Weinstein, in the crucially important statement, wrote "Jay Z wrote in 4:44 ‘I’m not the man I thought I was, and I better be that man for my children.’ The same is true for me." The closest thing like that in the actual lyrics to the song is — amidst a great deal of bemoaning his infidelity — "And if my children knew / I don’t even know what I would do / If they ain’t look at me the same / I would prob’ly die with all the shame."
How could he make such a sloppy mistake? I think I know. Weinstein has people do things for him. I think he dictated the statement he wanted, throwing in the reference to the song, paraphrasing the general meaning, and somebody else wrote up the statement and assumed Weinstein knew what he was quoting. That was a terrible assumption. Why wouldn't this person check?!
How does a person get a job transcribing dictation for Weinstein and not have the caution and skill to check what's in quotation marks? All quotes should be perfect, down to the punctuation. And beyond that the text has Jay-Z using the ungrammatical "I better be that man" rather than "I'd better be that man"? If Weinstein is wrong about that, he's going to look racist — a white man interposing his idea of how a black man speaks. I'd protect my boss from any dangers like that. And I wouldn't just guess about whether or not there's a hyphen in "Jay-Z."
How big is the system of corruption around Weinstein? The Times exposé forces me to suspect that everyone who works with Weinstein is there because she/he understood and went along with his modus operandi. Who gets the job and who is rejected? Those who go along are complicit in a system that victimizes newcomers who either become complicit themselves or lose job opportunities.
Do the jobs go to those who are qualified at taking dictation or qualified at taking dick?
***
I appreciated the push to read the lyrics to "4:44." This has nothing to do with Weinstein, but this is some stunning male chauvinism:
I apologize for all the stillborns cause I wasn't presentAND: "I’m not the man I thought I was" sounds infected by "Rocket Man," so bandied about in the news lately.
Your body wouldn't accept it....
Posts
144 comments:
Ann, you're "smarter than the average bear". The world is full of idiots.
To misquote Jay-Z again:
Harvey has 99 problems but a misquote ain't one
I'd like some proof Weinstein listens to Jay Z at all.
I don't know him or his music from Adam, and I'm decades younger than HW.
But then, I didn't know who Weinstein was, or care.
Taking dick is an investment for a woman.
It's the guy who gets only a short-term benefit.
In the realm of things that will never happen, but would be interesting - a civil case against Harvey Weinstein in which ALL the actresses who "paid for play" step forward to speak out.
A lot of his appeal to women is lost if he's not rich and powerful, though.
Turning on him may be the best course for them now.
More payoff.
Doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me....more like he meant it as a paraphrase but it was put in quotes.
And I don't think you need something like this to see that there were undoubtedly a lot of people who surrounded Weinstein and enabled his behavior.
As Dylan once said,
It takes a lot of times
to really see the sky
It takes a lot of ears
to hear women crying
And a lot of people have died
Maybe too many people.
I am Laslo.
Why is Harvey quoting rap lyrics in the first place? Does he honestly think that will shift focus away from aggressive sexual harassment and border line, sexual assaults?
Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton - why are all these Democrat/Hollywood/politicos sexual predators?
How many of the women coming forward actually had sex with him, and how many were just exposed to his bathrobe and his let's make a deal come-on?
Don't you find modern secular mea culpas fascinating to read, but, really, a bit sad.
A confession to someone who's MO is to say "go and sin no more" can be quite straight forward.
A confession to the public is much more difficult, because one never knows what the public will say. There can be a consensus answer, or there can be plurality of answers, or split decisions, or a mess of messages back to the 'sinner'. That requires a lot more words to try to cover all possible opinions. Very messy.
Kind of like building a house upon sand. When the storm comes, the sand can get very shifty.
How big is the system of corruption around Weinstein?
BIG—almost as big as the system of corruption around Hillary and Bill.
BIG enough to touch Obama and daughter Malia.
Scratch the facade of a rich powerful mega donor to the DNC and to Planned Parenthood and you will find a system of corruption.
There's lots of money and power floating around but ethics are assumed to be against it. Are ethics against it?
Or is everybody coming out ahead, and perhaps turning on him is what's unethical.
Economics suggests it's on the up and up until the agreement is violated. Economically speaking, that raises future transaction costs, and today's actresses won't be able to get ahead.
Actresses are already interchangeable except for sleeping to the top.
Bargaining power is lost.
Feminine wiles are being disempowered. Bitchiness isn't going to work as well.
The distinction between "I better be" and "I had better be" is not a distinction between black speech and white speech, but between informal speech and formal speech. I found the following on a blog called English language and usage. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/236948/id-better-vs-i-better. All that follows is a quote from that.
"Using “better” by itself is fine except in formal English. “In a wide range of informal circumstances (but never in formal contexts) the had or ’d can be dispensed with,” Fowler’s says.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage calls “had better” a standard English idiom and agrees with Fowler’s that “better,” when used alone in this sense, “is not found in very formal surroundings.”
The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest citation for the construction without “had” is from a pseudonymous letter to a newspaper by “Major Jack Downing”:
“My clothes had got so shabby, I thought I better hire out a few days and get slicked up a little.” (The letter was published in a book in 1834 but was written in 1831.)
The OED says the abbreviated usage originated in the US, and labels it a colloquialism. But Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) lists it without reservations.
The Merriam-Webster’s editors give the example “you better hurry,” and says “better” in this sense is a “verbal auxiliary.”
It should be noted that even the full phrase, “had better,” was criticized by some in the 19th century on the ground that it was illogical and couldn’t be parsed: an 1897 issue of the Ohio Educational Monthly says many teachers found “had better” and other idioms “very difficult to dispose of grammatically.” "
The guy gets a longer term benefit if she's fun to be with, say she laughs at his jokes. Perhaps his wife doesn't do that.
