Month: October 2018

The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements address the sexual harassment and abuse of women by powerful men in Hollywood and elsewhere today. But systemic sexism in the film industry goes back decades, influencing how stories have been told on the silver screen.

Consider the cartoon Pepe Le Pew, about a persistent skunk in relentless pursuit of Penelope Pussycat. When the TV series first appeared, more than half a century ago, it was considered cute and romantic.

Today’s audiences find the skunk’s unwanted advances creepy, and reflect female characters as passive sexual objects, said George Mason University professor Lisa Koch.

Domestic abuse and patronizing behavior of husbands toward their wives were often glorified as passionate relationships, Koch added, such as in the narrative of the 1939 epic drama Gone with the Wind. The character of Rhett Butler, played by Clark Gable, is derisive and controlling toward his on-screen wife, Scarlett O Hara, played by Vivien Leigh. She is scripted as petulant, erratic and manipulative. 

Hollywood glamorized and validated the hypermasculine male character who had to rein in the manipulative and childlike female characters, Koch said.

On screen, behind the scenes

Sexism and abuse on screen also reflected the pervasive sexual abuse actresses often endured behind the scenes, said Giovanna Chesler, director of film and video studies at George Mason University. 

“You read about how Bertolucci and Marlon Brando had an arrangement for their actress in Last Tango in Paris. They knew that this would be a rape scene they would be filming but she (actress Maria Schneider) did not.” Chesler was referring to Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci as well as U.S. actor Brando.

In her 2016 autobiography, Tippi Hedren: A Memoir, the actress who was Alfred Hitchcock’s main muse and star of his films The Birds and Marnie, writes that when she turned down the filmmaker’s sexual advances, he threatened to destroy her career.

Chesler says this pervasive culture of sexism and blackmail produced men like Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. 

“He was the Oscar maker and he anointed all of these actresses into Oscar-producing roles.” Chesler said. “They thought that once they really broke through, they would get out of being sexualized on screen. How ironic that in order to do so, they had to deal with this predator.”

Dozens of women have accused the disgraced Hollywood studio boss of sexual misconduct that includes harassment and assault. Earlier this year, Weinstein was indicted on sex crimes charges but remains free on bail while he fights the accusations.

Beyond Hollywood

Since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements began, many films have offered more nuanced and textured female characters and are telling more women’s stories. 

But activists say more needs to be done to increase women’s equitable treatment in Hollywood. Lisa Koch says there is definitely power in the number of women who are uniting against sexism and sexual abuse from all walks of life. 

“It started with 300 women in Hollywood,” she said. “It has expanded dramatically, so 700,000 farm laborers pledged their support and that is just one example across the spectrum. Within the first 60 days, the movement raised $21 million in financial backing.”

WATCH: Sexism, Assault in Workplace, Including Hollywood, Stopped by Balancing Power

Activist and filmmaker Shannon Lee says female producers and behind-the-scenes artists are offering women jobs, equal pay and creative expression, such as film producer Ava DuVernay, who has an artist collective that distributes films and mandates that all the directors be female.

Lee cautions, however, that sexism against women in the workplace is too pervasive to change overnight. 

“When there is an imbalance of power, there is an abuse of power. USA Today did a survey that came out in 2017 saying that 94 percent of women in the film industry have had some experience of sexual harassment or sexual assault,” Lee said.

Koch offers another statistic: “Ninety-five percent of Hollywood directors are men, 18 percent of those involved in film production as directors, producers, writers cinematographers, editors, are women.”

Both women say the goal in the industry is 50/50 by 2020. 

“Where there is 50 percent male and 50 percent female, you don’t have the opportunity to this gross misconduct,” Lee said.

Sunu Chandy is the legal director of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington. She represents thousands of women who have come forward to seek legal support against sexual harassment and discrimination. She says both the #MeToo movement, where women openly addressed the abuse they suffered at the hands of men, and the #TimesUp movement, where sexual predators like Bill Cosby have been prosecuted and convicted for their crimes, are significant legal steps in establishing gender equity in Hollywood and elsewhere. 

“Hiring women into roles that are traditionally male roles is absolutely something that we are pushing for,” Chandy said. “But if someone goes there and is sexually harassed and leaves, it’s continuing the problem. If the Time’s Up fund helps that case to come forward and be publicized and that company takes meaningful steps to create a better workplace, more women will be encouraged to apply there.”

