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Sexual Assault and Harassment in Hollywood


John from Cincinnati

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Just listened to the Harmon apology.  It's pretty harrowing to listen to.  Hearing him say he had only ever harassed one person, then describe a multi-year campaign of borderline stalky behavior, professional retaliation and cruelty without recognizing in himself the behavior he condemned others for, to the point of not even realizing it until he'd been publicly called out is just super fucked up and depressing.  Anytime I listen to his show, I find myself feeling really sorry for his self-destruction and self-loathing, and even more sorry for the people forced to deal with him.  And since he never gave what he'd done to Ganz enough thought to recognize it as what it was, I'm not sure I believe his claim that she was his only target ("I never did it before that and I never did it again.")  

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On 1/11/2018 at 12:36 PM, TheVileOne said:

When I saw Mark Wahlberg's name show up here I got confused for a minute.  Sounds like that situation is on their representation and the producers more than anything.  

Also, whether the agents don't know each other or not, sounds like Williams needs new or better representation.  

This. In my experience (mostly with literary agents but some with more general intellectual property types), the vast majority of agents are as useless as breasts on a boar hog. They exist to siphon off their 15% and pretty much just process contracts and rubber stamp them. The idea that an agent is fighting tooth and nail for every dime that they can get you is an absurdity,  my literary agent met with me once a year and did absolutely nothing, I made the deals, I did all the negotiations and she got 15%. In my experience on the other side of the desk (as the purchaser), I'm like 98 out of 100 in successfully negotiating deals with writers, when an agent has been involved (other than Johm Betancourt, Jane Judd, and Richard Curtis, the deals never happened because of the agents involved dinking around and being unable to DO anything.)

I know that there are asshats and idiots in all fields of endeavor, but damn, the field of representation just draws the inept and incompetent like shit draws flies. I don't doubt for a second that an actor of Michelle Williams stature still manages to have a lazy or incompetent agent,  she's in that odd space where she's famous enough that 99% of the time a studio or exec producer isn't going to try and screw with her.  So her already lazy agent gets even lazier; then the unthinkable happens.... That 1% where someone decides to play  "let's see if anyone's watching" comes up and what happens? Ms. Williams isn't going to review her contract closely, she's not an attorney or personal representative, she trusts her agent to do that stuff. Hell,  due to my work acquiring rights to do stuff, I have a lot more legal training than most writers and I don't read the entirety of my contracts, I look for specific things where a publisher is likely to try and sneak some shit past me, but read all thirty or forty pages? Not doing it as except for the aforementioned areas where someone might try and get cute, there's no reason to. So anyway, you have an actor who isn't trained nor has the time to review contracts and is famous enough that 99% of the people in the biz aren't going to try and mess with her and a lazy or incompetent agent that counts on always dealing with that 99%. When the 1% comes along, Ms. Williams gets screwed.

Why doesn't this happen to Mr. Wahlberg? Well, you can only imagine what a delight he must be to deal with in person...;-) His agent probably has the sme sort of instructions that mine did... Unless I present the deal, whatever they offer, go back and ask for 1.5 x that amount.  Asking for double will seem like a kneejerk reaction and get an automatic "no". Asking for 1.5 x the offer will appear that we want to do business, we're just looking for a best possible offer. What about the 99% rule? It still applies to Wahlberg, but the percentage is higher, probably 999%.

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The idea that he would arrange accidents for people he decided he didn't like is the icing on the cake.  That alone should end his career.

Also, on a much more positive note, Marky Mark donated his $1.5 million from the reshoots to the Time's Up legal fund, and did it in Michelle Williams' name so he wouldn't even get a tax break from it.  link

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He wasn't.

But he possibly contributed to them misleading Michelle Williams in believing he did for free (minutes per diem) when they asked her to do it for free. He is certainly guilty of not correcting the record after this was reported, until she found out more than a month after the fact. 

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It reminds me that accusations haven't stuck yet for Neils Degrasse Tyson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Some of these stories are making me sick to my stomach.  And I'm not exaggerating.  Like I am becoming literally nauseous reading some of these horror stories.  It just keeps getting uglier and uglier.  

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On 1/10/2018 at 9:21 AM, (BP) said:

 

In hindsight, it's incredible that Franco got a pass when that underage girl had the receipts on his advances a couple of years ago.

 

The girl was 17, of legal age in both Scotland (her home country) and New York (where the encounter took place).  So, yeah, a bit skeevy but she wasn't underage and there was absolutely nothing illegal about that attempted encounter.

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Regarding the Williams/Wahlberg thing - yeah, he should have probably not let people run with the "he worked for free" story.  But I have no problem with him getting paid.  Maybe next time the movie company doesn't hire a guy like Spacey.

As for Williams, she needs better agents.  She worked for free (per diem) because she HAD TO.  Re-shoots were covered in her original contract.  They weren't in Marky Mark's, so he was able to get paid.  That's 100% on her and her reps.

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2 hours ago, Tabe said:

The girl was 17, of legal age in both Scotland (her home country) and New York (where the encounter took place).  So, yeah, a bit skeevy but she wasn't underage and there was absolutely nothing illegal about that attempted encounter.

Did you get this from the laminated card you keep in your wallet detailing the ages of consent in various states/countries?

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28 minutes ago, Mickie Zeidler said:

Did you get this from the laminated card you keep in your wallet detailing the ages of consent in various states/countries?

Wikipedia, I would presume?

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1 hour ago, Mickie Zeidler said:

Did you get this from the laminated card you keep in your wallet detailing the ages of consent in various states/countries?

That part in Transformers 4 where the Scottish guy had a copy of the Romeo/Juliet law in his wallet brought two responses. 

1. That ain't gonna shield you from an ass kicking. 

2. If you felt the need to carry that around, you probably a rapist.

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