It makes him happier and more productive, look forward to work.
Behind every successful man is a woman, and behind her is his wife.
Where were the Hollywood Men in all of this?
Supposedly this was known throughout Hollywood for years.
Why did George Clooney not speak out?
Why were Brad Pitt and Matt Damon quiet?
Their fellow actors are treated reprehensibly, and they do nothing?
Clooney had no problem in taking on Donald Trump for dissing Meryl Streep:
“Aren’t you supposed to be running the country?” he asked Trump rhetorically.
What a noble man.
I am Laslo.
John Milton came out against mute and spiritless mates.
Probably Paradise Lost.
rhhardin
Speaking of shortness, you are missing the real scope of the problem.
It's not just about the one woman who decides it's worth it for me to give my youthful sexuality to this man who has no sexual appeal to me, because he has the power to further my career.
There are also all the other women who might have received the career opportunity and might have deserved it on the merits, who did not get the job, and all the women in the future who approach the system, wanting careers and seeing what the career path is, who will then face a decision whether to submit to the sexual demand to get the opportunity or to say no and fail.
And then you have an entire organization in which the conditions are radically different for women and men, and all the women who have succeeded have a cloud over their success. You don't know how many women who truly valued their sexuality were frozen out of the business and how much the ones who made it did so by trading their bodies.
It's not a 2 person transaction. Maybe it looks that way in a rom-com plot, but in the real world there are consequences that extend far beyond the couple.
You come across as if you think you're cute talking about it that way, but you look small-minded and ignorant here. What you're saying could only work as humor if sexual harassment is considered funny, which seems like stuff I read in Playboy in the 1960s.
He looks like a complete dork but women don't work like normal people that way.
"All quotes should be perfect, down to the punctuation. "
Oh, God, yes! Isn't the written word the mark of civilization, or, at least a reflection on civilization? As the further quote of the 'song' lyrics shows, we are certainly declining in civility.
The complete idiocy of the Left is exposed.
@Molly
Thanks for those details, which are consistent with my point.
I say "a white man interposing his idea of how a black man speaks."
I'd want to make sure Jay-Z really said it in what seems like the uneducated way, because it looks bad to ascribe a low-class locution to him. And, of course, he didn't say it at all, so it's just something that sprang out of the white man's head.
There are also all the other women who might have received the career opportunity and might have deserved it on the merits, who did not get the job, and all the women in the future who approach the system, wanting careers and seeing what the career path is, who will then face a decision whether to submit to the sexual demand to get the opportunity or to say no and fail.
Nobody's looking at the actual ethics of the situation. It's all assumed to follow the PC narrative of today.
I'd say it boils down to gains from trade. A bargain happens if both sides come out ahead. They don't want the same things, which is how a mutual advantage can happen in the first place.
In that case, it's going back on the agreement for some one-sided advantage later that's completely unethical. That ought to be called out instead of ignored.
In looking into the ethics, there are also unethical cases, where both sides don't come out ahead, mostly false promises. Say you take the job and then discover the price after you've invested something in it; or he says he'll make you a star and he doesn't try. Those would be unethical too.
Which is it here? Nobody seems to care. It's just un-PC and a gotcha orgy. I claim that's not on the side of the angels.
And then you have an entire organization in which the conditions are radically different for women and men, and all the women who have succeeded have a cloud over their success.
Sort of like Affirmative Action.
Harvey's pseudo-apology:
"I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go.”- Harvey Weinstein
hah - you lying fat fuck! Nobody cares about your "journey"- they care about being able to work productively without you grabbing their tits and trying to coax naked massages from them.
And, of course, Harvey's lawyer partly walks the pseudo-apology back:
"Lisa Bloom, a lawyer advising Mr. Weinstein, said in a statement that “he denies many of the accusations as patently false.”
Not just false, but patently false.
Hollywood values.....
but this is some stunning male chauvinism:
You don't listen to much rap music do you?
You look small-minded and ignorant here.
I always look small-minded and ignorant.
I wonder whether the interpretation of "I'd better" shifted over the years. It might have started as "I would better" or "I should better", and as folks started saying "I'd better", maybe the middle word transformed in grammarians' minds.
This reminds me about how Americans like me still say "there are", as in "there are three apples in that bowl", whereas most other European languages dispensed with plural tense long ago. In German, es gibt (it gives); in Spanish, "hay" (there are/is); in French, "il y a" (uh, maybe it has?). No attention to plurality. The plural tense does seem unnecessary, but I still cling to it out of habit.
Eaglebeak
Misquoting is something, but not as much as AA makes it.
Everyone in the world says, "All that glitters is not gold," but that's not what Shakespeare wrote. He wrote, "All that glisters is not gold."
Everyone says, "blood, sweat, and tears," but Churchill said, "blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
The Casablanca line is "Play it, Sam"--not "Play it again, Sam."
AA would look it up, but she comes from academia and has an interest in correctness.
I understand that, and I agree--
--but, as the saying goes, that should be Harvey Weinstein's biggest problem.
And then you have an entire organization in which the conditions are radically different for women and men, and all the women who have succeeded have a cloud over their success. You don't know how many women who truly valued their sexuality were frozen out of the business and how much the ones who made it did so by trading their bodies.
So long as they're open about it - no false promises, no fraud - work where you want.
It's not as if there are no competitors.
It's the monopoly market thing. Only in a monopoly market should that matter.
Competitors would beat the pants off of them if superior workers are treated shabbily in this place. A market force works on truth.
@tcrosse:
I was about to write that exact same comment.....
Churchill said, "blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
The wretched Oxford comma.
I am a big fan of Beyonce's "Lemonade" concept album, which is her response to/processing through her husband's (Jay-Z) infidelity and why she decides to forgive him.
