Friday, October 13, 2017

Where was the Actor's Union all this time?

The Harvey Weinstein shitstorm builds further today, growing to include Alfred Hitchcock.

Veteran film star Tippi Hedren has spoken out about the allegations of sexual assault and harassment against film producer Harvey Weinstein emphasising it has been a problem in Hollywood for decades.

Hedren has previously spoken about her experience of sexual harassment at the hands of filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock with whom she endured a tumultuous working relationship.

"I'm watching all the coverage on Weinstein," the 87-year-old said. "This is nothing new, nor is it limited to the entertainment industry.

"I dealt with sexual harassment all the time, during my modeling and film career. Hitchcock wasn't the first." 


Widespread, common, and depraved sexual abuse of women in the fashion and movie/TV industries. Everybody knows about it, apparently. Have know for a long time.

She continued: "However, I wasn't going to take it anymore, so I simply walked away and didn't look back. Hitch said he would ruin my career and I told him to do what he had to do.

"It has taken 50 years, but it is about time that women started standing up for themselves as the appear to be doing in the Weinstein case. Good for them!"

This particular woman says she was assaulted by Hitchcock in 1964-67 era. She started talking about it publicly in 1973. She released her memoir detailing the abuse in 2015-2016. First I hear of it. Which seems to be the hallmark of this thing, everybody knows and nobody says nuttin'.

So here's my question. Hollywood is one of the most unionized environments on Earth. They invented the thing where the carpenter uses the hammer and the laborer carries the hammer. In Hollywood it literally takes three men to screw in a light bulb, the electrician and two laborers to carry the stuff.

There is an actor's union too. Sexual assault of their workers and generally abusive conditions of employment are something they are supposed to be there to prevent. Where have they been since 1964? If a frigging Writers strike can paralyze the movie and TV industry twice in ten years, where is the actress strike? How is it that the WOMEN did not walk out, en mass, and screw over every TV show and movie in production every time one of their sisters got raped by some fat movie mogul?

That's an open question, ladies. Men have no trouble banding together to do battle against a common enemy. They do it all the time. Hell, they do it for fun! That's what team sports is. So where's the Girls Team in all this? How come there's no Actresses' Common Defense Union blowing Alfred Frigging Hitchcock out of the water in 1964? How is it that Harvey the Hog gets to do literally any damn thing he wants for 30 YEARS and nobody says shit about it?

Where's your union?

The Phantom

2 comments:

WiFi Lunchbox Guy said...

The union? The stewards were probably in on the action, too.

There's a reason actors traditionally had the social status of prostitutes.

The Phantom said...

They would have to be, wouldn't they? Must have been a few bottles of scotch change hands to get them looking the other way all this time, eh?