Considering a bold denunciation of Harvey Weinstein

40 thoughts on “Considering a bold denunciation of Harvey Weinstein”

1. I think this would a great opportunity for the Trumpenfuhrer to jump in — on the side of old Harve. Americans by now must be really sick of these overpaid, undereducated, narcissistic actresses coming out of the woodwork like weevils exiting a bag of moldy flour, each trying to outdo the other one as to how Harve molested her, rapped her ten, twenty years ago, how George HW patted this one’s butt. How some other clown looked at that one’s cleavage (what else should the guy be looking at — her doctoral dissertation on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?). This is a golden political opportunity for the Trumpenfuhrer — just like with the overpaid narcissistic football players taking a knee when Joe Sixpack wants to watch some hitting and piling on not some demented ding dong on his knees during the national anthem thinking he is making a statement about who knows what.

2. Yes, it is safe for you to denounce Harvey Weinstein; it would be about as meaningful as Mr. Feig doing so. I do think it would be meaningful for you to clearly state (without sarcasm) that people should refrain from the kind of behavior Harvey Weinstein engaged in and from sexual harassment in general. I say this mainly because you have now built up a body of work on the Harvey Weinstein issue which some readers could take as actual support for Mr. Weinstein’s behavior.

   Separately, I think it would be useful for you to exercise the keen eye which caused you to notice the Paul Feig item on individuals with a wider range of political beliefs.

3. Harve may still make a comeback and lose weight. Denounce Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick.

4. If you really want to show such boldness, you could also denounce slavery, and bullying of LGBT kids in schools.

5. Neal: “I do think it would be meaningful for you to clearly state (without sarcasm) that people should refrain from the kind of behavior Harvey Weinstein engaged in and from sexual harassment in general.”

   First, I have no knowledge of “the kind of behavior that Harvey Weinstein engaged in.” I have seen reports of his behavior from people seeking cash and publicity that were broadcast by journalists seeking advertising dollars. But, assuming that there were some real evidence (e.g., a video recording) of his behavior, why should I denounce Harvey Weinstein in particular? While his hotel room encounters were dominating the front pages, for example, 300 people were killed in a car bombing (see http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/16/africa/somalia-attack-deaths/index.html ). If I want to get up on a soapbox regarding a figure from the current headlines, why not “clearly state (without sarcasm) that people should refrain” from killing other people via car bombings?

   [And who would listen to me? Consider the person who already thinks that it is wrong to award roles in movies in exchange for sex. He or she will think it is “more wrong” after hearing my sermon from the soap box? Consider the Hollywood insider who thinks that exchange sex for a movie role is okay. This insider is going to say “Whoa! A computer programmer 3000 miles away disapproves of this way of doing business so I had better change my opinion”?]

6. Okay, if you will not denounce Weinstein seducing white actresses who wanted parts in his movies, could you at least denounce his racism in not similarly seducing black actresses?

7. Go ahead and blather-on about sexual harassment. The subject makes you look fashionable this week. Just remember that Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and the Hollywood rumor mill is the only reason for all the attention. And never forget that ‎Clarence Thomas, the king of sexual harassment is still sitting on the Supreme Court and will be until he is dead.

   So if your cocktail chatter doesn’t include support for Anita Hill and a resounding denunciation of ‎Clarence Thomas as a scumbag, then spare me the noise and just shut the fuck up.

8. philg: You are correct that I should have said “the kind of behavior Harvey Weinstein is alleged to have engaged in” rather than “the kind of behavior that Harvey Weinstein engaged in” since I also have no personal knowledge of what happened in any of the situations which have been reported. I will note that you yourself are not always so fastidious about not assuming facts or ascribing motive to situations which have been reported in the media and about which you don’t have personal knowledge (e.g. “The comparatively young lady waited precisely 10 years, the point at which a plaintiff is entitled to alimony, before suing her husband (BBC).”)

   “why should I denounce Harvey Weinstein in particular?”

