October 7, 2017

Why didn't Bill Maher — on his show last night — mention Harvey Weinstein?

I just watched the whole thing, because I was interested in what he would say, and the answer is nothing. He even had Billy Crystal as his main celebrity guest, and Crystal didn't have political topics, so there was plenty of time to talk about what's wrong in the movie business. Crystal and Maher ended up talking about how they were getting old and how it seems to still be acceptable to stereotype old people. (At the end of the show, Maher nevertheless made a joke that was nothing more than a stereotype about old people.)

I did a search to try to figure out if Maher has some connection to Weinstein, and stumbled into a Page Six piece: "Sanctum, a members-only sex club in Los Angeles, with celebrity clients like Bill Maher, is donating 100 percent of the proceeds for its next event to the victims of the Las Vegas shooting." Nothing about Weinstein there (except in teasers in the side bar).

Maybe Weinstein's problems hit close to home for Maher, but he was happy going after Bill O'Reilly last April...

81 comments:

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hillary Clinton supporters.

Wince said...

Answer: It's only icky when "old" conservatives do it.

SDaly said...

The entire f-kin' industry is a giant glass house, and what is being kept silent (the common knowledge about abuse of child actors) would destroy them all. No one is going to throw stones unless compelled.

Sydney said...

More deplorables. But, you left out "rumored to be a client" in your link to the story. Might want to put that CYA in there.

chickelit said...

It feels like the whole bullwark that Democrats erected is coming down.

Laslo Spatula said...

“Sanctum Web Site NSFW.

Looks a lot like Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut".

I am Laslo.

traditionalguy said...

Chelsea pointed out that at FOX the women's only choices to fuck was between O'Reilly and Ailes. Now add in Weinstein for contrast and chose again.

Poor Harvey gets no respect.

n.n said...

Women, men, babies, and principles, are expendable, or rather negotiable commodities. The risk that follows with establishment of monopolies and monopoly-like markets then becomes self-evident when the system (i.e. minority actors) feels threatened and seeks to protects its self-interests.

rhhardin said...

I like Maher but don't understand why he wants to be a lefty.

Perhaps he's not buying into the feminism as truth idea, being a comic, so is leaving it alone.

The truth would mock feminism as well as Weinstein.

David Begley said...

So Bill Maher pays for sex. What a loser.

David Begley said...

Allegedly.

Fernandinande said...

a joke ... about old people.

Self-defecating humor.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

The not so inner sanctum, the best little whorehouse in Hollywood... Without it, the art would suffer. Well, that, and the casting couch, desk, closet, etc. I wonder if this is the cause for the freakout about taxpayer-subsidized contraceptives and medically-backed/scrutinized abortions on demand.

William said...

Sexual harassment is a sin of the powerful and not of the conservatives. I believe the transgressors come from all points on the political spectrum, but it's apparent that those on the left are protected by a much more durable shield. The big fall out from the Weinstein scandal will not be his predations but the hypocrisy of those who covered for him and denounced Trump, Ailes, et al.

Ann Althouse said...

"I like Maher but don't understand why he wants to be a lefty."

He had a long section at the end railing against nanny-state type leftists (a propos of new bill that would require motion sensors in cars to warn people that they have a baby on board so they don't accidentally leave it in the car). He was very clear that he wants Democrats to win elections, and he advised them not to allow the GOP to own the "freedom" brand.

Ken B said...

I bet Maher gets a lot of action at Sanctum. Not for his looks or youth of course. But when you're a star they let you do things, like grab their...

This is an obvious truth isn't it?

rcocean said...

Maher's just a standard Hollywood Liberal Millionaire who throws in little Libertarian stuff now and then.

He's willing to have people like Coulter on, but he always makes sure that she's outnumber 3-1.

rcocean said...

Looks like Jimmy Kimmel doesn't just get his talking points from Chuck Shumer, he's afraid to go after Weinstein.

He should turn in his Cross.

Now I Know! said...

Ann, over the past day alone you have done over a half dozen posts about how liberals have a suppose blind spot concerning fellow liberals who are sexist, but you have never once done a post about conservative christians and their blind spot when it comes to amoral politians like Trump.

It seems Ann that you have a big blind spot of your own.

Kevin said...

How much of a house of cards do you think the entertainment industry is? It's a place where pretty, young, hopeful women come into town every day. And it's easy to imagine that even though Harvey might be one of the dirtiest players, it's exactly his well-known transgressions which give lesser people cover for their own acts.

They can console themselves that whatever they might have done, Harvey has surely done worse. Besides, they gave money to Hillary and Planned Parenthood, so they're one of the good people.