Chandy says that although progress is being made in offering women the legal help and support they deserve, much still has to be done to bring about real change in the workplace, be it a factory, a farm or a Hollywood movie set.
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Since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements began, many films have offered more nuanced and textured female characters and are telling more women’s stories. But activists say more needs to be done to increase women’s equitable treatment in Hollywood. In this installment, VOA’s Penelope Poulou talks with activists, filmmakers and actresses about the legal and behind the cameras groundwork that will empower women in the film industry.
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The discrimination and objectification of women in Hollywood is not a new phenomenon. For decades sexist behavior by powerful men in the industry has been part of the star system, and it has influenced how stories were told on the large screen. In the first part of a two-part series on Gender Inequality, VOA’s Penelope Poulou examines sexist stereotypes in iconic films that have permeated our popular culture.
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The Yazidi community in Iraq and around the world expressed joy and hope after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2018 Peace Prize to Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist and survivor of sexual slavery by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.

Murad will be sharing the prize with  Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist who treated thousands of women victims of rape and sexual violence.

The Nobel Peace Committee praised Murad’s courage because she did not accept the social codes that require women to remain silent and shamed after abuse.

“She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims,” the Norway-based Nobel Peace Prize Committee said.

Members of the Yazidi community told VOA their voices are now being heard and their plea for justice after the Sinjar massacre is being acknowledged by the world. 

Nagham Hasan, an Iraqi Yazidi activist and a gynecologist who offered treatment and counseling for many Yazidi women in refugee camps in Iraq including Nadia Murad, told VOA that the recognition of Murad is not just the recognition of the plight of Yazidi women, but also everyone else in Iraq who suffered at hands of extremists.

“When Nadia escaped her captivity and arrived to the camp in Sinjar she was traumatized and afraid, but now she blossomed into this strong woman and became the voice of all men and women victims of sexual violence,” Hasan said.

Hasan’s work was recognized in 2016 when she was awarded the U.S. State Department’s International Women of Courage Award for “promoting gender equality, combating gender-based violence, and providing psychological support for survivors of violence.”

Women struggle

Mirza Dinay, a Yazidi physician who helped hundreds of Yazidi girls seek asylum in Germany, told VOA that he is thrilled that Murad got this prize, which is a symbol of women’s struggle against sexual violence worldwide. 

“This is a win for Iraqis, Kurds and the Yazidi community and I hope this will encourage the Iraqi government to provide more support to the girls and women survivors of sexual violence,” Dinay said. 

Dawood Saleh, a Yazidi man from Sinjar who has resettled in the U.S., told VOA that Murad’s persistence in making the world listen to Yazidis’ plight has paid off.

“As a Yazidi survivor from IS genocide I feel happy that Nadia received this award. It means to me that Yazidis have value in the world,” Saleh said.

Murad’s reaction

According to United Nations, at least 10,000 Yazidis were either killed or abducted during the IS attack on Sinjar in 2014. The attack sparked international outcry and condemnation.  

Murad was one of those kidnapped by IS in Sinjar mountain in northwestern Iraq. She was sold several times as a sex slave to different IS members before she managed to escape after 3 months in captivity.

In reaction to Friday’s announcement, Murad told Nobel Committee that she did not think that she had the strength to do the work she has been doing. 

She said she derived her strength from thinking about what happened to her community and from the loss of many of her family members including her mother. 

“This prize will make the voices of women who suffered from sexual violence in conflict heard, especially the women in minorities like my community the Yazidis. It tells us that our voices will be heard,” Murad told the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Murad has been a strong advocate for justice for all Yazidis who were kidnapped and abused by IS and continues to raise her voice against sexual violence.

“Whatever has happened to Yazidis, from August 3rd (2014) till now, they should get their justice. An international tribunal should be formed as soon as possible and Yazidis and other minorities who cannot protect themselves should be protected,” Murad told VOA in 2016 during an exclusive interview. 

Yazidi rights groups estimate about 3,000 women and children remain missing, while thousands live under dire conditions in refugee camps in Iraq.
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Ben Affleck says battling addiction is “a lifelong and difficult struggle.”