For Weinstein to throw this out there, it's not just a weird call to rap or a rewriting of idiom, it's an attempt to claim the wife's forgiveness, which is something he can't claim. He's trying to suck off Beyonce's fame and pain, which makes him even more despicable, if that's possible.
Well, very single thing you say strikes me as absolutely true and valid, Althouse. But I hardly think it even scrapes the surface of the warped (but typical) behavior and hypocrisy going on in this matter.
How about the phony Hollywood 'men' that showed continuing obeisance to this low-life (as Laslo well points out)? How about all these heroic Hollywood females (e.g. Judd) who constantly air their moral judgements on others but never simply said 'Go f..k yourself, Harvey!' as they simply walked out the door like a 'REAL woman'? No, that might risk getting a job, losing a buck or not receiving an invite. How about the pathetic attorneys and PR people that even now churn out his deluge of laughable mea culpas. Hollywood is a cesspool of sick behavior and Harvey Frankenstein simply one of the numerous and enabled denizens.
Since Harvey is now discredited, can we stop believing in the climate change scam? See below.
“I hear some of these candidates say climate change is not real, it’s like, ‘Really? Would you like to be in the movie business?'” Harvey Weinstein, backer of Quentin Tarantino’s “Hateful Eight,” says. “‘Would you like to go to a place where it’s always snowed and it doesn’t, where all of a sudden in the middle of winter it gets hot?'”
Do did Harvey get a piece of Malia? That had to be tempting. Young, hot, black and powerful parents that he owned.
Anybody ask Obama why he let his daughter go work for a sexual predator?
Americans say "I gotta", and that of course should mean "I've got to", but Americans also say "I got to". Maybe they think that's a more emphatic version of "I gotta".
Like climate, language always changes.
I think it would have been a lot more fun if HW had included the accurate Jay Z lines in his statement. He should issue a correction.
Piety issued when caught,
Sexual diversity. They want a broad sample of orientations, weirdness, and depravity.
Then there is the feminist angle, where women and girls are encouraged to express their formerly repressed sexual identities.
This so deserves a Slut Walk. Perhaps a sacrifice to the demons lurking at the twilight fringe.
What you're saying could only work as humor if sexual harassment is considered funny, which seems like stuff I read in Playboy in the 1960s.
Sexual harassment is a modern term that takes a particular situation and broadens it to cover other things, like mutually beneficial agreements.
It claims the latter deserve the same disapproval as the former. But there's an overwhelming difference. The latter is an agreement both sides opt in on because it benefits both. Gains from trade. It was also, in the 60s, where babies came from.
I bet Jay-Z is thrilled by being used as Harvey's defense motif.
On his same 4:44 album:
"You wanna know what's more important than throwin' away money at a strip club? Credit
You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America? This how they did it."
Harvey is using Jay-Z's credit card.
I am Laslo.
"If Weinstein is wrong about that, he's going to look racist"
In his defense, Weinstein requires his employees to take a knee on a regular basis...whether the anthem is playing or not.
I'd hate be in the left. They don't care about so many different transgressions if you are one of them, until they do. Then they care about all of them. I'm sure many people, privately at least, knew of Mr. Weinstein's wrongdoings but let it slide. He probably grew comfortable in what he was doing since no one came down on him for it. And then all of the sudden they did come down.
He should paint himself like an illegal immigrant, who has gotten away with it for so long, that it would now be unjust to hold him to account.
Given his excuse that he's a child of the 60s and 70s, he should have misquoted Paul Simon:
know a man, he came from my hometown
He wore his passion for his woman like a thorny crown
He said Dolores, I live in fear
My love for me's so overpowering, I'm afraid that you will disappear
I think a person more clever than I should come up with a spoof twitter feed of Harvey Weinstein grammar-correcting black rap musicians.
If you think I'm fake, I will take no notice, because my money isn't fake.
"Anita Dunn, a top Obama campaign staffer and former White House communications director, helped offer damage control advice for the Hollywood mogul."
Should have hired Ben Rhodes.
I wonder if rich and powerful men outed by women notice who the women are who do not turn them in, the ones who keep the deal. Probably they're regarded as friends.
I think Weinstein has chosen the wrong piety for his defense. It's not 70s ethics, it's today's ethics.
The wretched Oxford comma
I like the Oxford comma.
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and a preference for young leftist women who will keep quiet
The Oxford comma should only be used when it actually avoids an ambiguity.
It violates the rule that the comma in the list useage marks a missing "and" and there's no "and" missing at the end of a list.
The folks here at Exec-U-Tech would like to say we don't endorse any improper uses for the Office Shower 2000
"It's not just about the one woman who decides it's worth it for me to give my youthful sexuality to this man who has no sexual appeal to me, because he has the power to further my career.
There are also all the other women who might have received the career opportunity and might have deserved it on the merits, who did not get the job, and all the women in the future who approach the system, wanting careers and seeing what the career path is, who will then face a decision whether to submit to the sexual demand to get the opportunity or to say no and fail. "
Absolutely. When Bill and Monica were in the news, I heard a lot about "consensual" sex between adults. I would respond,"What about all the other interns?" You know the ones without increased access, exposure (in the cleanest of meanings) or help with post white house careers.
It seemed self-proclaimed feminists went absolutely wobbly on the issue as if it made no sense at all.
I'm a man of wealth and a preference for young leftist women who will keep quiet
It's today's ethics that's the problem. You have to keep quiet, or ought to know to keep quiet, because the ethics of today no longer work as ethics but merely claim to.
Otherwise it would just be disclosing a fair deal.
You missed a required comma there, rhhardin. And the Oxford comma (badly named; should be Harvard or Strunk comma) must always be used, just as passive tense must sometimes be used.
Look what Hillary got from Web Hubbell, whom she joined as a law partner. Chelsea.
"Do the jobs go to those who are qualified at taking dictation or qualified at taking dick?"