In a community like that, no one wants to go on the offensive lest they receive the full counterpunch from Harvey. It's left to see if anyone among them feels pure enough to cast the first stone.

Maher obviously didn't.

LYNNDH said...

rocean, Coutler outnumberd 3-1. Ah the old saying, she has them just where she wants them. 3-1 are bad odds for the other guys with Coulter.

The left's hypocrisy is so blatant on Harvey it stinks.

cronus titan said...

The Hollywood crowd will put this in the memory hole as quickly as they put James Hodgkinson. Self-awareness is not their long suit.

Marcus said...

Ann watched ALL of Maher? Why do that to yourself?

William said...

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Bob Boyd said...

"I like Maher but don't understand why he wants to be a lefty."

He wants to be clubbable.

Kevin said...

He's willing to have people like Coulter on, but he always makes sure that she's outnumber 3-1.

And did he ever bring on Thomas Sowell? Or did he realize he couldn't put enough people on the stage to counter 15 seconds of a black Stanford professor exposing Maher's ideology to logic and contrary evidence?

Ray - SoCal said...

I question the premise of this statement. Goal seems normalizing what Harv did.

1. How much influence do Conservative Christians have in society today?

2. Do they have a blind spot? GOP senators, governors, and representatives all resign usually when a sex scandal comes up. Left / Democratic usually don't. AA goes after hypocrisy.

>but you have never once done a post about conservative christians and their blind spot when it comes to amoral politians like Trump.

The Godfather said...

Why do they feel they have to be so fucking vulgar?

Rob said...

Maher specializes in jokes that are sexist or racist. His technique is to preface the objectionable joke by saying, “I’m sure the Republicans are thinking . . . .l

Big Mike said...

Why didn't Mayer mention Weinstein? Maybe because Weinstein has friends and some of those friends still have power?

Kevin said...

Harvey Weinstein once trapped a woman in the hallway of a restaurant that was closed to the public and masturbated in front of her until he ejaculated, she says.

Replace Harvey Weinstein with Donald Trump and see how much of Maher's show this would occupy.

But last night Bill Maher had nothing to say. That tells you all you need to know.

Gahrie said...

Am I the only one who remembers BoB Packwood? He was the feminist's best friend in the Republican Party. He even voted against Justice Thomas and Judge Bork because of their opposition to abortion. The feminists allowed him to be run out of Congress for behaving like Ted Kennedy, because he was still a Republican. This was all happening at the same time Bill Clinton was becoming president.

iowan2 said...

Our host is not posting multiple times about Weinstien. She's posting about leftist that encourage and propagate slimy behavior, to advance their only true agenda, amassing power for the sake of power, sacrificing the very persons they claim to represent.

Gahrie said...

Democrats are willing to allow Democratic men to get away with harassing, raping and even killing women as long as they will protect a woman's right to kill their baby. But all Republicans must be savaged at the smallest pretense, even those willing to allow women to kill their babies.

Gahrie said...

She's posting about leftist that encourage and propagate slimy behavior, to advance their only true agenda, amassing power for the sake of power, sacrificing the very persons they claim to represent.

Some of us have been doing that for the last thirty years......

Michael said...

I would imagine that Maher is guilty of the same sin as Weinstein. Follows.

FullMoon said...

“Sanctum Web Site NSFW.

Looks a lot like Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut".

I am Laslo.


That site is hilarious !

Laslo is correct, copied from "ZEyes Widw Shut"

"Dress code is Tuxedo gentlemen, ladies in Evening Wear or Lingerie. " haha!

tcrosse said...

There is a genre of comment which goes "Why didn't Althouse mention X ?"
It is seldom fruitful.

Luke Lea said...

Sanctum sounds like something out of the late Roman empire at its most decadent. Is that where we are?

Humperdink said...

"Ann ..... you have never once done a post about conservative christians and their blind spot when it comes to amoral politians like Trump."

Yep as a CC, I get asked that question a lot. How comes, why did you vote for that pig Trump?

One word: Gorsuch.

Laslo Spatula said...

What is worse than Bill Maher going to Sanctum?

The idea that there are women going to Sanctum in the hopes of fucking Bill Maher.

Maybe it isn't so bad when he wears one of the animal masks.

I am Laslo.

RMc said...

Sanctum, but she hardly knew 'im! Har!

Bix Cvvv said...

Three very effective blacklists in Hollywood - which do you most support? The Communist/fellow traveller one from the 40s and 50s, the blacklist of Reagan Supporters and conservatives in the 80s and 90s, or the blacklist that Ann Althouse - but not Bill Maher - has been discussing these last couple of days? One wonders what art, what performances, each of these blacklists caused us to be deprived of.

jwl said...