The actor posted on Instagram Thursday that he has completed a 40-day stay at a treatment center for alcohol addiction and remains in outpatient care.

The 46-year-old says the support he’s received from family and friends has given him strength to speak about “his illness” with others. He says he is fighting for himself and his family.

Affleck says battling addiction is a full-time commitment and “one is never really in or out of treatment.”

He had previously sought treatment in 2001 and 2017.

Affleck has been separated from actress Jennifer Garner since 2015. They have three children.
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Monica Lewinsky is teaming up with celebrities for an anti-bullying campaign that targets name-calling.

Appearing Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America, Lewinsky says the #DefyTheName campaign calls on people to change their social media names to include the names they were bullied by. Lewinsky says she’ll now be known as ”Monica Chunky Slut Stalker That Woman Lewinsky.”

Lewinsky says she had a long list of names from childhood on. She says name-calling is the most common form of bullying and it’s important not to let those names define you.

Lewinsky says organizers want to recreate a community of empathy online.

Lewinsky was a White House intern when she had an affair with President Bill Clinton. Clinton initially denied the affair before admitting to it in 1998.
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With the digital era in full swing, sketchbooks are likely to be gathering dust in desk drawers around the world. But for the founder of the Brooklyn Art Library, sketchbooks are precious, the nondigital predecessors of Instagram. As part of a special project, the library has created a business by collecting thousands of sketchbooks from people who pay to submit theirs to the collection. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Marion “Suge” Knight was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in prison for mowing down and killing a Compton businessman in a case that completed the former rap music mogul’s downfall from his heyday as one of the biggest and most feared names in the music industry.

Knight will now spend much of the rest of his life, if not all the rest, in a California prison. He showed no emotion in court Thursday as relatives of Terry Carter, the man he killed, described their loved one as a devoted family man and peacemaker.

Carter was killed after Knight and one of his longtime rivals, Cle “Bone” Sloan, started fighting outside a Compton burger stand in January 2015. Knight was upset about his portrayal in an N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton, on which Sloan was serving as a consultant. Knight clipped Sloan with his pickup truck, seriously injuring him, before speeding through the parking lot and running over Carter and fleeing.

While Carter’s relatives said they hoped Knight’s lengthy sentence would bring them peace, many had no kind words for the Death Row Records co-founder, whom they criticized for showing a complete lack of remorse.

Carter’s daughter Crystal called Knight a “low-life thug,” “career criminal” and “a disgusting, selfish disgrace to the human species.”

“I ask that you sentence this unrepentant, remorseless, cold, callous menace to society to the maximum of 28 years,” she told a judge.

Pleaded no contest

Before Thursday’s hearing, Knight had already agreed to his lengthy prison term by pleading no contest to a voluntary manslaughter charge and avoiding a trial on murder and attempted murder charges that could have resulted in a life sentence if he was convicted. The sentencing ended a nearly four-year court saga that included frequent outbursts by Knight, 53, who also collapsed in court during one appearance and shuffled his defense team 16 times.

Between the restrictions of the three-strikes law and the time Knight has already served, he’ll likely spend roughly 20 years in prison before he’s eligible for parole. 

Knight has been in decline for decades. At his pinnacle in the mid-1990s, he was putting out wildly popular records that are now considered classics from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur.

Shakur was in Knight’s car when he was killed in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas in 1996.

Knight later lost his stake in Death Row Records in bankruptcy proceedings.

Nearly two dozen of Carter’s relatives packed the courtroom Thursday. Carter’s daughter, Nekaya Carter, said she hoped that the end of the courtroom saga could bring her some peace.

“I wanted justice for my dad and now we’ve finally got it, kind of,” she said.

She then addressed Knight directly despite the judge’s instructions not to: “My dad can finally rest in peace while you live out the rest of your life in prison.”

Carter’s sister, Jessica Carter, told Los Angeles Superior Court Ronald Coen, “He was so much more than the person the defendant killed with his truck.” 

‘He helped people’

There have been disputed accounts of why Carter was at the scene, but his family said he often acted as a community mediator and peacemaker.

“This wasn’t no cat who went after nobody,” Carter’s brother-in-law Damu Visha said in court. “He helped people.”

