Woody Allen worries that the Weinstein situation could be a ‘witch-hunt atmosphere’
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein mess, another powerful man was taken down: the president of Amazon Studios Roy Price. Price produced film and TV projects for years, and just last week, a female producer named Isa Hackett told The Hollywood Reporter that Price repeatedly propositioned her in a taxi, while another male executive was sitting right there. Price repeatedly told Hackett, “You will love my dick,” which is… some kind of come-on line, eh? He also came up to her at a party and loudly declared “Anal sex!” into her ear. Such a charmer! These incidents of sexual harassment happened in 2015, and Hackett reported them immediately to Amazon honchos. They made some noise about “investigating,” but nothing was done until last week, when Hackett went public with her story, and then Amazon suspended Price.
Anyway, that’s all to say that the current releases from Amazon Studios are trying to NOT make much noise. The new Amazon Studios film Wonder Wheel was supposed to get a splashy premiere at the New York Film Festival over the weekend, but it was canceled in favor of a quieter screening with less press. Note: Wonder Wheel is Woody Allen’s new movie. Woody Allen’s new movie had its premiere canceled because of SOMEONE ELSE’S sexual misconduct. All of which to say… Woody Allen made a statement about Harvey Weinstein. And it’s just as ridiculous as you would expect. At least Woody didn’t resort to the “I have daughters” trope, probably because he doesn’t want to remind people that he married his sort-of daughter. Woody said:
“The whole Harvey Weinstein thing is very sad for everybody involved. Tragic for the poor women that were involved, sad for Harvey that his life is so messed up. There’s no winners in that, it’s just very, very sad and tragic for those poor women that had to go through that.”
“You don’t want it to lead to a witch-hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere, where every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself. That’s not right either. But sure, you hope that something like this could be transformed into a benefit for people rather than just a sad or tragic situation.”
Allen worked with Weinstein on a number of films but claimed he had never heard any of the allegations of sexual assault.
“No one ever came to me or told me horror stories with any real seriousness,” Allen said. “And they wouldn’t, because you are not interested in it. You are interested in making your movie. But you do hear a million fanciful rumors all the time. And some turn out to be true and some — many — are just stories about this actress, or that actor.”
[From Variety]
OMFG. So much to unpack here. “You don’t want it to lead to a witch-hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere, where every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself.” He’s really saying that we should be suspicious of victims of sexual assault and harassment because it could just all be a “witchhunt.” He’s going there. His real worry is that there will suddenly be a rash of false accusations, rather than an outpouring of statements from genuine victims. His real worry is that men won’t be able to continue on as they always have, harassing and abusing women in the workplace like always. WHAT ABOUT THE MEN, asks Woody. And this too: “No one ever came to me or told me horror stories with any real seriousness.” As in, people came to him with Weinstein horror stories and he didn’t take them seriously. That’s the translation.
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Source: Woody Allen worries that the Weinstein situation could be a ‘witch-hunt atmosphere’
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