There are both skeeevy people on right and left wing but how they are dealt with tells you something - right wingers get kicked out movement, or punished in some way, while left wingers have establishment come to their defence, say he meant well or didn't know better or ......

Left wing types project their behaviours onto others, mainly conservatives, but they are dystopians because they always identify with perpetrators, not the victims.

Ross Douthat provided link to article the other day when Weinstein story first broke.



GQ - Feb 1990 - Ted Kennedy on the Rocks:

"For his hard public drinking, his obsessive public womanizing and his frequent boorishness, he has become a late-century legend, Teddy the Terrible, the Kennedy Untrammeled. In Washington, it sometimes seems as if everyone knows someone who has slept with Kennedy, been invited to sleep with Kennedy, seen Kennedy drunk, been insulted by Kennedy. At Desirée, a private Georgetown club where well-heeled fat men mingle with society brats and party girls, Kennedy is known as a thrice-a-month habitué and remembered by at least one fellow customer for the time he made a scene with his overenthusiasm for a runway model during a club fashion show."

FullMoon said...

Oh, darn, maybe Sanctum is just a tv show. The stuff on the site is pretty corny.

Aug 17 2017The premier of Showtime’s eight part documentary series Naked SNCTM is tonight at 11pm. A new episode airs every week, and viewers will have an unprecedented look inside our secretive society. We are moments away from Showtime’s nearly 30,000,000 subscribers discovering what we’ve created.

William said...

I think Mather has not transgressed the ethos of the sixties and seventies, but the ethos of the present moment as expounded and explicated by Lena Dunham. Lena, to give her credit, speaks out against Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein. Not with the vehemence and vitriol that she dumps on Trump, but at least she makes the effort not to be hypocritical.......I imagine Maher uses his fame and wealth to get lucky. I wonder how much he deludes himself into thinking that it's all due to his magnetism and charm.

Achilles said...

Blogger Now I Know! said...
Ann, over the past day alone you have done over a half dozen posts about how liberals have a suppose blind spot concerning fellow liberals who are sexist, but you have never once done a post about conservative christians and their blind spot when it comes to amoral politians like Trump.

It seems Ann that you have a big blind spot of your own.


What about it Ann? Say something about Trump's pussy grabbing comment right now! Nobody here has ever discussed that! It is a new and fresh topic. This Weinstein business is small potatoes and mumble mumble mumble....

Leftists are just terrible people.

Clayton Hennesey said...

Anyone besides me notice Bill Maher has the same physiognomy as Hugh Hefner?

Lyle said...

Maher is a famous "bimbo" dicker. He's apparently more forward, and therefore less creepy about it.

rcocean said...

"Anyone besides me notice Bill Maher has the same physiognomy as Hugh Hefner?"

The only thing I notice abut Bill Maher is that he's an ugly little dwarf. IRC, he's 5/3 in cowboy boots.

Rob said...

Maher is 5'8", two inches taller than Al Franken(!). Not unrelated, note that homunculus means both a small person and--wait for it--a supposed microscopic but fully formed human being once believed to be contained within the sperm, which would develop into a person.

Ralph L said...

The club should deny Maher is a member to keep people coming.

vanderleun said...

EVERYBODY KNOWS that Maher is just a Blobfish with a TV show:

Check him out

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/blobfish_0.jpg?resize=1100x740

Ralph L said...

We screen for esthetic appeal, professional status and what one would contribute

Only one of the above required, not all obviously.

vanderleun said...

"The club should deny Maher is a member to keep people coming."

I'll do the dirty jokes here, Ralph.

Bruce Hayden said...

"but you have never once done a post about conservative christians and their blind spot when it comes to amoral politians like Trump."

I note that Trump's Administration yesterday enacted a religious/conscience exception to the Obamacare requirement for birth control coverage. This was what the Little Sisters of the Poor was being forced by the Obama Administration to cover. A bunch of celebrate nuns who were married to the church. You may believe Trump to be amoral, but his actions in office seem to me to have been, so far, far more virtuous than we saw under Obama, and ever more so that we would have seen with Crooked Hillary.

Ralph L said...

Snctm Box
$600.00–$45,000.00

$45k for the whale scrotum covering.

buwaya said...

I didnt know there were legal bordellos in California.

I guess if one lays on enough layers of euphemism it can work.
The SF Police are, or were, not long ago, constantly raiding "massage parlors" in SF's Chinatown. And these were always cited as sources of political corruption.

But that stuff seems like little things for little people.

Bay Area Guy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bay Area Guy said...

Harvey Weinstein once trapped a woman in the hallway of a restaurant that was closed to the public and masturbated in front of her until he ejaculated, she says.

