Another day, more dirty laundry. The allegations -- stories? -- coming out are tawdry at best, disgusting and reprehensible at worst, and I'm not just referring to Weinstein's antics.
The reports coming out suggest that Weinstein had a fetish for massages and having women watch him shower. As someone for whom massages do nothing, I don't understand that, although I will confess that many people, including my dear wife, not only love them but need massages. I'm not sure anyone who doesn't have an unusual fetish, like Rex Ryan, would understand the business about showering with an audience. Unless, of course, audience participation was expected.
For as bad as this is getting, there are some interesting sidebars that are occurring. I touched on a couple of them yesterday, but a few more have arisen today and I think they're worth mentioning.
First and foremost, She Who Would Be President, the defender of all things female, the person who referred in her book to President Trump as a creep took an exceptionally long time to condemn her benefactor's misdeeds:
I was shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein," Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement. "The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated. Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior.
As condemnations go, it's a little weak. But what should we expect from a woman who has stood by her philandering husband, vilifying women who made very similar accusations about him, and whose charity took money from countries where women's rights are still mired in pre-suffrage day? Yet there are those who still feel cheated by the less-than-inevitable outcome of the Inevitability Tour that left Cankles walking around forests trolling for admirers?
At least she's come out publicly...finally. Scores of other recipients of Weinstein's largesse have quietly returned the money to charities as if these returns will cleanse their political souls.
The Obamas, meanwhile, have evoked Nero and remained silent, despite having benefited from Weinstein's celebrity connections over the years. Wasn't Obama the President women loved? Wasn't he just the coolest? And now...? Where's his statement of condemnation? Where is his repugnance? O', wait. His eldest daughter interned for Weinstein. Can't bite the hand that feeds now can they?
Meryl Streep, who was silent only a day or two less than Cankles, broke out the old Yalie textbooks and made the following public statement about Weinstein:
The disgraceful news about Harvey Weinstein has appalled those of us whose work he championed, and those whose good and worthy causes he supported. The intrepid women who raised their voices to expose this abuse are our heroes.
One thing can be clarified. Not everybody knew. Harvey supported the work fiercely, was exasperating but respectful with me in our working relationship, and with many others with whom he worked professionally. I didn’t know about these other offenses: I did not know about his financial settlements with actresses and colleagues; I did not know about his having meetings in his hotel room, his bathroom, or other inappropriate, coercive acts. And if everybody knew, I don’t believe that all the investigative reporters in the entertainment and the hard news media would
have neglected for decades to write about it.
The behavior is inexcusable, but the abuse of power familiar. Each brave voice that is raised, heard and credited by our watchdog media will ultimately change the game.
Well.
Ostrich, meet Meryl. Meryl, meet Ostrich. It's one thing to play make-believe for a living. It's quite another to try to pass it off when serious, real-life actions with doleful consequences come to light.
How would I know that Meryl is fibbing? Well, I don't. But listen to others in the entertainment industry:
Jessica Chastain, the comely actress from one of my favorite movies, Zero Dark Thirty, and a noted liberal, said this today:
I was warned from the beginning. The stories were everywhere. To deny that is to create an enviornment (sic) for it to happen again.
If Ms. Chastain, a relative ingénue compared to Dame Meryl, heard the stories, how is it Meryl was ignorant of them...unless she was in character as an ostrich for an upcoming nature film? It would be one thing for a conservative such as Dean Cain to assert, when asked whether the news about Weinstin's behavior became public:
Not in the least. You hear rumors about this, this was the worst kept secret in Hollywood, no question about it ... Hollywood loves to wear the self-righteous finger and tell everybody what they should be doing and what is going on but this is not known as the bastion of morality, Harvey Weinstein is an extremely powerful man, an absolute bully and he clearly had an M.O. -- something that he did — you were aware of it, everybody knew. I wasn’t somebody that would be a target for him but it’s something that he had done for a long time
The stories were everywhere...the worst kept secret in Hollywood...yet Dame Meryl heard nothing. Or did she choose to hear nothing? This from the woman who excoriated the President publicly...it only goes to show that what I tell my wife Karen is true: Higher education isn't proof of intelligence, only that someone passed a series of tests. Or it taught Meryl to dissemble really well. Come to think of it...
As if all this weren't bad enough, Weinstein's wife, Georgina Chapman, is concerned about the fallout from the scandal, but not for the reasons one might expect. If she's troubled by how hurt the women harassed by her husband are, there's little in public to support that. There is, however, a report that she's concerned for the effect this scandal will have on her couture line, because Weinstein gave her entrée to the celebrity world which provided her with free advertising. Weinstein would also order actresses and models to wear the Marchesa line to red carpet events to maximize the effect for his wife's business. So her greatest concern, at least insofar as information available publicly is concerned, is for her business. Not their minor children, not their marriage, but for her business.
And these are the people lecturing us about politics.
Yes, I'm enjoying this. This has all the marks of a huge crash and burn in slow motion playing out over a course of days, not minutes. Each day brings more recriminations against Weinstein and the people that enabled him, like Russell Crowe and Matt Damon, the latter of whom was a stalwart defender of Liberalism (until it came to his life, when he was free to choose for his family the way they want to live). More than anything, though, is the display of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance that is on display from people who hold themselves out as smarter and better than the rest of us.
(c) 2017 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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