of you. And us, as it turns out, for releasing our hot take on RuPaul and religion too early to yell about this on the air. Better luck next season, we guess.

In the meantime: salaam, Khanoom Jackie Cox joon. Thank you for not turning your pious fashion runway moment into a reveal. We stan.

1 Check out the Islamophobia Is Racism syllabus and especially Neda Maghbouleh’s excellent Limits of Whiteness (Stanford 2017) for more on this religio-racial tension.

2 Again. Season 4 episode 9, “Frock the Vote,” featured precisely this format — but that was before the show hit basic cable and expanded its mainstream viewership. This is probably for the best, as Chad Michaels’ “LadyPimp” platform has not aged well. And PhiPhi O’Hara’s calling Black queens “the help” didn’t play well even then.

3 Personally, we would have gone with “Amer-I-Can!” but we’re still waiting for our recruiting call from the show’s producers.

4 Speaking of political statements: don’t even get us started on Carson telling Widow that she came off as an angry Black woman, or on the fact that the lipsync for your life literally pitted a Black queen against a hijabi queen while declaring the white queen in ACTUAL IMPERIAL GARB safe. We cannot even.

5 Bloom called America “a nation of immigrants,” which obviously obscures the genocidal violence perpetrated against the Indigenous peoples of what is now the United States and against those forcibly removed and enslaved to become the bedrock of this country’s economy.

This content was originally published here.

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lodelss · 5 years

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Soraya Roberts | Longreads | February 2019 | 10 minutes (2,500 words)

At the end of An Open Secret, the 2015 documentary by Amy J. Berg about child sex abuse in Hollywood, a card reads: “The filmmakers emphasize that this is not a gender based issue. We chose to tell these specific stories, but they are representations of a greater issue that affects both boys and girls.” It was an odd thing to read after watching a 99-minute film — one that could not secure a distributor and was self-released on Vimeo — in which no girls were mentioned. Whether or not it was intentional, the statement had the effect of equating the two genders, erasing any nuance that might exist in a male victim versus a female victim. It leaves the impression that the abuse we predominantly talk about — which, in our current climate, targets girls and women — is the standard. So the way girls and women are mistreated and how they react to this mistreatment is how all of us do. The fallout from Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby and R. Kelly is the fallout from Michael Jackson and Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer and Gary Goddard.

Maybe it’s the numbers — according to Dr. Richard Gartner, author of Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Men, twice as many girls (one in three) as boys (one in six) are sexually abused. So girls take priority. But it’s more than that. Rape culture means that when you hear the allegations against Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Jeffrey Epstein, Larry Nassar, you are surprised at the scope of their actions, but not at the gender of their victims. When you see a Hollywood party overflowing with teen girls carted in to appease a room full of grey-haired execs, it is status quo. Casting couches have been around forever, right? But a party full of teen boys, what the hell does that mean?! Maybe my perception of these male-dominated parties is just skewed because I haven’t normalized male sexuality, so when I see it, it appears abnormal. “To me it seems like there is an overrepresentation of young boys being abused, but that can’t be right?” I hear myself waffle while interviewing Anne Henry, co-founder of BizParentz, an advocacy group for child actors. But her response is immediate. “No, it is right,” she says. “It’s not just your perception.”

* * *

The World Health Organization defines child sex abuse as “the involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend and is unable to give informed consent to, or for which the child is not developmentally prepared, or else that violate the laws or social taboos of society.” Here “child” may as well be “girl.” A study of 40 countries from earlier this year found that only five of them — Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Korea — “collect prevalence data for boys related to child sexual exploitation.” The Economist Intelligence Unit also found that the laws and support services are predominantly directed towards girls. “Often this is bundled up into an issue of violence against women, and therefore it is catering to girls rather than boys,” a consultant for EIU told The Guardian. But the bundling makes little sense when you consider the incidence of male child sex abuse. While it is not one in two as it is with girls, the frequency of exploitation — this includes indirect abuse, such as photography — of boys under 16, according to Dr. Gartner, is still fairly high at one in four. Not to mention boys also tend to underreport.

