What a weird sensation: I am no longer disappointed when famous men act like jerks. I’m just going to assume from now on that if someone is famous enough that I know who they are, they’re probably assholes.
The latest: Morgan Freeman. Holy crap, Morgan Freeman! The man with the golden voice, narrator of so many programs I’ve watched, gentle-souled star of so many movies…was just casually toxic around women.
In all, 16 people spoke to CNN about Freeman as part of this investigation, eight of whom said they were victims of what some called harassment and others called inappropriate behavior by Freeman. Eight said they witnessed Freeman’s alleged conduct. These 16 people together described a pattern of inappropriate behavior by Freeman on set, while promoting his movies and at his production company Revelations Entertainment.
Of those 16, seven people described an environment at Revelations Entertainment that included allegations of harassment or inappropriate behavior by Freeman there, with one incident allegedly witnessed by Lori McCreary, Freeman’s co-founder in the enterprise, and another in which she was the target of demeaning comments by Freeman in a public setting. One of those seven people alleged that McCreary made a discriminatory remark regarding a female candidate for a job at the Producers Guild of America, where McCreary is co-president.
Four people who worked in production capacities on movie sets with Freeman over the last ten years described him as repeatedly behaving in ways that made women feel uncomfortable at work. Two, including the production assistant on “Going in Style” whose skirt he allegedly attempted to lift, said Freeman subjected them to unwanted touching. Three said he made public comments about women’s clothing or bodies. But each of them said they didn’t report Freeman’s behavior, with most saying it was because they feared for their jobs. Instead, some of the women — both on movie sets and at Revelations — said, they came up with ways to combat the alleged harassment on their own, such as by changing the way they dressed when they knew he would be around.
It’s a long and thorough account. From now on, his voice is going to sound less like honey and more like cloying, thick drool. I think — I hope — work is going to dry up for him now, although there seems to be no harassment so severe that the perpetrator can’t be plotting a comeback.
As for Tambor, the word has been going around for some time that he’s terrible to work with. It looks like most of the cast of Arrested Development are also kind of awful. In an interview in which Tambor was confronted with the facts of his ghastly, abusive treatment of Jessica Walter, the cast circled the wagons for him.
When Deb asked specifically about the Walter story and she tried to talk about it, Bateman, Cross, Hale and Arnett, between the four of them (though Arnett did the least and Bateman did the most by far), eventually intervened in all of the following ways: (1) said (jokingly?) that they’ve all done the same to her; (2) said all “families” have arguments; (3) joked about all the other terrible things they’ve done to each other; (4) pointed out that Tambor has already said he’s working on it; (5) said “difficult” people are part of the business; (6) said “atypical behavior” is part of people’s “process”; (7) said they’ve all lost their temper sometimes; (8) said expecting “normal” behavior means “not understand[ing] what happens on set”; (9) claimed to have “zero complaints” about working together; (10) called yelling at people “a wobbly route to [a] goal”; and (11) repeatedly emphasized context and everyone playing their role in conflict.
Through a good part of this, Walter was crying, as you can hear if you listen to the audio recording of this part of the interview. And at one point, as Bateman explains patiently that “certain people have certain processes,” Shawkat interjects: “But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. And the point is that things are changing, and people need to respect each other differently.” In the audio, she seems even more irritated than these words make her sound, and he cuts her off anyway.
It’s a truly cringeworthy interview. A woman is so stressed out over her vicious treatment that she’s in tears, and all of her ‘friends’ are working so hard to excuse the abuse.
Humans suck.
Yeah, I’ve more or less assumed for years now that essentially every man in show business over the age of 40 basically was awful, and a goodly chunk of the younger crowd is almost as bad.
Depressing as it may be, though, the fact we are hearing about this is a good thing. It means this stuff is becoming unacceptable. And while it’s infuriating that many of these people are apparently too big to fail, I think it is having an effect, and going forward it will be harder for people to get away with this stuff. Long way to go, mind, but it’s happening.
I think you forgot the link to the second article: https://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2018/05/24/614009165/under-the-skin-why-that-arrested-development-interview-is-so-bad
I don’t get this. Is the second McCreary supposed to be Freeman?
The only two that came out of that NYT piece looking good were Jessica Walter and Alia Shawkat.
Jason Bateman put out an okay apology (and how low things have sunk that we can now rate apologies) but whether it’s damage control or if he really realizes what he did wrong and wants to fix it will have to be seen. He’s too far gone for me though. As all this came out yesterday, he also made an appearance on Colbert. Though it was likely recorded far too early for them to have touched on this, he did keep referring to Will Arnett as a woman because hahaha, he wasn’t being a real man about something and it diminishes a man to be referred to as a woman LOL.
So yeah, fuck Jason Bateman.
Tambor peaked on Three’s Company anyways
“I’m just going to assume from now on that if someone is famous enough that I know who they are, they’re probably assholes.”