   I didn’t suggest you denounce Harvey Weinstein in particular, I suggested you clarify your opinion of a certain class of behaviors of which Harvey Weinstein’s alleged behaviors are a topical example (topical because this discussion occurs in a series of threads discussing (among other things) Harvey Weinstein’s alleged behaviors. Threads which you initiated).

   “If I want to get up on a soapbox regarding a figure from the current headlines, why not “clearly state (without sarcasm) that people should refrain” from killing other people via car bombings?”

   As I indicated before, the reason to “clearly state (without sarcasm)” is that in the course of prosecuting this discussion which includes the topic of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged behaviors you have made statements which are sufficiently ambiguous that some readers could infer you consider the kind of behavior Mr. Weinstein is alleged to have engaged was acceptable.

   “And who would listen to me?”

   The primary audience for such a clarification would be people who have been following the series of discussion threads which I referenced above.

9. Neal: Certainly I did not intend to ascribe a motive to Harvey Weinstein’s current divorce plaintiff when I wrote “The comparatively young lady waited precisely 10 years, the point at which a plaintiff is entitled to alimony, before suing her husband (BBC).” It seemed reasonable to believe in the accuracy of media reports regarding the date of the marriage. There is also good evidence that the 10-year mark is where a plaintiff can enjoy superior profits from a California divorce lawsuit (also in Massachusetts, alimony duration is enhanced if a plaintiff can stick it out for 10 years and 1 day before suing, compared to 9 years and 364 days). Whether a desire for extra cash motivated this particular plaintiff, I have no idea and offer no opinion. In other words, I’m pretty sure that, as a result of waiting 10 years, she will get paid more for having been married, but I don’t know whether or not she sought the higher pay.

10. philg: In your original sentence, the word “waited” means that the divorce plaintiff decided to file for divorce before 10 years had elapsed but did not act on the intention until “precisely 10 years” after the marriage. I could find no evidence in media reports for this contention. By claiming the timing is deliberate, the sentence definitely implies the motivation is that “she sought the higher pay”.

11. @MartinBeck

    Clarence Thomas harassed Anita Hill so much that she was forced to follow him from DoE to EEOC. Must have been terrible.

12. philg: What I find inconsistent is that while you can’t know the kind of behavior Harvey Weinstein engaged in without “a video recording” you can step inside the heads of people reporting his behavior to know they are “seeking cash and publicity” and inside Ms. Chapman’s head to know that she deliberately timed filing her divorce lawsuit to coincide with the moment when she became eligible for alimony.

13. I fail to see the fundamental difference between Harvey Weinstein and Hugh Hefner’s business models. Both offered exposure (and its commensurate money and power) to young, beautiful, motivated women, in exchange for personal sexual gratification. Hef was celebrated by Hollywood for decades. When faced with unavoidable public evidence, Weinstein is now repudiated by the same industry. To pretend that this sort of arrangement hasn’t been making the world turn for thousands of years is more than a little naive. I guess the difference is just being a “gentleman” about it?

14. @Philg don’t do it otherwise you will be asked to do the same for other “causes”.

    @Neal, @Martin: here is what’s bothering me about all this and yet there is no one on the media has spoken out about it.

    Those women and men who are speaking out against Weinstein they also need to say that they are profoundly sorry for not speaking out back than ESPECIALLY for not alerting other women about Weinstein. Many of them, if not all, knew about Weinstein but yet they kept on praising him and worse of all they kept on introducing other women to Weinstein and NOT alerting them about Weinstein.

    And before anyone attacks my comment, be it you agree or not, you should know that I’m not approving Weinstein behavior, I’m pointing out the obvious which has not been discussed.

    The media and Hollywood need to look at the bigger picture otherwise no change will come out of this (which is what I said in my other posts about this).

15. You crack me up, which is one reason I keep reading. I wish more of the world would engage in ironic commentary rather than bombastic outrage, it works better.

    If you do get around to standing against injustice please make sure you don’t include Kennedy, Clinton or the folks who enabled their groping, that would just play into the hands of the Trumpenfuhrer.