“As a parent, you don’t think about having to protect a boy as much as you imagine that you have to protect a girl,” says BizParentz’ Anne Henry. As a society, we don’t think about it either. We tell girls not to go certain places, and if they do, not to go alone. Few places are off limits to boys and, if anything, they are asked to protect their mothers, sisters, girlfriends. Having said that, Henry, whose three kids were in showbiz, never sent any of them to parties. She’s heard about Bryan Singer’s soirees for decades (which makes you wonder how MANY boys he affected…). “Nobody would send kids there,” she says. But then Henry corrects herself, because of course somebody sent their kids there, but they were specific types of somebodies. They were somebodies from someplaces far away from Hollywood, places like the Midwest, where mom acted as chaperone while dad worked (if there was a dad) and took her kid to talent competitions — Henry calls them “meat markets” — and bought questionable acting classes and hired questionable managers because more people were around telling them that was the right thing to do than that it was the wrongest thing. Per Henry, “From that point on they’ve branded themselves as prey.”

Child actors are particularly good prey when they have less stable family lives — in The Atlantic‘s expose on Bryan Singer, one victim said his mom considered convicted sex offender Marc Collins-Rector a substitute father figure. They are also considered unreliable witnesses — not only are they kids, they lie for a living — and, as aspiring stars, they have everything to lose (three men who spoke about their abuse for the first time to The Atlantic remained anonymous because they still had a “fear of retaliation”). But the most important part of all this is location — Hollywood is a place where real world rules don’t apply. There are no offices there, really, and while sets are protected, parties are not. And parties are work. So it’s not like anything goes, but almost, and if you have enough power, definitely. “There’s a lot of blurring, but that’s why predators invade this work because there’s so much blur,” explains Henry. “They know they can take advantage of grey area, so they do.”

This is the perfect spot for an agent like Martin Weiss, who became so close to one client’s family, that when he sexually assaulted their son, the victim decided not to say anything because, as he said in An Open Secret, Weiss “was really cool, everybody liked him.” (In 2012, Weiss plead no contest to “committing lewd acts” on a child under the age of 14 and was sentenced to a year in county jail.) And for producer Gary Goddard, who was accused of abusing a number of boys on Disneyland rides. And for Kevin Spacey, who Anthony Rapp, then 14 years old, accused of laying on top of him at a party. In Hollywood, work is play is kids is adults is fear is fun is friends is lovers. And while women can be predators too — Gartner quotes one study in which 60 percent of the victims were abused by men, 29 percent by women, 11 percent by both — it’s men who make up the bulk of the predators. And these men tend to present themselves the same way.

In December, writer Mark Harris tweeted about an incident with Bryan Singer in 1997, around the time the media was questioning whether teen boys had been asked to disrobe on the set of Apt Pupil. Harris was one of the few gay editors at Entertainment Weekly in the room at the time and recalled how unusual it was to hear Singer openly admit his sexuality. The filmmaker then said, according to Harris’ paraphrase: “For anyone who wants to take down a gay director in Hollywood, what is the worst thing you can throw at them? That they go after kids. So if anything, I would be EXTRA careful about how I run a set.” In a less permissive decade, this “landed” for the young journalist, who called it, “The perfect way to use your own sexual identity and someone else’s to play them.” Singer was not the only one to use this line — Spacey would attempt it 20 years later to less success — and Harris was not the only one to toe it. Says Henry, “The predators were hiding under the banner of homosexuality.”