PZ, you have some degree of fame. Should the same be applied to you?
Aren’t we supposed to be the side that DOES NOT ignore nuance and thoughtfulness in favour simplistic and sweeping claims?
Freeman will be absolutely fine. What he did is not as bad as Cosby or Weinstein since his behaviour is “just” inappropriate in most peoples eyes. There will be hordes of people rushing for the barricades yelling something about a feminist mob carrying pitchforks, going after everything that is holy. And thats the real problem, don’t you know?!
Moreover, his degree of fame is sufficient that he knows who PZ Myers is.
But the real question is this: you really think that PZ is going to back off from that for fear of labelling himself an asshole? I don’t think you know PZ’s writing that well.
Also, PZ has good reason to think I’m an asshole, though hopefully he thinks I’m an asshole fighting for some good causes and with occasionally useful things to say. I’m not asking him to qualify the statement merely because it might apply to me.
@batflipenthusiast
I imagine PZ was being a bit hyperbolic, but other than that, yes. No heroes, please.
That’s corgi-wearing-a-life-jacket adorable.
#6: No exemptions for me, either.
@LyleX:
I figured it was more of what in law would be called “a rebuttable presumption” than an assumption that should be maintained in the face of contrary evidence. The thing is, with people we know only through their fame, we never have that evidence. It’s usually only when we come to know someone personally, whether they’re famous or not, that we can begin to make sufficiently reliable observations to challenge it.
QFP&AT
batflipenthusiast:
There should be no exception. Everyone should always try to be aware of instances where they are being an asshole, or are prone to being an asshole, and work to correct that.
That said, do you imagine that the millions of people who know who Morgan Freeman is are equally aware of a blogging Professor? These are extremely different different degrees of fame. People also have a disturbing tendency to get very attached to celebrities, whereas PZ tends to come in for quite a lot of criticism, to say the least.
@Lotharloo:
I’m not necessarily correct, but how I read that section was that the author(s) had veered into talking about the general work climate at Freeman’s company, which was obviously impacted to a large degree by Freeman. However, the climate would have also been impacted by other factors, including how HR handled problems, whether management other than Freeman took concerns seriously, etc. Once they started talking about the corporate climate, McCreary’s behavior became relevant to the story and, apparently (if I’m right) at that point the writers would then have considered this particular anecdote about McCreary’s behavior to be more germane than anything else they might have put there, and it got in.
Witnessing an incident and not following up says one thing about McCreary and thus about the available options for people who felt the work climate was hostile. McCreary’s active participation in creating a hostile climate (albeit while working with a different organization) would further say something about the extent to which Revelation was likely to take concerns seriously and also whether the people in the company felt their concerns would be taken seriously, assuming that those people knew about McCreary’s comment. (And feeling your concerns would be ignored is itself a bad “climate” factor.)
So I get how, IIUC, it would be relevant and make it into the story. I did double check the CNN story itself to make sure that nothing got garbled in PZ’s copy/paste endeavors. The text here accurately reflects the text there.
My impression is that almost all people who are “famous” are also in positions of power (or can be if they want to be), whereas not all people in positions of power are “famous” (not even necessarily within the institution or organization in which they have that power, if their power—like the power of most bosses of smallish companies, professors [without blogs] at smallish colleges, etc.—is limited to a single institution or organization). And I, for one, am no longer surprised when when I find out that a powerful person (especially a powerful man) is acting like a jerk (or worse). But it’s not likely that I will find out, unless the powerful person is famous!
So it may be, PZ, that you are observing publicly-disclosed jerkiness-by-the-powerful, but interpreting it as jerkiness-by-the-famous, simply because the famous are easier to observe AND the public to which their jerkiness is disclosed is very large (and thus more likely to contain you) compared to the public who finds out that Joe Schmoe at the car dealership is a jerk.
Azkyroth #10
I like the handles on those corgi lifejackets.
I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there.
Somewhere.
Freeman was a shock. I am still processing that. Huge violation of expectations given his pleasant grandfatherly persona.
@batflipenthusiast #6 AFAIK PZ is an admitted poopyhead, so yes that applies. Also the general principle would be to be cautious of people with any modicum of fame or influence, instead of naively trusting them “because I’m a fan of their stuff!” and that’s an approach that applies whenever there is some imbalance in relative social power, even to people you have no specific reason to mistrust.
=8)-DX
To be honest, I think being “suspicious of famous people” or “assuming that if someone is famous then they are likely to be sexual predictors” is missing the entire point. The main issue is that men can get away with sexual assault, not always but with some probability. But the more famous a man is the more likely it is that he can get away with sexual assault and harassment so the probability of them suffering some consequences decreases with their fame and power. So if a man has gotten away with a lot of sexual assaults, it is more likely that they are famous and powerful but not the other way around!!! That would be a basic logical fallacy.