If this is original I tip my hat to you, but it sounds like something Meade, or just about any guy, would say.
I'm a comma omitter. There are too many of them.
Ann Althouse said...How does a person get a job transcribing dictation for Weinstein and not have the caution and skill to check what's in quotation marks?
Just a wild guess here, but maybe the assistant wasn't hired for her attention to detail?
Here's a comma that should be omitted: the one before quotes. She yelled, "Stop!" I tend to omit both the comma and the uppercase first word (She yelled "stop!"
As to "I came of age in the 60's and 70's" . . . . I just realized that Vegas shooter is the same age as Weinstein. Has everyone in their mid 60s heretofore lived secret lives of debauchery, harassment, manipulation and evil.
ALTHOUSE SAYS: "...It's not just about the one woman who decides it's worth it for me to give my youthful sexuality to this man.....
There are also all the other women who...might have deserved it on the merits, who did not get the job, and all the women in the future ....And then you have an entire organization in which the conditions are radically different for women and men..."
Yes, you're exactly right, I would say. But where the hell is a single word from you about the utter failure of your collective sense of 'women' to do the right thing en masse? Maybe such 'organizationally deficient conditions' are the majority fault of the 'gender deficient women' themselves? "Radically different" is sometimes what "radically different" does?
Grow up, girls, if you want to be treated differently, find the 'gender-wide courage' to earn it. Right now the only 'courage' "Women" seem to have is to call out men already safely in the stocks.
General Lee was a man of the 1860's. Didn't help him much......
I don't think Harvey wrote or even dictated any of this.
He has asked Lisa Bloom to assemble a team! A team to teach him how to be a better man. What does he need a team for if he has to do it himself?
I see it like this:
Harvey: I gotta put out a statement. What should I say?
Lisa: Jake, my associate, has put something together that I think covers it.
Jake (a millennial): I got it right here, Mr. Weinstein. I put in some stuff about Jay-Z because Beyonce forgave him, and your bar mitzvah, and your mom. And maybe a charitable foundation. $5 million?
Harvey: $5 million is good. Lisa, did you read this? Is it OK with you?
Lisa: Jake is one of our best kids.
Harvey: If it's OK with you, it's OK with me. Print it.
Women aren't going to call out current instances where they're making a mutually beneficial deal.
They'll call them out later if they have no character, when they can get additional benefit from it. That's the ethical failure, not the original deal.
...a civil case against Harvey Weinstein in which ALL the actresses who "paid for play" step forward to speak out.
This sounds like the finale to Seinfeld.
What it proves to a guy, even current guys, is that women don't know guy rules on deals and so can't be trusted today, right now.
I slept with this guy who said he's make me a star and he didn't even try, is a fair calling out.
I slept with this guy and he made me a star, isn't. It's going after an additional benefit at cost to him later.
"He should paint himself like an illegal immigrant, who has gotten away with it for so long, that it would now be unjust to hold him to account."
Harvey Weinstein: movie producer, mogul, Dreamer.
I'm Truly Sorry
https://buzzking.bandcamp.com/track/im-truly-sorry
(lyrics start at 30 second mark)
"That was a terrible assumption. Why wouldn't this person check?!" Why should they? They don't care. He doesn't care. Until yesterday, none of his prog friends cared. They can afford not to care.
"All quotes should be perfect, down to the punctuation." Why? The cultural world is ruled by progs who can afford not to care, not by educated schoolmarms who do.
"How big is the system of corruption around Weinstein? The Times exposé forces me to suspect that everyone who works with Weinstein is there because she/he understood and went along with his modus operandi." Well, of course. It "forces" you to suspect, does it. Welcome to prog world. Assume every single person, every single thing is "corrupt," and you will rarely be forced to suspect otherwise.
Ann Althouse said...There are also all the other women who might have received the career opportunity and might have deserved it on the merits, who did not get the job, and all the women in the future who approach the system, wanting careers and seeing what the career path is, who will then face a decision whether to submit to the sexual demand to get the opportunity or to say no and fail.
Can we think deeply about this for a moment, Professor?
Your contrasting someone deserving the job "on the merits" vs someone hired because of the boss' lust/a willinness to give in to the demands for sexual favors got me thinking.
Let's put aside a straight quid pro quo for a moment--let's think about a boss who preferentially hires people they find sexually attractive. They actively discriminate against people they don't find sexually attractive when it comes to hiring.
Is that wrong, in your mind? We know from your repeated reminders that we have to take account of the role our emotions and feelings play in our decision making. The decisions of a person who embraces those emotions and is guided by them are just as valid as the decisions of a person who (wrongly) thinks they're acting out of just rationality/acting objectively based on logic and facts. I'm pretty sure that's been definitively established on this blog--the science is settled on that one.
So: if the hiring decisions of a given employer are driven by their emotions and those emotions include lust/sexual attraction when evaluating job candidates, is that in some way wrong, morally? If wrong should it be illegal?
Maybe very sexually attractive subordinates or coworkers make a given boss FEEL very good--just having them around makes them FEEL better than working with plain people would. If the person doing the hiring acted on those FEELINGS you wouldn't blame them, would you?
Seems like if we allow that feelings drive our behavior & decisions and that's a good, natural thing we might have to conclude that it's not wrong or immoral for an employer to strongly prefer to hire employees who make them FEEL good, and that might mean accepting that a strong preference for sexually attractive employees is ok.
Or am I not thinking deeply enough? I admit I don't feel strongly about it...
Until a hundred years ago or less, actresses were considered one step above whores in the pecking order of females. How long has this been goin' on?
How does a person get a job transcribing dictation for Weinstein and not have the caution and skill to check what's in quotation marks?
Not 100% sure, but I suspect being willing to watch him shower helps!
"They don't care about so many different transgressions if you are one of them, until they do. Then they care about all of them"
Jackals are like that.