No one wants to be the one to accuse a gay man of being a pedophile, particularly in Hollywood, which is supposed to be progressive. So in The Atlantic, Singer is described by one victim as a boundary crosser, while Michael Jackson was recently characterized by his family, in response to Leaving Neverland, a documentary about his alleged abuse of two boys, as a “an easy target because he was unique.” Henry says a number of parents of abuse victims she has encountered have been shocked because they just thought the perpetrator was gay. Similarly, the parties full of young boys were read simply as gay events with a couple of twinks thrown in. Even then, parents weren’t sending their kids to them so much as their kids were making friends at school who had connections to the men hosting. These hosts tended to be publicists, agents, managers, and acting coaches (Henry described them as “vendors” of child actors) who insulated more famous attendees from responsibility. They were also protected by the gender of their victims.

While women are likely to think they’ve been abused because they’re women, men are likely to believe abuse makes them no longer men. “The ideal man is not a victim, is resilient, is in charge of sexual situations, enjoys sex whenever its offered, particularly by a woman,” says Dr. Gartner. The co-founder of MaleSurvivor (formerly the National Organization Against Male Sexual Victimization) explains that because of this mythical ideal, boys find it hard to identify their own abuse, particularly if they’re attracted to their abuser’s gender. “They’re more likely to see that as sexual initiation, at least initially,” he explains, “and often they’ve been told that by the predator as well.” The myths abound: if you are a boy, you should be able to stop it (especially if you are a man, even more especially if you are an ex-footballer like Terry Crews); if you are gay you asked for it; if you become gay, it’s because of it; if you were aroused, it’s because you wanted it; if you were a victim, you will be a perpetrator. None of this is true. But it is true that alleged Singer victim Victor Valdovinos impregnated a girl at 16 to prove he was a man. It is true that alleged Singer victim Cesar Sanchez-Guzman appeared to think telling his parents was equivalent to coming out. It is true that alleged MJ victim James Safechuck describes himself at 10 as having a “sexual couple relationship.” It is true that alleged MJ victim Wade Robson “couldn’t believe” for the longest time that what had happened when he was 7 was bad.

* * *

Two years before Corey Haim died, he made me feel uneasy. I chose to interview him knowing he had had a history of drug addiction, but I didn’t expect him to be that bad. He looked destroyed — sallow, unintelligible, uncomfortable. In the end, all I wanted was to get away; I’m ashamed now by that impulse then. Because that impulse is what protects men like the one that — according to Corey Feldman — raped his best friend when he was just a kid. A man like that has fun at the expense of a child, leaves the child in pieces, and the child spends the rest of their life trying to put those pieces back together as we gawk at the cracks.

“It is very common for both boys and girls to become addicted or compulsive in ways that include sex, include drugs, include alcohol,” says Gartner, “and a lot of it has to do with soothing the pain.” The more you are abused, the worse your prospects — the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services reports that boys who have more than six bad experiences have a more than 4,000 percent chance (that is not a typo) of using intravenous drugs. It’s hard not to think of the number of child actors who were undone by substance abuse — Edward Furlong, Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl, Brian Bonsall, River Phoenix — without wondering what preceded this. It’s hard not to think that the deaths of so many men were because of the men they met when they were boys. It’s hard not to think that we haven’t come very far.

Five years ago Michael Egan filed a lawsuit against Bryan Singer in which he claimed that the filmmaker had assaulted him numerous times when he was just 15. His lawyer held a Gloria Allred-style press conference, but not long after dropped Egan as a client, claiming Egan had lied about two men who were not Singer. In an unrelated incident around the same time he withdrew his suit, Egan was convicted of fraud. “The collapse of the Egan case was a huge win for Singer, creating the lasting impression that the director had been exonerated,” Alex French and Max Potter wrote in The Atlantic. People believed Egan was a liar, which fit the figure he cut — alcoholic, separated, bankrupt, fraudulent — which made him appear less credible than a clean cut success story like Crews or Rapp. But the funny thing is, all of those things that hamper Egan bolster his alleged history of abuse. According to the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, more than half of the kids — boys and girls — who are mistreated are at risk for emotional issues, behavioral issues, substance abuse, and delinquency. And the men who spoke to The Atlantic about Singer say they were left “psychologically damaged, with substance-abuse problems, depression, and PTSD.”

