There is no question that Harvey Weinstein is a sexist and bully and all around reprehensible and despicable person. But, facts are facts, and this statement by his spokeswoman fairly convincingly calls into question his alleged blacklisting of Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino.
In my opinion the first part of the statement is questionable because Miramax was involved in the picture prior to New Line taking it over, and it’s certainly possible that the damning remarks about Sorvino and Judd were made during that time. Thus once New Line took it over and began casting the movie, Weinstein’s previous remarks kept them from being cast. Further, it strains credulity to assert that a movie’s executive producers would have no input whatsoever into the casting of their film.
However, the fact that Weinstein subsequently cast Judd in a couple of his movies and cast Sorvino’s husband in a TV series, apparently at her request, does call into question the veracity of the claim that Weinstein was responsible for the alleged destruction of Judd and Sorvino’s careers.
Same here. But Weinstein’s spokeswoman’s assertions are easy to verify. There’s no question that Judd appeared in 2002’s Frida and in 2009’s Crossing Over, and US magazine states that Mira Sorvino just this year called Weinstein and asked him to cast her husband in SEAL/SIX, which he did. The magazine further states that Weinstein even amicably allowed him out of his contract in order to take a better offer elsewhere.
So there’s really no question that Weinstein’s spokeswoman’s remarks in regard to his subsequently hiring or doing favors for these two women are true.
…but its also irrelevant. Here is why Ashley Judd was cast in Frida:
Hayek produced that film. Judd wasn’t cast by Weinstein: she was cast by Hayek. There was no conversation with Miramax telling Hayek that Judd was a nightmare to work with and she should avoid them hiring Judd all costs. Because they were friends. And Hayek knew better.
Crossing Over was 9 years later. It was distributed in the US by MGM and only internationally by The Weinstein Company. Miramax (the original company in question) had no involvement.
As for Sorvino: lets pretend that everything happened exactly as stated. But so what? Its fifteen years later. Things change. It is both perfectly possible for Sorvino to have been blacklisted back in 2000 and for Weinstein to be taking her calls fifteen years later. By doing her a favour for her husband maybe in his twisted mind he thought that he was putting her “in debt” to him. Maybe he got off on that.
Neither story changes what Peter Jackson said. He’s either lying or he isn’t. Can you think of any good reason why Peter Jackson would bring Ashley Judd in, show her all the creative, the boards, costumes, everything, ask her which of the two roles she preferred, and then never contact her again? Weinstein’s enablers have a track record of spinning “the truth” and I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt now.
…directors are not “similar” to leaders. Directors are leaders. You don’t think women can be leaders? Only 2% of women are suitable to lead?
Forget history. We know that men have had more “success” than women in practically every field. History doesn’t make that right. It doesn’t have to be that way. What is it about women that makes it so difficult to provide direction and let actors, screenwriters, make their own contributions and guide them along without trying to over Micromanage every detail? Why can’t women do this?
What is it about “being a lady” that stops all the other women in the world from being a producer or a director? Why do you think the single example of Kathleen Kennedy makes some sort of a point?
Better accepted by whom? Why would you not accept a women as a leader, especially if they were just as qualified? Doesn’t being qualified as a leader mean a women leader would have the exact same qualities as a male leader? Why would you choose to accept one but not the other?
You think women are incapable of making it fun for everyone to be on set?
So on your list of things that women can’t do:
-Have fun
-Be leaders
-Provide direction
-Stop micromanaging
-Let the actors, screenwriters to make their own contributions
-Guide actors screenwriters to make their own contributions
-Get people to do their best
Is there anything else that you don’t think women can do?
You are right about one thing though. Women don’t get directing jobs because attitudes like yours are shared by those that have power in Hollywood.
…the only woman to ever have won an Oscar for best directing. Maybe making “pieces of shit” movies is the secret of success. Just imagine if she didn’t win that Oscar! Then there would have been zero woman best directors.
Ideally there should be enough woman directors that we shouldn’t have to worry about how many get nominated or win. The badness of the movie is no reflection on her gender but a failure of understanding the subject matter being portrayed. I’ve questions on Veterans pages that ask what is the worst military movie in history and inevitably more than half of the votes are for Hurt Locker. My comment was directed at the post I quoted. The movie may have been impactful to those who didn’t have any personal experiences with the subject but to most who have its cringeworthy. There’s no doubt on the technical side it’s a well crafted movie.
…oh I know exactly what you meant: I’ve heard those criticisms before and I think they are valid. Its just that your post highlighted two of the absurdities of Hollywood: that women both can’t get directing jobs and when they do they rarely get recognized for it, and that women who “fail” (by whatever metric Hollywood power players use for “failure”) they are kept from “working again”, while men who “fail” get “punished” with bigger budgets for their next movie.
The existence of M. Night Shyamalan’s recent output pretty clearly proves that there’s no such thing as “make a movie so bad that you’ll never direct again”.
If you view getting people to do their jobs as a conquest, I guess. But if you do view a manager or director’s job that way, I wouldn’t want to work for you.
I’ve recently read some articles about how there’s indications that involving women in peace negotiations leads to longer-lasting, more solid agreements. There are things we’re more likely to take into account than men; we’re also less prone to zero-sum views.
My best managers never threatened me/us. There were warnings, sometimes. “We have to do X by Z date - if it’s not ready the project will suffer, there will be [these] consequences.” But those warnings were always followed by a search for solutions, with people proposing ideas and everybody actually listening.
My worst managers, whether male or female, did view work as a conquest. To them, it is not important for the team to do our best possible job; what is important is that nobody must give an idea that’s better than their own proposal. What is important is bullying people. They’d hear on Monday that you were called to put out a fire over the weekend and their reaction would be “don’t expect compensation”; “what do you want, a pat on the back?”. They point and laugh when people are uncomfortable, and make a note of what was it that made them uncomfortable so they can use it against them. If that’s what you (whichever you is reading this) think a manager should be like, may you and I never find ourselves in the same team, because you have no idea what a team is.
A bad movie for sure. Seems to be written by someone who didn’t know anything about the subject matter. And didn’t know how people talk to each other. Hated it.
I feel kinda bad for Mira Sorvino for not getting the role in Bad Santa, but I feel more aroused by Lauren Graham’s performance in Bad Santa, so I’m torn, or at least my pants are.