Wasn't the court caution: "Don't attack the King unless you are certain you can kill him"?
In Ed Wood's non-fiction book, Hollywood Rat Race, he suggests that one of the actors in The Sinister Urge got her role by sleeping with the star.
Sleeping with someone for a role in an Ed Wood movie. That has to be the most depressing thing ever.
And I agree with Althouse. It would be fascinating to see how much raw incompetence can be traced to people who surround themselves with yes-men.
The simplest and most likely explanation is that Harvey Weinstein didn't mean this to be a quote, but his lawyer Lisa Bloom or someone on her legal team erroneously put the quote marks in during the process of revising the statement for release. Take out the quote marks and it's a fair statement about how the song 4:44 might be speaking to Harvey in his current situation. But still probably bullshit.
N.B. The good at taking dick but not dictation put down sounds like lyrics from the rhardin song. You are doing a hip-hop duet!
Has everyone in their mid 60s heretofore lived secret lives of debauchery, harassment, manipulation and evil.
Some not so secret.
"And I agree with Althouse. It would be fascinating to see how much raw incompetence can be traced to people who surround themselves with yes-men."
Don't accuse Harvey of being a sexist. He was willing to to surround himself with just as many yes-women as yes-men.
(citation to an old New Yorker comic panel.)
How does anyone remember rap "lyrics" with no tune to help?
I used to send “dictated but not read” emails for my boss a dozen years ago. I doubt I sent a single one I didn’t clean up to improve the spoken word for text. (He’s a better writer than I am so this wasn’t me being snooty. We just all mostly sound dumber when having words transcribed).
100 percent chance I would have checked the song lyrics and protested if they were wrong.
But if I were terrified of my boss I wouldn’t have.
The kind of boss who abuses subordinates has them terrified.
"Actress" has always been a euphemism for "prostitute", the poor little dears.
Molly said...The distinction between "I better be" and "I had better be"
"I better be" is correct because it's shorter.
Has everyone in their mid 60s heretofore lived secret lives of debauchery, harassment, manipulation and evil.
Althouse could do a poll--but wait, aren't she and Meade in their mid-60's?
"I'd say it boils down to gains from trade. A bargain happens if both sides come out ahead. They don't want the same things, which is how a mutual advantage can happen in the first place."
I don't know why you are missing my point. I think you are smart, so it must be willful blindness or playing dumb.
It's not a closed-system of 2 individuals playing a one-time game.
There's the old joke about the starlet who was so stupid she slept with a writer.
It says a lot that the criticism is over the wrong lyrics, and not that Jay Z is notorious for wearing bling from Five Percent Nation, an aggressively racist, demented group of black supremacists.
You could make a good movie out of the ethics problem I'm insisting on.
I bailed out of Horrible Bosses ("you may also like") and Horrible Bosses 2 as too stupid to finish.
They didn't want to mention the interesting possibilities.
Hear about the Polish actress? She slept with the writer.
So: if the hiring decisions of a given employer are driven by their emotions and those emotions include lust/sexual attraction when evaluating job candidates, is that in some way wrong, morally? If wrong should it be illegal?
Absolutely. Make the secretarial pool, Fox News Babes and Hollywood look more like America...... .
I don't know why you are missing my point. I think you are smart, so it must be willful blindness or playing dumb.
I thought I covered it. Work where you want. I'm against fraud and deceit (which keep you from making the deal you think you're making), but unless it's a monopoly market, make your own choices.
Mentioned: a bad boss doesn't do well against competitors. The market takes care of it, if it's really the injustice that's claimed.
"He should paint himself like an illegal immigrant, who has gotten away with it for so long, that it would now be unjust to hold him to account."
He could also add to his defense that he's a high school graduate.
I've worked for men all my life so never had the opportunity to sleep around to the top.
"Yes, you're exactly right, I would say. But where the hell is a single word from you about the utter failure of your collective sense of 'women' to do the right thing en masse? Maybe such 'organizationally deficient conditions' are the majority fault of the 'gender deficient women' themselves? "Radically different" is sometimes what "radically different" does?"
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but I think the place in the post where I demand something from the women is: "Those who go along are complicit in a system that victimizes newcomers who either become complicit themselves or lose job opportunities."
Also, in my comment at 8:03: "... and all the women who have succeeded have a cloud over their success. You don't know how many women who truly valued their sexuality were frozen out of the business and how much the ones who made it did so by trading their bodies."
Women are stealing from other women. They are building their personal success at the expense of other women. They are choosing to be part of a system that hurts many other women. They accept pain for themselves, to get advantage, but they are responsible for the harm that they do to other women. The sisterhood is not powerful.
I've mentored women at work, but only by email. They repaid it by being friendly, I guess.
Sorry tcrosse. You beat me to the writer joke..... Of course mine included an ethnic slur so there's that.
"100 percent chance I would have checked the song lyrics and protested if they were wrong.
But if I were terrified of my boss I wouldn’t have.
The kind of boss who abuses subordinates has them terrified. "
I used to submit my work to a boss that thought he was the world's greatest writer. He'd scribble his "improvements" in the margins. Then I'd spend a LONG time with our secretary trying to make heads or tails out of it.
One day in frustration I asked Jackie to just write it the way he'd noted. He called me into his office and said, "What the hell is this crap?"
I pulled out his notation and said, "I don't know, Barry. You wrote it." We got along much better after that. I suspect I could not have done that with old Harvey.
Women are competitors, and do not necessarily abhor sex with a powerful and rich boss.
As for cloud, actually doing work tends to show up, at least in STEM fields.
JAORE said...Absolutely. When Bill and Monica were in the news, I heard a lot about "consensual" sex between adults. I would respond,"What about all the other interns?" You know the ones without increased access, exposure (in the cleanest of meanings) or help with post white house careers.