It was being part of a support group, which Egan found through a producer on An Open Secret, that encouraged him to file his lawsuit. Men who end up disclosing later on tend to be precipitated by the realization that they have ruined their life with substances or that they have been unable to maintain any relationships (Gartner notes that they are “introduced to sex as something that happens in a power relationship where one exploits the other.”) Another trigger is having a kid of their own — this prompted the two men in Leaving Neverland to speak out — or that kid turning the age they were when they were abused. Media reports also help, though Gartner says it’s “early days” to tell whether anything has really changed. While Rapp was empowered by the #MeToo movement, abuse can only begin to be dismantled once we acknowledge its nuances with respect to race, sexuality, disability, and also gender. And that involves hearing out all victims, including boys and men. “What one hopes for is that a man would be able to make it less powerful,” says Gartner, “put it in the corner of his consciousness and only bring it out when it needs to be.” Once he talks, the prognosis varies, but to talk is to address — a boy can’t change his history, but it doesn’t have to define his future.

The following resources are available to provide support for boys and men who have experienced, or know someone who has experienced, child sex abuse: malesurvivor.org and 1in6.org.

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Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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nuttysoultimetravel-blog · 6 years

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Actress nATALIE poRTMAN termed the eye for his intensive marketing campaign against the abuses within and out of doors the film

At the start in the yr, while in the supply from the awards Golden Globes, Portman produced wearing black, of mourning, the harassment claimed by the Girls of your guild. “Allow me to share the entire Guys nominated”. The presentation, during which it stressed that there have been no Women of all ages nominated for finest director produced her title in the most outlined on Twitter. In 2016, prior to the premiere of Jackie, by which she performed the 1st lady with the united Jacqueline Kennedy, Portman stressed in an job interview with the magazine Vulture in The shortage of female protagonists: "Many of the movies try to white Adult men, and Every now and then you can find a couple which might be about Girls." After his previous speech in Los Angeles, his denunciation in first human being has served to carry on shaking up an business revolt because of the scandals of harassment and discrimination to women. buy real instagram followers , this 15 of January, Portman went from director Woody Allen, having a "I do consider you, Dylan." The actress confirmed her guidance to Dylan Farrow, adoptive daughter with the director and that he experienced not long ago specified an job interview to bear in mind she experienced complained to Allen for abusing her when she was a lady. Other actresses who participated in a spherical desk dialogue led by the presenter Oprah Winfrey, some of them creators with the platform, Time's Up, nodded in unison. “With thirteen several years in the information of our tradition was obvious: I felt the need to include up my entire body, to inhibit my feelings and my do the job to ship the message to the planet that he was somebody who deserved regard and safety," he explained in the course of his speech, in which he confessed his strategy to defend against that circumstance: constructed a reputation based on a moral, prudish, conservative, nerdy and serious.” It was not the first time that Portman swooped down over the harassment and discrimination. Considering that January is part of your movement Time's Up close to other actresses, screenwriters, and generation providers such as Reese Witherspoon or Emma Stone and Despite the fact that only three months experienced no accounts in social networks, to the start of your yr chose to open a profile on Instagram for his or her grievances to obtain larger dissemination. He has only posted 16 posts and by now has more than 1,000,000 followers During the March of Women, held this Saturday in La, Portman denounced the "terror sexual" that he endured when he was 13 many years outdated, following the popularity that gave him his job from the film Leon, the professional. In front of a crowd, instructed them that the very first letter of the supporter which he received was of a man who was recounting his "fantasies" about raping her. He also discussed that, throughout his teenage many years, the movie critics designed reviews on his "creating breasts" and that an area radio station experienced a countdown right up until he turned eighteen several years old: "it had been the day at which they could head to mattress with me for the reason that it would be lawful". Even though the discourse of Natalie Portman within the March of your Gals in La has impacted many, the activism of actress israeli started out not a few times back. The artist, winner of two Golden Globes for greatest actress for your black swan, and Blinded by motivation, is probably the faces most noticeable from the motion Time's Up, produced at the beginning of the calendar year and that seeks to end sexual abuse inside of and outdoors in the movie marketplace. But just before which the scandal of sexual abuse because of the producer Harvey Weinstein and also other Adult men on the market rocked Hollywood, Portman already alleging work discrimination and wage in the seventh artwork. At 35 decades, its results in are many, but Saturday his speech against gender-dependent violence has achieved a fresh dimension.

