Tag: #metoo

Katy Perry’s #HeToo Problem

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Just as our country continues to grapple with the serious issues that have been brought to light as a result of efforts on the part of individuals, groups, and movements such as #MeToo and #Time’sUp, along comes an unexpected twist to the societal plotline.

Alleged incidents involving sexual misconduct by one very famous celebrity have Hollywood once again in a social conscious quandary. Mega star Katy Perry is currently suffering through an unfortunate “life imitates art” moment related to her hit song “I Kissed a Girl.”

The lyrics of the song seem to have been a kind of foreshadowing of Perry’s current predicament.

“I got so brave, drink in hand
Lost my discretion…

It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight

I kissed a girl and I liked it…”

In a real life replay of the lyrical content, the recipient of Katy’s kiss unfortunately didn’t.

Russian journalist and television presenter Tina Kandelaki accused Perry of making non-consensual touches and other advances upon her while Perry was allegedly intoxicated; this according to the New York Post’s Page Six.

Kandelaki told a Russian newspaper that when the two were in attendance at the same private party, a “pretty tipsy” Perry chose Kandelaki “as an object for the manifestation of her passion.”

Kandelaki indicated that, due to her strength training, she had “managed to fight back…and Katy instantly found a new victim for kisses, hugs and dirty dances.”

In a separate incident, male model Josh Kloss has alleged that, while at a party in which the two were in attendance, Perry exposed to her friends Kloss’s private parts, and it was done without having had obtained his consent.

Kloss, who appeared in the 2010 music video for Perry’s song “Teenage Dream,” posted allegations on his Instagram account that Perry, during a party at which they were both gathered, had lowered his pants in front of her friends.

Kloss is evidently troubled by what he sees as a double standard with regard to Perry as a result of her gender.

“Can you imagine how pathetic and embarrassed I felt?” Kloss wrote in one of his posts.

The incident begs the question, What if Katy Perry were a man? The double standard seems to be fairly self-evident.

Men both in and out of Hollywood circles have been accused of similar behavior, and the resultant consequences, which individuals have had to endure, have been swift in arrival and unequivocal in nature.

It is obvious to many that if Perry were of the male gender, the media would have already pronounced her guilty, her accusers would have been instantly believed, her career would have abruptly ended, and she would be considered a social media pariah.

“I just say this now because our culture is set on proving [that] men of power are perverse. But females with power are just as disgusting,” Kloss wrote.

No doubt Perry has amassed a great degree of power as a result of her elevated celebrity status and Hollywood success. In contrast, a male celebrity of equal stature that engages in behavior that falls in the category of sexual harassment would be held accountable by peers, press, and the public alike.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that Perry has been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior. Back in 2018, when acting in her capacity as a judge on “American Idol,” Perry generated press coverage for her flagrant flirting with male contestants.

On one occasion in her tenure on the reality show, Perry delivered an on-camera kiss to 19-year-old contestant Benjamin Glaze without having obtained his consent.

What made the kiss particularly insensitive to the point of being cruel was the fact that she acted in the manner in which she did after Glaze mentioned that he had never been kissed before, and shared that he was saving that special moment for a time when he was in a relationship.

Perry essentially tricked Glaze by making him think that he was about to place a kiss on the singer’s cheek. But then Perry quickly turned her head at the last moment, and the young man was a shocked recipient of an unexpected and undesired kiss on the lips from Perry.

One can only imagine how different the reaction would have been had a male acting in Katy’s role stolen life’s first kiss from a young 19-year-old woman.

In 2017 Perry was also caught on-camera taking hold of the bottom of singer Shawn Mendes when he was still a mere teenager.

Perry at one time stated that she was not a feminist, but she later changed her mind and is now a self-described part of the feminist movement. Earlier in the year alongside Anita Hill, Perry was given a Lifetime Achievement in Feminism award by the Diane Von Furstenberg Awards.

If the above described allegations prove to be credible, hypocrisy may not be the only issue that Perry will have to face.

Les Moonves’s Career at CBS Comes to an End

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In July of 2018, the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow completed a detailed investigation, centering on sexual misconduct allegations from six women against CBS Chairman and CEO Les Moonves.

The women claimed that Moonves had propositioned and/or had forcible physical contact with them, threatened retaliation against those who had rejected him, and otherwise maintained a workplace in which sexual harassment went unabated.

Allegations put forth by the women suggested that a toxic culture existed at CBS. When the allegations went public, Moonves responded at the time with an acknowledgement that he was responsible for making “some women uncomfortable.” However, he denied claims that he had harmed the careers of those who had resisted him.

It looked as though Moonves was on his way to weathering the #MeToo storm. CBS had launched an investigation into the allegations in Farrow’s report. However, Moonves was allowed to remain on the job while the investigation of sexual misconduct proceeded, unlike many other figures who had been accused of sexual impropriety.

Then, like a series of aftershocks after an earthquake, an additional six women stepped forward, via reporting by Farrow, with accusations against Moonves.

The most recent alleged incidents of sexual misconduct purportedly took place over a span of 30 years from the 1980s to the early 2000s.

The additional claims against Moonves by the second group of women contain more serious allegations than those reported by Farrow earlier in the year. This latest set of allegations includes incidents in which the entertainment executive is alleged to have forced victims to engage in sexual activity, exposed himself to alleged victims, or used physical violence and intimidation against them. Some of the women also claim that Moonves retaliated against them professionally after they refused to comply.