16. “Clarence Thomas harassed Anita Hill so much that she was forced to follow him from DoE to EEOC. Must have been terrible.”

    The fact that Ms. Hill followed Justice Thomas from DoE to EEOC doesn’t really tell us much about how “terrible” Ms. Hill perceived the Justice’s behavior was, it merely suggests that however “terrible” it was, she thought the benefits of following him outweighed it.

    George A: I would not have said it quite that way, but I agree with your basic point (and made it myself in other threads). I guess I should add (so it is explicit) that I understand and agree with a related implication from some of the arguments philg has made in this series of posts: That making it all about Harvey Weinstein is problematic. Not only does it take the focus off the legal and social structures (and individuals) which/who enabled Mr. Weinstein’s behavior as you (George A) have pointed out, it also tends to distract society and individuals from examining problematic behavior by ordinary people in more ordinary circumstances.

17. Neal: I think that you didn’t read my original language as intended because we start from different views on the meaning of “marriage.” In a no-fault jurisdiction such as California, absent strong religious beliefs and objections, marriage is a temporary condition that persists until one party can become better off by suing the other. Thus, every non-religious person in a California marriage can be considered “waiting” to file a divorce lawsuit. To the extent that not every non-religious married person gets around to suing his or her spouse before dying, that’s simply due to the fact that the right circumstances didn’t present themselves.

    So Harvey Weinstein’s wife was in some sense “waiting to sue him” from the moment that they were married. Whether she sued him at the 10-year point because she suddenly discovered that he was a fat old guy, because she suddenly discovered that he liked to have sex with actresses, because she was upset by the publicity, or because that was when she could get alimony… there is no way for me to know!

18. philg: Your or my “views” of marriage are irrelevant to the meaning of the word “waited” in the sentence under discussion because the word “waited” in this sentence refers to Ms. Chapman’s state of mind.

    Separate, isn’t Massachusetts a no fault divorce jurisdiction? Have you informed your “domestic senior management” that you are “waiting” to file a divorce lawsuit?

19. Better late than never. We are all proud of your brave decision. This proud individual was not cast in Mr. Weinstein movie after telling him off. http://www.larryelder.com/column/harvey-weinstein-experience/ Not that he tried to get a role before telling him off.

20. At the risk of being the internet version of sounding like a broken record, I’ll post this again:
    I never fail to be amazed at the difference between a woman using her pussy for advancement and a woman using her pussy for advancement. Has Harvey been plausibly accused of rape by anyone?
    And why wait ten or twenty years to “come out”??? If I were criminally attacked, sexually abused, etc, I’d be at my local police station in thirty minutes.

21. Mark: At the risk of being the internet version of sounding like a broken record, I’ll post this again: At least some of the behavior which has been attributed to Harvey Weinstein appears to constitute workplace sexual harassment which is illegal as well as a violation of the fiduciary duty he owed to The Weinstein Corporation.

22. Neal: Pretty much everyone in Massachusetts seems to agree that marriage is a temporary and contingent situation. See https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2017/03/21/sympathy-for-undocumented-immigrants-crowds-out-sympathy-for-neighbors/ for the Hillary-supporting senior citizen who thought it would be fine for a man to break up his young kids’ home if he could find a wife that he liked better. So there is no need for me to explain to anyone that marriage = “waiting to sue”.

    Regarding “some of the behavior which has been attributed to Harvey Weinstein appears to constitute workplace sexual harassment,” I think there is general agreement that Harvey’s various hotel rooms and personal bedrooms constitute “workplaces” (see https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2017/10/20/harvey-weinstein-is-the-business-travelers-best-friend/ ). But were the women who were massaging and having sex with him fellow “workers”? He was a W-2 employee of a company, but were the women actually W-2 workers of the same company or prospective W-2 workers? Is it “workplace sexual harassment” when employees of two separate companies have sex in a hotel room?

23. How about 6 settled sexual harassment charges? Guess Harvey lied about getting them roles? If he did it to get them submit it coyuld be considered rape by courts, or prostitution (both parties are guilty) Or this report of harassed 17 year old http://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/kate-beckinsale-harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment-17-years-old-1201886574/ ?