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alysena28-blog · 6 years

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Op/Celebrities

An opinion piece about the fashion protest at the Golden Globes, That I reluctantly wrote for The Charlatan. // Link //

tw: sexual abuse

This past week, the 75th annual Golden Globes took place in California. The show ran for three hours, reached an audience of 19 million, and featured Seth Meyers as its host. Beyond the talk of complimentary champagne, the Stranger Things cast, and Oprah Winfrey’s lifetime achievement award, there was a deeper conversation happening.

While watching the award show, you probably noticed the sea of black gowns and suits flooding the red carpet. Many celebrities chose to wear black in support for the Time’s Up legal defence coalition and their #MeToo movement. #MeToo was coined by civil rights activist Tarana Burke. The movement later picked up when actress Alyssa Milano encouraged women to share their experience of sexual harassment or assault on Twitter using the hashtag. The purpose of this hashtag was to create awareness, empathy, and connect women.

From this, the Time’s Up movement took off, starting with a letter of solidarity written by Latina farmworkers, who stand with the men and women in Hollywood who have come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and assault. The letter of solidarity has now gained over 700,000 signatures, and the Time’s Up legal defence coalition has raised almost $17 million to provide subsidized legal support to people who have experienced sexual harassment, assault or abuse.

Already this movement has been quite successful, but it did not end there. This movement extended into the Golden Globes with the help of eight A-list actresses who attended this event accompanied by activists in a range of fields. Along with the political plus-one concept, Time’s Up also organized a demonstration that entailed celebrities wearing all black outfits and Time’s Up enamel pins to show solidarity with survivors of sexual harassment and abuse.

As you can see, #MeToo has come a long way from a Twitter hashtag, but with any widespread political ideology, it is difficult to see if a celebrity’s actions truly align with their morality. It is not difficult to speak up for a cause when a vast majority of people will be supporting you. Therefore, wearing black on the red carpet this past week was actually easier than choosing not to. In fact, many of the celebrities who chose not to wear black were questioned about their choices, ridiculed, and even trolled online. Yet not every celebrity wearing black was questioned about their commitment to the cause.

Celebrities’ legitimacy for the cause is called into question again when we look at their past career choices. Many of these actors in black attire have chosen to work with alleged abusers in Hollywood, such as director Woody Allen, who was publicly accused of molestation by his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow. Many stars who have worked with him have not and refuse to comment on the situation, but continue to support his productions.

Even if these celebrities honestly believed Woody Allen was innocent, shouldn’t they make that opinion vocal, rather than ignore the accusation all together?

It’s hypocrisy if celebrities like Emma Stone and Justin Timberlake continue to wear black and support Time’s Up when they stay silent on actual cases of alleged abuse happening in their circles and inadvertently continue to keep supposedly dangerous men in the industry. I believe that silence is more dangerous than anything on these matters.

So, if celebrities truly want to promote awareness about sexual abuse in the industry, they should air out their dirty laundry first by publicly coming clean about mistakenly supporting men who face sexual violence allegations.

#my writing #charlatan #carleton university

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lodelss · 5 years

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The Lost Boys of #MeToo

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | February 2019 | 10 minutes (2,500 words)

* * *

The following resources are available to provide support for boys and men who have experienced, or know someone who has experienced, child sex abuse: malesurvivor.org and 1in6.org.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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#IFTTT #Blogger

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