Some of the more recent accusers have chosen to go on the record and shed their anonymity, including a television executive whose claims date back to the 1980s and a former assistant who recounted an incident from 1994.

In a statement to the New Yorker, Moonves acknowledged that three of the encounters occurred and claimed they were consensual. He flatly denied using his position in a retaliatory way to interfere with the careers of the women.

Under the circumstances, options appear to be limited in this case. The relevant statute of limitations does not allow a proceeding using criminal law, and obtaining witnesses and/or documents from thirty or forty years ago poses a great deal of difficulty.

What really caused Moonves’s tenure at CBS to end, prior to the conclusion of the investigations, were reports in numerous media outlets that negotiations were taking place concerning a proposed exit package for the television executive that involved a large dollar amount.

The most recent accusers were prompted in part to come forward due to the public reports of Moonves’s exit package, which was said to be valued at approximately $100 million.

“Many of the women found that very, very frustrating,” Farrow told CNN. “They felt this was a board that has let a powerful man who makes a lot of money for this company, in the words of one person, ‘get away with it.’”

The end result is that six weeks after Farrow published the first allegations against him and twenty-three years after he first joined CBS, Moonves has been forced out of the network.

However, the previously reported $100 million payment package to Moonves is likely to be eliminated or drastically reduced, due to the increased potential culpability relating to the allegations of the second group of women as well as the cumulative effect of the allegations of all twelve accusers.

CBS’s leverage against Moonves has been significantly increased because the company is now able to claim that the executive may be terminated “for cause.”

Significantly, the exit agreement reportedly also includes a settlement of the litigation between Moonves and Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of both CBS and Viacom. Moonves and Redstone had been in a heated legal battle over whether to combine CBS and Viacom, with Redstone urging a merger and Moonves resisting such a move.

With Moonves gone, the merger is highly likely to take place in the very near future.

Oscars with an Agenda

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Over time the entertainment industry and its accompanying award shows seem to have grown ever more political, and the 90th Academy Awards ceremony looks as if it will prove to be consistent with the left-leaning trend.

The Oscars event is ostensibly designed to provide recognition to the highest achievement of motion picture artistry and has conventionally been viewed as the pinnacle of award shows. This year, however, Hollywood has a number of attendant things on its collective mind, including having to atone for a host of industry wide offenses.

Nominations for Best Picture are illustrative of the ideological and cultural issues that are stoking Academy voters’ choices. A few years back the industry was assailed by critics, via a social media hashtag, with an accusation that the Academy lacked diversity in its list of nominees.

This year’s awards season has been under assault by another hashtag, which includes references to the sexual impropriety scandals that have shaken the entertainment capital to its core.

Typically during the awards season, movie studios engage in the equivalent of a political campaign complete with press releases, advertising, and opposition research.

Ironically, Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul accused of sexual misconduct by scores of women, was consistently a seminal figure of the pre-Oscar season and was frequently able to assist his companies in securing Oscar wins. In the aftermath of the serious charges, though, he was fired from the Weinstein Company, booted out of the Academy, and banished from the film business.

In the past, he was also reportedly alleged to have engaged in opposition research in order to diminish the prospects of the film “A Beautiful Mind,” which was competing at the time with the Miramax movie “In the Bedroom.” He purportedly leaked rumors to the press that central subject of the film John Nash was anti-Semitic.

Movie companies routinely use film advertisements that are tagged with the phrase “for your consideration,” seek press coverage, send voters direct mailers, set up star appearances at key industry events, hold lavish parties, and arrange screenings for voters through use of studio lot theaters, distribution of DVDs and downloads of respective films.

For months the campaigning for the 2018 Academy Awards has been in full motion, but the activity has primarily taken the form of studios and production companies touting the current political and cultural significance of their movies.

Best picture nominee, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” is a case in point. After the film debuted at the Venice International Film Festival and won the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film critic community anointed the movie as a favorite in the award races.

The plot centers around perceived liberal concerns embodied in the hashtag haze that hangs over Hollywood. It may be that Oscar trophies were on the minds of filmmakers who put together a story of a mother railing against a sexist, racist, and patriarchal police force.

Some critics were less than enthusiastic about the seemingly superficiality of the politically correct plotlines of the movie.

Ira Madison III of The Daily Beast characterized the movie as “tone-deaf,” “manipulative,” and “altogether offensive.”

And Wesley Morris of The New York Times referenced the “Three Billboards” filmmakers’ Oscar pandering in the following manner: “The issues of the day come and go: brutal police, sexual predators, targeted advertising. It’s like a set of postcards from a Martian lured to America by a cable news ticker and by rumors of how easily flattered and provoked we are.”

Meanwhile another Best Picture nominee, “The Shape of Water,” which could also take the award, is a highly original movie concept but its creators apparently could not avoid shoehorning into the plot societal issues that may be on the minds of many Oscar voters. It is no coincidence that the female protagonist, Best Actress nominee Sally Hawkins, who has fallen in love with an underwater being, is provided assistance with her romantic goals by an African-American co-worker and gay neighbor.

Other Best Picture nominees sport themes that seek to attract Oscar voters. “Get Out,” a horror genre film from Jordan Peele, contains subject matter that depicts racism and cultural appropriation, while Steven Spielberg’s Pentagon Papers movie, “The Post,” glorifies the press for standing up to attacks and features a noble and powerful female business head.

The fact that the substance of would-be Oscar winning films is so culturally and politically correct is an indication that the 90th Academy Awards show, which is slated for March 4, will no doubt be saturated with a kind of sermonizing that is likely to have Americans briskly switching channels.