24. philg: A W-2 relationship is not required. Two independent lawyers meeting to discuss a possible collaboration regarding a client they hope to woo together constitutes a work related meeting even though no one has any formal (much less W-2) relationship with anyone. Clearly many of the Weinstein encounters, as described in the media, were work related.

    “Is it “workplace sexual harassment” when employees of two separate companies have sex in a hotel room?”

    I am not a sexual harassment expert, but as I understand it, consensual sex, where consent is freely given, is not sexual harassment regardless of the workplace relationship between the parties. Sexual harassment occurs when one party uses workplace power to coerce another into some kind of sexual interaction. Actual “sex” or a power relationship between the parties is not required. In this way it is analogous to extortion or blackmail. Even if an individual “consents” to the demands of the extortionist or blackmailer, the law does not consider that “consent” to be freely given and the perpetrator can still be charged with a crime.

25. Anonymous: I wouldn’t dispute that inviting a 17-year-old opposite-sex individual to his hotel room makes Mr. Weinstein a criminal in at least some U.S. states. However, I am not sure this is “workplace sexual harassment” because the two were not working together. (also, the Savoy Hotel is in London and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe says that a 17-year-old in the UK is entitled to make her own decisions as to whether and with whom to have sex, so what is alleged to have happened in the Savoy Hotel would not have been a crime in the UK).

    I’m not familiar with the “6 settled sexual harassment charges.” Were they from people who had been W-2 employees in the same enterprise as Harvey?

26. Thanks, Neal, for that clarification. If that is “workplace sexual harassment” for which an employer has liability it seems like a risk that is impossible for an employer to understand or manage. An employee is at home or in a hotel room somewhere on the planet. Someone complains that the employee said “I can get you a contract or consulting job at my company if you give me a massage.” Since it didn’t happen in the office and the other person wasn’t an employee and the employer don’t know anything about the accuser and there is no audio or video recording of what transpired (if anything), how is the employer supposed to decide what happened? And, unlike in a Civil law jurisdiction (France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, et al.), there is no codified amount of compensation due, so what is the budget for these payments?

27. #25, I do not specifically dwell on workplace harassment. Non-workplace harassment is a crime too as well as soliciting. It was reported that NY now investigates Weinstein soliciting or sexual attack harassment based on audio recording from poice wire weared by an aspiring model. The wire was played on radio while I was commuting. It did not sound good at all. Of cause Weinstein is innocent until proven otherwise but I do not think I will be watching his movies anytinme soon.

28. philg: It is certainly a risk that is impossible to understand or manage completely. The world is full of such risks. For example, in your #26 scenario replace “if you give me a massage.” with “or I will tell your employer you don’t really have a Masters degree”. All of the concerns you mention still apply, yet we still have laws against blackmail and somehow businesses still manage to function.

29. The “world” is not full of such risks! The U.S. and other common-law jurisdictions are, perhaps, but not the Civil law places. Consider http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/erin-andrews-nude-video-lawsuit-55-million-1201724545/ ; I don’t think that there was any way a hotel could have been hit for tens of millions of dollars in Europe.

30. philg: I did not claim that the US system for adjudicating sexual harassment disputes (or any other disputes) is the best (or even good). I would certainly be interested in your views on how the US system could be improved. Unless the solution is is get rid of the concept of sexual harassment (which is on topic here), I’d suggest that discussion belongs in a separate thread. Also, the US per capita GDP is higher than almost all European countries so by that measure at least the adverse impacts of common-law (whatever they may be) aren’t catastrophic.

31. #29, sounds fair, justice served. It is up to hotel get $26,000,000 from guilty emplyees or vendors, for justice to be served completely:
    “Barrett, whom the jury found to be 51% at fault, has to pay more than $28 million. Nashville Marriott owner West End Hotel Partners and former operator Windsor Capital Group, which were found to be 49% at fault, have to pay more than $26 million.

