As I’ve said numerous times, I don’t keep up with the news on a day to day basis. I don’t read newspapers, watch TV or even check dedicated news websites with any frequency. I get my news in drips and drabs from the few podcasts, blogs and websites I do frequent. With that said it has been hard to avoid hearing about Harvey Weinstein who has now joined Bill Cosby, and Australia’s own Rolf Harris in the dirty old man archives. What these three and the late Jimmy Saville (who I understand escaped earthly punishment), have in common is that they were doing this for years before it suddenly became public for reasons I still don’t know. Where the people that must known about it suddenly spoke up in condemnation.
It is very easy to be cynical about all of this. In one sense, it is hardly surprising to hear that powerful men, surrounded by beautiful women take advantage of their circumstances. With regard to Hollywood this is frequently alluded to and joked about by people inside and outside of the industry. It is looked at as something inevitable due to the nature of the industry and will provoke a dismissive or disgusted responses, depending on who you ask.
Not a few Hollywood identities have already been called out on their hypocrisy because of their own similar behavior or their defense of Weinstein, while mouthing feminist platitudes. It is also worth mentioning the leaked tapes of Trump last year making vulgar comments about the nature of power-seeking women. Trump was widely condemned at the time by many people linked to Weinstein and he had been merely making an observation, not been found to be doing anything unseemly.
Before going further I should stop and point out that it is very easy for me as someone who is not rich, powerful nor particularly attractive to be self-righteous about temptations I simply haven’t been exposed to. I don’t know what I would do were I in a similar position but I hope that I would do the right thing. I want to be clear that I understand these temptations though what has come out recently seems to be far worse than just a lapse in self-control.
Which brings me to the thing I want to comment briefly on and that which I really can not understand. I can understand that men want to sleep with beautiful women. I can understand that they would be tempted to betray their wives (if they have them), and God, (whether on not they believe in him). I can fully understand that even a man that is generally morally upright might be led astray by a seducer or just tempted to use his position to seduce a woman he finds attractive.
What I can’t understand though is the fetish stuff that has been mentioned in some of the reports. With reference to the title of this post in particular. If you aren’t familiar, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would even get it in their head to masturbate into a pot plant while a woman watches. I certainly can’t understand why someone would proposition a woman to watch, if that is indeed what happened.
Now to be sure, there are a lot worse fetishes than this but this one really jumped out at me because we are talking about a seriously powerful and previously respected industry head. Someone who had great clout and yet this is how the mighty man falls. What is up with that? I really can’t understand. I can’t be the only one that finds this strange but at the same time, I wonder if I really am among the majority here. I certainly hope so.
That may seem like a strange thing to draw out of all this but a lot that was worth saying has already been said by people far more interesting than myself.
On a final note, I have been progressively been depriving Hollywood of ticket money over the past few years. And this incident, along with what will certainly follow makes for a good time to finally draw the line. I’m now going to avoid directly funding this industry as much as I possibly can (I’m sure they get money indirectly too). This includes seeing films, buying movies and using streaming services. That’s it for Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and whatever the names of the other media giants are. Although I had been in the process, Stefan Molyneux made a great video on the subject which has inspired me to draw the line as he has. As far as entertainment goes, I have already stopped watching TV and (for now), still have video games and a lot of great books. Cutting movies isn’t so big a loss.