Yes, absolutely; exactly correct. For years it was all "power dynamics" this and "structural effects of individual sexist decisions" that, but when the rubber met the road/when the cigar met the human humidor suddenly all that mattered were that two consenting adults engaged in sexual behavior. None of our business! Only a repressed puritanical conservative would object, and only the ones who were themselves sexually deviant/perverted would investigate and make a stink about someone else's sex life. Sure that "someone else" was the President and his actions as head of the executive branch of the federal government might seem to be important given the years--decades!--of feminist assertions regarding relations between the sexes, workplace issues, etc, but Bill was a Democrat and that trumped all.
To hear those same people decry Republicans' refusal to bounce Trump over his history of sleazy behavior and/or some idle chatter about grabbin' pussy was pretty amusing. How dare we not continue to cling to the standards you denounced us for having and made sure we were mocked for citing!
Not that many Ashley Judd fans here, but she deserves some credit for speaking out. This will not serve to advance her career. My guess is that there are many nasty stories about Weinstein that will never be told. I don't think all those actors who gave fulsome thanks to Harvey will ever be asked any embarrassing questions about what they knew of the nature of his dealings.
What kind of work do women do where they can make others do poorly by doing well, unless it's just mean girls stuff.
All sorts of incompetent men get promoted, the ass kissers and fraudsters, for which the answer of nerds left behind is, how smart do you have to be to be a manager.
Somewhat reenforced by those who refuse promotion in the first place.
Nobody talks about the cloud over managers. You assume they're stupid regardless, with certain talents for meetings.
but unless it's a monopoly market, make your own choices.
What makes you think Hollywood isn't a monopoly market? When the idea is created there is one script. One person owns it. One studio gets to make it. And one actress gets the part.
If I asked you who in Hollywood had the most control over the process described above, the answer would undoubtedly be Harvey Weinstein.
And that answer is correct not only because of his past success in creating stars and winning Oscars for Best Picture, but because after he does that for people like Matt Damon, George Clooney, Jennifer Lawrence, Ben Affleck, and Quentin Tarantino, they feel indebted for his choosing them and continue to bring their projects back to his studio.
"Women are stealing from other women. They are building their personal success at the expense of other women. They are choosing to be part of a system that hurts many other women. They accept pain for themselves, to get advantage, but they are responsible for the harm that they do to other women. The sisterhood is not powerful."
This has been so since time immemorial.
Movies might be a monopoly market but I don't think so. I haven't been keeping track. The logos on the DVDs keep changing, but with a couple common ones.
I never heard of Harvey Weinstein either, so what do I know.
My impression is that Hollywood companies keep buying each other up.
And then you have an entire organization in which the conditions are radically different for women and men, and all the women who have succeeded have a cloud over their success. You don't know how many women who truly valued their sexuality were frozen out of the business and how much the ones who made it did so by trading their bodies.
Not sure if you're claiming that Hollywood is exclusively heterosexual, or homosexuals are exclusively ethical.
"How does anyone remember rap "lyrics" with no tune to help?"
I like big butts, I cannot lie. (Sic)
Rhhardin's dream of a free casting market requires full transparency of terms before the big reveal. Considering what's above the neck, no one should be exposed unwillingly to HW below the neck.
There's also the wasted time on both sides, including agents.
Hey isn't Amazon into movies now though. There's a market force. They'll hire all the really competent women and blow the existing competitors out of the water.
Stlcdr, that one was assisted by the video.
They are choosing to be part of a system that hurts many other women.
If you believe that 20% of women who attend the University of Wisconsin at Madison will be raped, as you apparently do since you have never taken one of the many opportunities I've given you to deny it, you have also been a part of a system that hurts other women.
Agents are middlemen, who have a nontrivial role; that is, they're not superfluous cost.
For which see Mike Munger
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/10/munger_on_middl.html
a great podcast, back when the super guests hadn't run out of things to say.
Also, in my comment at 8:03: "... and all the women who have succeeded have a cloud over their success. You don't know how many women who truly valued their sexuality were frozen out of the business and how much the ones who made it did so by trading their bodies."
Exactly. We can fill the next several weeks with reporters going up to every actress whose career he launched and ask her what she did to get the part. Following that, we can go up to every actress who auditioned but didn't get the part and ask her what she did and what she refused to do.
And how many would offer a "no comment" because denying anything ends the questioning but keeps them from engaging in litigation? When we got done with that, we can get into the rumor mill about who heard what about whom and who they heard it from.
And when it's all done we can decide which people were victims, which deserve the Scarlet A, and which probably still haven't told us the truth.
A simple transaction between two people? It's more like six degrees of Harvey Weinstein.
AA said..."They accept pain for themselves, to get advantage, but they are responsible for the harm that they do to other women. The sisterhood is not powerful."
Do they [accept pain]? Assuming you mean a mental anguish, if one is morally deficient in this regard, do you recognize your own moral deficiency?
Rhhardin's dream of a free casting market requires full transparency of terms before the big reveal.
I'm in favor of that, but claim it probably goes on. There's ethical and unethical behavior under what's called the old rules, and those ought to be distinguished.
There's also the new rules, which I claim are themselves unethical. That is, the old rules are actually right.
Women are stealing from other women. They are building their personal success at the expense of other women. They are choosing to be part of a system that hurts many other women. They accept pain for themselves, to get advantage, but they are responsible for the harm that they do to other women. The sisterhood is not powerful.
All about Eve.
Ann Althouse said...I don't know why you are missing my point. I think you are smart, so it must be willful blindness or playing dumb.
It's not a closed-system of 2 individuals playing a one-time game.