    The owners of the Tennessee hotel had argued that Barrett was solely to blame for the crime. Andrews, however, maintained that someone affiliated with the hotel gave out her room number to Barrett and placed him near her.

    Barrett was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after admitting to stalking Andrews, altering hotel room peepholes and taking nude videos of her.”

32. Neal: I didn’t mean to suggest that the U.S. system of justice needed to be “improved”. Only that, combined with the current environment regarding sexual harassment and the average potential juror’s perception of how much someone might be damaged by having sex, being photographed nude, etc., it would make more sense for an investor or a company to operate in a different country. Not everything in a society will be organized for the needs of employers.

    [Separately, this is not a great country in which to run a school system because teenagers are able to demonstrate that they are grievously harmed by having sex. See http://nypost.com/2017/08/22/student-seduced-by-teacher-at-horndog-high-awarded-750k/ for one example of the litigation that ensued after a 16-year-old boy had sex with a teacher in Brooklyn.]

33. philg: I find it hard to believe that differing adjudication systems for sexual harassment claims warrants even passing consideration from a global investor.

34. Hard to imagine hotels leaving Music Row area and all associated profits because their employees and customers can not commit sexual crimes freely. Do not think that Afghanistan mountain regions open for business yet, and if ti did Music Row would not relocate there.

35. Neal: I’m sure that you’re right because nobody would bother producing a map of employee lawsuit risk by state! (see https://www.hiscox.com/documents/The-2015-Hiscox-Guide-to-Employee-Lawsuits-Employee-charge-trends-across-the-United-States.pdf for example)

    And since the rest of the U.S. environment is famous for low costs of litigation and predictable outcomes, it is no wonder that we attract expansion capital and thus have the highest per-capita GDP growth rate in the world.

36. This hotel sends very strong message what behavior is not wanted in this country, for any amount. And money stay in the USA So it is patriotic as well.

37. philg: A map of US employee lawsuit risk by state doesn’t really have anything to do with international investing, but even if it did, the fact that people who manage such risks for a living pay attention does not mean that those risks play a significant role in interstate investment decisions, much less global investment decisions.

    Plenty of “Civil Law places” are also experiencing modest per capita GDP growth. Yes, there are some other large economies which are generating faster per capita GDP growth, but this has more to do with the fact that they are starting from a much lower baseline and can now cherry pick already developed growth strategies than differing sexual harassment liability. PE ratios remain relatively high in the US also suggesting that investors are not particularly spooked by our methods for adjudicating sexual harassment claims.

38. When she filed for divorce earlier this month, Georgina Chapman was two months short of the 10 year mark of marriage to Weinstein. According to Wikipedia: “Chapman started dating film producer Harvey Weinstein in December 2004 after he left his first wife. They married on 15 December 2007 in Connecticut, US. The couple split their time between a West Village townhouse, a seafront home in Westport, Connecticut, and a mansion in Los Angeles. Chapman gave birth to the couple’s first child, daughter India Pearl, on 30 August 2010.[10][11] On 11 April 2013, they had a son, Dashiell Max Robert.[12] On 10 October 2017, Chapman announced she was leaving Weinstein after numerous reports by actresses of alleged sexual harassment and sexual assault.[13][14][15]”

39. Suzanne: How do you know that Chapman actually filed a divorce lawsuit? She “announced she was leaving Weinstein”. But what stops her from waiting until December 16, 2017 to go down to the courthouse and start the official litigation?

    https://pagesix.com/2017/10/12/harvey-weinsteins-wife-is-lawyer-shopping-for-divorce/

    says that she was “lawyer-shopping” earlier this month. If she had filed a petition to kick off the litigation, why wouldn’t the media reprint it? (see http://www.tmz.com/2016/09/20/brad-pitt-angelina-jolie-divorce-documents/ for an example)

40. actually occurred to me, and while it was reported that Chapman was filing for divorce earlier this month, she was probably advised to wait until 16 December to file paperwork. SInce Chapman and Huma Abedin apparently are besties, whichever lawyer(s) represented Abedin may have another big case.

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