Why is Harvey masturbating in a restaurant?

That seems awfully inconsiderate to the other patrons.

Bill said...

I used to admire him because he didn't seem to fear the jihadists. The idea that he fears Harvey Weinstein more than the jihadists is something to ponder.

Bay Area Guy said...

How does one get a membership to Snctm? Is it kinda like Cosco?

From the Snctm website:

"We are a society of likeminded elitists with sophisticated taste and style. The Golden Rule at Snctm is Consensuality. This axiom creates an environment of exalted adult freedoms, a bona fide sensual utopia. We enjoy social interaction with individuals of quality."

I wish I was a likeminded elitist, darn.

Ralph L said...

Bay Area, the restaurant was closed, and HW shooed the remaining staff away to make way for his own.

William said...

What with militant feminism, the era when rich, important men could use their position to manipulate or coerce female underlings into sex will soon be over. At least for conservative big shots. Liberals and sports stars get a pass on the first few predations, but there are lines that even they dare not cross. Roman Polanski never murdered any of his rape victims........I've read about a lot of women who brag that they turned down Trump's oafish advances. Perhaps he wasn't all that coercive. He could learn something about the art of the deal from Harvey Weinstein.

Jupiter said...

Kevin said...

"And it's easy to imagine that even though Harvey might be one of the dirtiest players, it's exactly his well-known transgressions which give lesser people cover for their own acts."

So far, I haven't heard HW accused of anything particularly awful. He made it clear to some women that he would like to have sex with them. I've done that more than once myself. I guess the difference is that he was wealthy and powerful. That meant they felt bad about having to tell him "No". I can think of a couple of gals who actually seemed to enjoy telling me "No".

Comanche Voter said...

So Maher is worried about getting old. That's a problem for old perverts like Maher and Weinstein.

Bilwick said...

"Harvey Weinstein once trapped a woman in the hallway of a restaurant that was closed to the public and masturbated in front of her until he ejaculated, she says."

Oh, so that's a crime now? Sheesh.

Static Ping said...

This is an interesting turnabout. Usually it is the Republicans being scourged for not following their principals, real or imagined. Could a Democrat actually be punished for repeatedly and blatantly violating one of the core beliefs of the progressive?

I doubt it. "Intersectionality" appears to mean that any group or individual can act as badly as they wish to other groups in the alliance as long as vote the right way and donate to the correct causes. Harvey could have raped multiple women in front of witnesses - and from what we have heard so far this is not as improbable as it sounds - and he could get away with it. Then again, the feminist wing has become fanatical since the days of Bill Clinton, so who knows?

Jupiter said...

Static Ping said...
"Could a Democrat actually be punished for repeatedly and blatantly violating one of the core beliefs of the progressive?"

Which core belief would that be? Are you thinking that progressives don't have sex? They have quite a bit of it, and they negotiate it the same way sane people do. The guy makes a move, and the woman makes a decision. There seems to be a sort of hazy notion that he should not make the move unless her decision is going to be positive, but since she doesn't know what she's going to decide until he makes the move, and she also claims the right to change her mind, that isn't really possible.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mezzrow said...

Sanctum sounds like something out of the late Roman empire at its most decadent. Is that where we are?

(nods) Yep. That's where we are. Once you realize this, things start to make sense.

rcocean said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rcocean said...

Oh, so that's a crime now? Sheesh."

Yeah, trapping a woman whipping it out and ejaculating over her in public, was accepted in the 1960s and 1970s.

That's how we rolled back then.

walter said...

Why? Maher IS a sort of "House Nigger"..

rcocean said...

BTW, I don't think crimes are covered by "non-disclosure" agreements - and a lot of what Harvey Weinstein has been accused of could definitely fit into a crime.

walter said...

especially coercing one to watch him shower. Eye rape.

rcocean said...

Maher is 5'8", two inches taller than Al Franken(!).

Yep. He's 5-8 when he has 3 inch heels on.

Freeman Hunt said...

Probably because no one wants to burn that bridge until they know whether or not the ouster takes.

Gk1 said...

Fen's law writ large. The left never lives up to the standards the hold everyone else to. Its not hypocritical if you never meant it in the first place.

Jack Lifton said...

Bill Maher is not a very good looking man, and like many who are short and homely and narcissistic he considers himself deserving of only the company of the best looking women. But most women in that category don't go looking for a Bill Maher, who besides being short and homely is repulsively arrogant. He and Harvey clearly have a lot in common including I would bet some of the employees at his sex club. I have never been able to understand why anyone would pay the least attention to an ass***e like Bill Maher or for that matter like Stephen Colbert.