Professor: I agree. But, thinking deeply again, why isn't that same framework applied to other topics? Maybe I've just seen a bunch of n.n. posts lately but I immediately thought of abortion. Abortion rights are spoken of (by proponents) almost exclusively in terms of individual autonomy--"it's her body so she must be the one to make the choice" and so forth. rhhardin could just as easily say that an individual woman should have the right to strike a bargain with a potential boss, though, couldn't he? It's her body and her choice of how to use it--assuming she consents shouldn't she have that right in terms of personal autonomy?
Sure, you say, but there are other factors to consider, like the effect allowing such individual choice might have on others--on society at large. In the case of permissible sexual "exploitation" you've concluded that those external factors outweigh whatever personal autonomy the individuals have; you've concluded that despite their wish to use their bodies in a given way it must be made illegal for them to do so since allowing them that choice would produce some bad outcome for society as a whole.
Well: isn't abortion subject to that same line of reasoning? Let's say making abortion legal has any number of ill effects on society (less marriage/less stable family formation, more promiscuity by the young--whatever). Should that not be considered when determining whether a woman should have a right to abort a child? It's certainly not an argument I hear the Left giving much credence on that topic, but it seems like if you accept it here, on the issue of a woman using her body in a given way for her personal gain (but possibly at the expense of society) you ought to accept it there, as well.
Professor: I agree. But, thinking deeply again, why isn't that same framework applied to other topics?
I suspect some would say the difference is between making a free choice and being coerced into one. However we have to admit even the abortion question includes coercion by people outside of yourself to make the decision most pleasing to them.
I do think there is a lot of personal hypocrisy in these things. We do enjoy individual freedom. And our choices do impact those around us. Depending on the issue, we are likely to stress one over the other.
There is really no way to get around that, and it's at the heart of most of our debates.
Women are stealing from other women. They are building their personal success at the expense of other women. They are choosing to be part of a system that hurts many other women. They accept pain for themselves, to get advantage, but they are responsible for the harm that they do to other women. The sisterhood is not powerful.
Why should women be any different than men?
The dynamics you describe are common to humankind. Men and women. Not all men or all women act in this way, but the majority of people will build their personal success at the expense of others. Not always in a dramatic way where you mean to literally harm the other person in an evil sense but in the way that in life there are losers and winners.
The man who gets the promotion over another guy because he can schmooze the boss better. Play golf and basically suck up. So the loser in the promotion competition is 'harmed' in a way because he didn't get the raise, the prestigious promotion. The loser didn't play the game in order to win.
We can speculate on the ethics of this type of competitive behavior. Is it unethical to use your 'tools' to your own advantage? It is more ethical to allow yourself to be purposely put at the disadvantage because you won't use your 'tools' or skills. Who is the better person? Is there a better person? Choosing to be the loser or choosing to be the winner. It isn't a gender issue. It is human nature.
In the broader sense.....There is no sisterhood. There is no brotherhood. To think that these exist, is delusion.
The loyalty that you give and which is demanded of you starts small: to your group, team, family and even nation if you feel associated with that group. This lack of group association is one of the things that is driving the divide in our own country. I feel no sisterhood with other women as a broad general group. I have no sisterhood, especially with those who have already decided that I am somehow deplorably defective for not falling in line with their chosen issues.
Has any guy outed a woman. I only made her a star because she slept with me.
Guys keep the deals, I think. Excepting fraud in the first place. The honest deals.
Guys' rules.
William said...Not that many Ashley Judd fans here, but she deserves some credit for speaking out.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't she make some vague accusations a few years ago but refuse to identify Weinstein at that time? I mean it's good that she went on the record now and certainly she'll be under threat from his lawyers, but she's really not risking much at this point, career-wise, is she?
Do the jobs go to those who are qualified at taking dictation or qualified at taking dick?
People that rich and powerful end up surrounded by sycophants unless the actively guard against it. So, nobody is around to tell them when they are full of it. Its the Charlie Sheen syndrome.
Personally, I hope this burns Hollywood figuratively to the ground. I hope the women come forward and name names.
And not just Harvey Weinstein, but everyone in the industry who they told but who did nothing or counsel them to be quiet. The full Ripley.
Private Vasquez: All right. We got seven canisters of CM-20. I say we roll them in there and nerve gas the whole fuckin' nest.
Corporal Hicks: It's worth the try, but we don't know if that's gonna affect them.
Private Hudson: Look let's just bug out and call it even, okay? What are we even talking about this for?
Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Private Hudson: Fuckin' A!
Burke: Hold on, hold on just a second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it.
Ripley: They can *bill* me.
oops. Sorry about the extra lines at the end.
If the wife won't do, then the traditional, stable solution was to acquire a mistress, or two or three. Yes, I know a guy who keeps three extra households, with kids in each. I have no idea whats going to happen at his funeral. Its very sleazy, and a complicated life even for a rich man. But its better than offending random strangers mixed up in your business.
I find it hard to imagine why Weinsteins actual wife wont do though.
I really would like Althouse to engage with HoodlumDoodlum. He has a very interesting take on this topic.
We have decided that pure merit is not enough to get the job. So what a out the attractive person. Or the relative of a friend. Or the diversity hire. Or the funny guy. Or the fellow sport nut.
Are all those people morally complicit in taking jobs away from the more qualified.
I suspect that a lot of this feels very different to the parties involved. And it probably feels differently at different times as well. For the men the casting couch probably just feels like a sexual interaction. I suspect most men would not enjoy the feeling of desperation they witness in the women of the casting couch. But the men who do this don't really care that much. To them it is just one of the benefits of being a powerful and influential man.
