Well, quelle surprise! There are powerful older men in Hollywood who solicit the sexual favours of younger women and promise to advance their movie careers in exchange for such favours.
The world media has been awash with reports about the alleged “sleazy” and “lewd” behaviour of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein – who gave us such fine films as Shakespeare in Love and The King’s Speech. In response, Mr Weinstein, aged 65, has apologised and withdrawn into private life to “address his demons”. His wife is standing by him, and many in the Democratic Party (to which he made generous donations), such as the Obamas, are saying nothing. The New York Times reports a “great silence” among the big names.
But surely the Hollywood “casting couch” is nothing new? Marilyn Monroe described the ethics of Tinseltown as being “like a brothel”, and Joan Crawford also alluded to similar norms: a pretty girl aspiring to be a movie star was expected to behave compliantly with the older men who had the power to make or break her career.
There is even a bad-taste joke about the starlet “who was so dim that she slept with the writer” – the scriptwriter, who in Hollywood has no casting power whatsoever.
And Hollywood’s morals were exactly what turned Ronald Reagan against it – and towards a political career that shaped his values. Reagan was disgusted to discover that the big studios in the 1940s kept a regular abortionist available in case any young actress should be made inconveniently pregnant as a result of this famed “casting couch”. Poor Marilyn Monroe was said to have had up to a dozen abortions as a result of studio pressure.
Mr Weinstein is entitled to defend himself against specific charges, and I’m sure he wouldn’t be associated with what so distressed Ronnie Reagan. But his lawyer has conceded that he’s “an old dinosaur learning new ways”.
Times have changed. Younger women today feel more emboldened to speak out about attitudes which they feel are unacceptable. Good for them.
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When I visited Poland in the last days of communist rule I well remember being taken to the National Gallery of Art in Warsaw to view stirring paintings of the Battle of Vienna in 1683, when Jan Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, led the battle which saved Europe from conquest by the Ottoman Empire. Poland had saved European Christendom.
I thought of that image again last weekend when a million Poles, often in cold and uncomfortable conditions, joined hands to say the rosary around the Polish borders – affirming Poland’s (and Europe’s) link with its Christian and Catholic heritage.
Perhaps only Poland has the patriotic backbone to do so.
It was the Polish pope, John Paul II, who pleaded with the European Union to include a reference to its Christian heritage in the European Constitution. The response was weak indeed.
But those unwilling to defend their heritage are usually vanquished, in the end, by those who will affirm theirs.
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I don’t really “get” English whimsy, and the cult of Winnie-the-Pooh doesn’t mean much to me. References to Eeyore and Tigger often pass me by.
Yet Goodbye Christopher Robin, the film about the creation of the legendary children’s story by AA Milne (still the top bestselling children’s book), is compelling because it’s about so much more than Pooh Bear and his ilk. It’s about the after-shocks of war, and it’s about fatherhood, motherhood and a child’s deep attachment to an unrelated family member – in this case, Christopher’s love for his caring Nanny, “Nou”, played by the Scots actress Kelly Macdonald. Later in life, the real Christopher Robin said that his beloved Nou always remained “a part of me”.
The movie is set in a wistfully nostalgic rural England, and God-fearing Nanny is most insistant about teaching Christopher Robin his prayers. A crucifix is seen over her own bed. Frank Cottrell Boyce, a Catholic Liverpudlian, was a co-writer of the movie, and he would have been sensitive to the historical resonance of these points.
The film also portrays a time when people, including children, were stoically discouraged from weeping. “Mustn’t blub!” But not “blubbing” doesn’t mean there are no emotional feelings; sometimes it just means they run very deep.
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