Or so says his Mork and Mindy costar Pam Dawber. Oddly enough she seems to have been fine with it.
As long as it’s all fun then! I have to wonder though why she would reveal this, she must know how damaging this will be to his reputation in the current climate, although of course Robin is past caring.
Robin was also a victim. He was groped by Joy Behar on the air on an episode of “The View.”
Maybe it’s a comic thing.
Should also be considered in the context of the times. What is considered practically a capital crime in this culture was not such a big deal in the late 70s, where there was a more freewheeling attitude in many walks of life. This included rock stars boinking teenagers and so on.
As Dawber notes, she thought it was “fun” at the time and she was not offended. Attitudes have changed considerably, of course; you can get arrested for what was commonplace then.
The article states that she “claims she was repeatedly sexually harassed” but her quote doesn’t actually say that. If she laughed each time and thought it was hilarious, was she being harassed?
She says she never took offense and that it was fun. That sounds like the diametric opposite of “harassment” unless you’re just trying to drive page views.
I have no idea of what sort of thing we’re talking about here, but as a WAG I suppose that Dawber is differentiating between simulated sexual acts done purely for comic purposes and with no malign intent, and groping/sexual assault done with actual sexual or harassing intent (i.e. to excite the groper and/or intimidate the gropee).
OTOH the former behavior appears to be the main offense against Al Franken and that didn’t turn out well either.
It was possible to joke around about sex, forty years ago.
People understood the difference in a joke and malicious sexual intent
Different time, different world. Those days are gone.
That’s not how Al Franken’s transgressions were described* and he wasn’t remotely the same type of whacky frantic style comedian Williams was either.
*excepting the USO incident. The others were all ass grab during photo ops.
This was quotes from her that are included in a recently published Williams biography. So most likely as the writer was inteviewing he asked about on-set wild shenanigans (because, come on, Robin Williams) and she answered truthfully. Confirmed by Gary Marshall and Howard Storm in the same bio, as quoted in the Guardian article that was the source for Page Six.
Jophiel, I believe the “claims she was repeatedly sexually harassed” bit is an expression of the Post’s writer’s take on the information, filtered through a post-2016 lens.
Exactly.
You can’t look at events in 1977 through 2018 filters.
The world today bears no resemblance at all to 1977. I was just finishing high school and using pay phones to call home. I had four channels on my tv and had never seen a vhs tape.
Bullshit. Dawber was apparently a semi-willing (or completely willing) participant, Franken’s victim was asleep. What Dawber describes is “slap and tickle”, what Franken did is >< this close to molesting woman who’s been given a roofie.
It really isn’t. She was on a plane full of people, not actually touched and Franken was mugging for a camera. You are seriously delusional on that comparison.
Nonsense. If another man had come up and grabbed your dick through your pants, would you have dismissed it as a joke? If a man at your wife’s workplace (or your mother’s or your daughter’s) had grabbed her breasts or ass, would you have called it a joke?
Sexual harassment has always been wrong and men have always known it. But until recently men thought they had the power to get away with it.
Pam didn’t accuse Robin of touching her V. That absolutely would be crossing the line.
It used to be possible to touched in a joking way.
I’ve been goosed (poked) before. Quite a few times in high school. It was a common prank. I certainly didn’t think the person wanted to have sex with me.
Ancient history. Different world today.
This, and the era in which he was doing it, makes all the difference in the world.
Dawber dismisses whatever happened as a joke, saying that she never took offense and that it was “so much fun”.
Are women not allowed to make these determinations themselves any longer?
Which however would not excuse the behavior if unwelcomed or exploitative, or if it was still going on 30 years later; and in hindsight sure, we can say that everyone involved was being less-than-professional (as in, c’mon, Gary, it’s not normal for one of your leads to get naked for the sake of rattling the other player during her takes… the pharmaceuticals were flowing abundantly in those days, I suppose, making people more chill about it). But nobody claims they got hurt as far as we can tell.
Today we do seem to have moved to a standard that whether the target of the behavior welcomed it or not is irrelevant, and context be damned, which is a justifiable reaction to a culture of excuses – but I can imagine individuals saying “hey, wait, so how I feel is still not what matters?”
With Williams, however, the determining factor would be did his behavior change post-superstardom. Because if you’re a wild one as an up & comer in your first starring role in your 20s that’s a different thing from still being one as a major industry icon in your 50s.
Certainly they are. You have to wonder though, if as Dawber says this was his practice with everyone, just how many of them found it ‘fun’ and how many didn’t. And the fact that women often suffered in silence back then and that ‘things were different’ doesn’t excuse it at all.
She actually said “I think he probably did it”. Maybe we should wait for someone who was actually offended to speak up rather than weaving imaginary victims or saying that Dawber was “harassed” despite her contrary statements.
I admit I’m not seeing the big 1970s/2010s divide, either. If someone was behaving like Williams today and everyone is cool with it, big deal. Dawber says she was cool with it, I see no reason to disbelieve her.
When the story broke about Franken, it seemed pretty clear that Leeann Tweeden was not cool with it and he should have avoided involving her in his antics. It’s not there’s some huge social-evolution divide between Tweeden and Dawber; one thought antics were funny and one didn’t.
Admittedly, what has happened is we’re willing to take Tweeden’s complaints more seriously now than we would have, had she made them in 1978.
[Underline added.]
If we subjected the music industry to the same scrutiny of its past attitudes and behavior that we’re subjecting the fields of movies, TV, media, and politics, we’ll be lucky if Gregorian chant is the only thing left to listen to.
Yes, that was then, this is now.
Social mores change constantly. Robin was apparently doing it “all in fun”, as opposed to being some sick power groper.
Today “all in fun” is inexcusable but not so much then.