Some women I imagine don't care at all. And if the casting couch can help further their career they have no problems doing that. I suspect the entertainment industry has lots of these types of women. On the other side there are women who absolutely would not tolerate it at all. They might succumb to pressure and not reveal the existence of the casting couch, because they imagine that would torpedo their career, but they do not engage in the sexual transaction. Then I think there are some women in the middle who don't like the idea of the casting couch but are willing to go through it to help their career. But afterwards they probably experience lots of regret. I imagine that Ke$ha is an example of a woman regretfully went though the transaction and then regretted it deeply afterward. Especially because her career seemed to stall out. A regrettable transaction is one thing if you wind up getting what you want. But if you don't get the success you were hoping for it must magnify the feelings of sorrow and regret.
Put DBQ down in the list then of women who will suck dick to get ahead...
But it's all good: she likes it. Oh, and the lipstick such loyalty buys.
(That's what you're sayin', right?)
Not exactly :-) However, I would gladly kick some other women in the head if it meant that I get the promotion.
You get what I'm sayin' ..right.
Didn't he have a brother who died?
Did they double team?
If Weinstein is wrong about that, he's going to look racist — a white man interposing his idea of how a black man speaks.
Not going to happen. He is a member of the protected tribe.
Remember. Hillary's I don't feels no way ti-ard!
There's the old joke about the starlet who was so stupid she slept with a writer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJrj4Qi27k4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xVYOnCdv_Y
Question : "How does a person get a job transcribing dictation for Weinstein and not have the caution and skill to check what's in quotation marks?"
Answer: Big knockers..
AA sez:
"Women are stealing from other women. They are building their personal success at the expense of other women. They are choosing to be part of a system that hurts many other women. They accept pain for themselves, to get advantage, but they are responsible for the harm that they do to other women. The sisterhood is not powerful."
10/6/17, 9:20 AM
---------------------------------------
Righteously good stuff. Well done. But one caveat:
"Attractive" woman are stealing from other women......
The homely gals aren't getting these benefits. And this fuels left-wing feminism to force attractive show-horse gals to become work-horse gals.
George Clooney on Harvey Weinstein...
I've known Harvey a lot of years, we've done a lot of work together. This whole situation makes me sad, very sad. Intelligent, talented women -- many whom I have worked with -- have sadly sullied this man's reputation...
Sure, Harvey likes to shower. I've seen Harvey in the shower, Harvey has seen me in the shower. Hell, Harvey, Matt Damon and I have taken showers together...
It's a form of bonding that is probably too European for some young actresses to understand. Many of these actresses came from small towns in America, and as such have misguided fears about watching important men shower...
Sure, when we showered together Harvey's cock brushed against my thigh: it happens. I brushed Matt Damon's buttocks with MY cock, no big deal...
Hell, when Harvey showered with Brad Pitt Harvey's cock accidentally fell into Brad's asshole: it's a funny story, get Brad a little drunk and he'll tell it to you...
Don't get me wrong: I have empathy for these women. It can be tough, going through life that uptight. I mean, how can you not have a smile on your face when you're watching Harvey shave his hairy ass in the shower...?
I simply would like to say to these actresses: lighten up. Unless he fucked you in the ass against your will: that's different...
I am Laslo.
this fuels left-wing feminism to force attractive show-horse gals to become work-horse gals
Did you notice the glares between women during the last Slut Walk?
The fear and envy was palpable. With female chauvinism placing men on a leash, and unworthy, inconvenient, or profitable babies in an early grave, these women finally feel empowered.
most men would not enjoy the feeling of desperation they witness
But for some, that's the best part--or it's needed to float their boat (which explains the serial perp).
I've watched too much "Criminal Minds."
So, now we're talking about whether the sexually harassed and sexually abused were *REALLY* victims.
At this rate, someone will ask us to feel sorry for poor ol' Harvey Weinstein. He was the *REAL* victim.
And then you have an entire organization in which the conditions are radically different for women and men, and all the women who have succeeded have a cloud over their success. You don't know how many women who truly valued their sexuality were frozen out of the business and how much the ones who made it did so by trading their bodies.
Not sure if you're claiming that Hollywood is exclusively heterosexual, or homosexuals are exclusively ethical.
Imagine what kind of record David Geffen has amassed.
Imagine how many boys or young men may have been used and abused in such fashion across the industry. No one cares. Althouse does not care - because boys are not women? or because homosexuality is sacrosanct and not open to question or review? After all, boys can't get pregnant. I guess that makes them expendable.
Imagine how many boys or young men may have been used and abused in such fashion across the industry. No one cares. Althouse does not care - because boys are not women? or because homosexuality is sacrosanct and not open to question or review? After all, boys can't get pregnant. I guess that makes them expendable.
I think when it comes to society generally it is not just a matter of who the victim is, it is also a matter of who the victimizer is. In a somewhat related concept of domestic violence, society predominantly cares about one situation. When a man is abusing a woman. A woman abusing a man, won't draw that much attention, in fact some might laugh at the idea. Similarly a man abusing a man, not many will care, but neither will many care if it is a woman abusing a woman. I think I saw a video by Jordan Peterson when he was talking to Camile Paglia and he touched upon I think a corollary. Men know and society knows how men compete against men. There are certain established rule sets. Women know and society knows how women are supposed to compete against other women. Same with women competing against men. However men don't know and I don't think society knows how men are supposed to compete against women. It is easy to say, 'Oh just judge each person as an individual based on their merits." But life is much messier than that. It is incredibly rare for an area of life to have an easily quantifiable result on which to judge performance. Plus lots of things people do to improve their chances of success aren't really based on merit but on the soft things like personableness, and getting people to like you. Women in the workforce have complained before, and I don't think without merit about 'The guys night out' with the boss. Or the Golf games.
Harvey's first big film was, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape."
Right there, in full view, he showed us his evil nature, but no one saw it. I refer, of course, to the comma.
And now, as things cum full circle, we have the sex, we have the lies, but, please Jesus, don't let there be videotape.
Poor ann, all she can say to commenters " all of you are dumb asses, why can't you see how intelligent i am, i am women". Another nail in the coffin of feminism.
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