Paleo Retiree writes:
Woody Allen says that he’s “sad” for Harvey Weinstein.
I want to bring up a handful of things that seem to me to deserve to be mentioned in the midst of the Weinstein madness. Not that Harvey doesn’t seem to be a pig, of course!
- The thousands of hot young women who are on the make in showbiz are often shamelessly aggressive about using their sexiness to get ahead. In my own years in the NYC media and arts worlds I didn’t run into many young women who’d strike anyone as passive, naive, born victims. (One of the things I love about a lot of performers, fwiw, is the way they so often manage to keep a kind of fizz and innocence alive while participating actively in a sleazy, exploitative business. More of us should have that ability.)
- A lot of showbiz people who are ruthlessly using and exploiting each other are having a great time doing so, females and males both. The heartless, egocentric carrying-on may be horrifying at times, especially to civilians, but it’s often very exciting for the participants. Success, money, drugs, sex, showbiz and fame — and the pursuit of the above by any means necessary — can be incredible highs for all parties concerned.
Another angle that hasn’t been discussed enough is what’s up with Ronan Farrow, the author of the New Yorker piece that set the entire Weinstein affair off? Maybe it’s just me, but Ronan seems to be working out his own weird-and-personal agenda. Here’s how I put it together. Ronan 1) is very ambitious for his own career, and 2) has been a big supporter of the Woody daughter who has accused Woody of molesting her as a child.
I turn these hints into something like: Ronan thinks of fame as something that should belong to him by right of inheritance, but since it isn’t simply coming his way he has set out to achieve fame and wealth by bringing down an older establishment that he sees (and/or is just willing to portray) as repulsive and super-corrupt. Ronan’s both fame-hungry and obsessed by sexual abuse committed by movieworld people, in other words. Or maybe it’s just his own big opportunity. Ronan may have failed to put Woody in jail (and thereby achieve big fame for himself), but now he’s found a lot more success by attacking Harvey.
Is it wicked of me to notice too that 1) Ronan is gay or at least bisexual, and 2) if Ronan is Woody’s kid — there have long been rumors that Ronan’s real dad was Frank Sinatra — that makes him half-Jewish, while nearly all the other male players in the Weinstein drama, good guys and bad guys alike, are straight and fully Jewish? That would include not just Woody and Weinstein but Noah Oppenheim, the screenwriter/head of NBC News, who turned the story down, and David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, who finally ran the story. It’s all very, well, Biblical, isn’t it?
In any case, even though I’m bugged a lot less than many people are by the idea that an uncouth, pushy movie producer/executive was prone to demanding sexual favors from young actresses in exchange for career favors, now that the brushfire is definitively running its course I confess that I’m having a good time watching it burn. Will the naming-and-shaming stop with Harvey Weinstein or will it spread throughout the entire movie business? And maybe even beyond?
Andrew Klavan makes some good sense.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
For me the most fascinating aspect of this episode is “why now?” What changed that made it ok for everyone to pile on the vile Weinstein? It’s not like this is a new or surprising revelation. It falls squarely into the “everyone knew it all along” category, with the usual “but the (((media))) protects their own” context. I mean for goodness sake, for a couple of decades now the Disney corporation has made it an ongoing project to turn pretty young Gentile girls into whorish skanks. What, that was all on the up and up? Please.
So what changed? Why now? I hope the entire system burns to the ground. I really wish somebody would arrest Weinstein already, and that some big black buck would give him what for in prison. And then let’s take down the next 1,000 creeps who have been doing this every day for decades.
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An interesting take on all of this:
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I didn’t find it that interesting. He’s basically saying Weinstein liked Gentile women because he’s Jewish. That’s like saying some white guys like black women or black guys like white women, or all kind of non-Asian guys like Asian women. NO SHIT. It’s the thrill of the other, a thrill that is absolutely not a “deeply Jewish kind,” to quote the article.
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