The death was captured on surveillance video, and family members described their anguish at having to see it repeatedly, and chastised the media for showing it so often.

Coen appeared moved by the family’s words and offered his own condolences. 

“If it hasn’t been said by anyone else,” Coen said, “let me tell you that my heart goes out to you.”

Most of the victim’s family members spoke of the need to forgive Knight for their own peace of mind.

“I hope and I pray that we find forgiveness,” Terry Carter’s cousin, Patricia Hawkins, said. “But it won’t be today.”
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EgyptAir is standing by a writer for its in-flight magazine who penned a bizarre article purportedly based on an interview with American actress Drew Barrymore.

The article, riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors, led with a description of Barrymore as “being unstable in her relationships” and quoted her as saying that motherhood was “the most important role in my life.”

In a tweet sent late Wednesday in response to online criticism, the national carrier thanked author Aida Tekla for “the clarification” in which she claimed the interview was indeed real and took place in New York.

Barrymore has yet to issue an official statement and her representatives could not be reached for comment. Press reports in the U.S. have quoted representatives as denying any such interview took place, with some suggesting the author must have based her article on misinterpretations of a press conference.

Barrymore shot to fame as a child starlet in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film “E.T.” and is now featured in the Netflix horror-comedy series “Santa Clarita Diet.”

The article on the inflight magazine Horus was first noticed by Yemen analyst Adam Baron, who published photos of it on Twitter and called it “surreal.”

The article says Barrymore had failed relationships because her parents divorced.

“It is known that Barrymore had almost 17 relationships, engagements and marriages; psychologists believe that her behavior is only natural since she lacked the male role model in her life after her parents’ divorce,” Tekla wrote.

In another passage, she quoted Barrymore as being pleased with recent weight loss after having a second daughter. Another quote describes Barrymore as celebrating women’s achievements in “the West” because they handle tasks that men cannot.

“Women exert tremendous efforts that men are incapable of exerting due to their numerous commitments and obligations,” the article quoted her as saying.

EgyptAir’s inflight magazine has Arabic and English sections, but translations are often poor and English-language articles are filled with errors.

The Egyptian government has waged a heavy crackdown on dissent and independent media in recent years, and has passed vaguely worded laws that criminalize the spreading of false news.

 

 
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Cristiano Ronaldo has been left off Portugal’s national team squad for a pair of upcoming matches, the decision coming as the soccer great fights rape allegations in the United States.

Ronaldo has been accused of rape by Kathryn Mayorga, who says the player assaulted her in Las Vegas in 2009. He has denied the accusation.

 

Ronaldo was left off the squad for Portugal’s second game in the UEFA Nations League at Poland on Oct. 11 and a friendly match in Glasgow against Scotland three days later. The Juventus forward also missed Portugal’s first two post-World Cup matches last month, with coach Fernando Santos saying Ronaldo had only just moved to the Italian club and was still settling down there.

 

Santos used the 33-year-old team captain’s absence last month to try out younger players.
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Paper can be much more than just a surface to write on. Paper Trails’, is an annual exhibition held at Cleveland, Ohio’s Morgan Conservatory that showcases dozens of works of paper art that stretch the imagination. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.
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Chelsea Clinton says she’s naturally an optimist and despite enduring name-calling from the time she was a child, she chooses to answer insults — even on Twitter — with kindness and respect.

“Cyberbullying is a huge challenge across our country. I think we need those of us with platforms to not ignore the trolls, not to become consumed by them, but to shine a light and say here’s how you can respond where you’re calmly defending yourself but you’re also showing it’s not OK and you’re not degrading your own humanity in doing that,” the 38-year-old mother of two said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press.

It’s one of several messages in her new book, “Start Now! You Can Make a Difference,” released this week. In it, Clinton encourages children to make a positive change in the world by educating themselves and taking action. The book focuses on preserving the environment, helping save animals, staying healthy and putting an end to bullying.

“Start Now!” is Clinton’s fourth children’s book. Her role as an author is one of several that Clinton juggles, including motherhood, being vice chairman of the Clinton Foundation and teaching at Columbia University. Her latest book was inspired by the notion that age doesn’t matter when it comes to activism.

“I’ve always believed that you’re never too young or too old to make a difference. And then when I became a mom, I think I felt that even more keenly because all of a sudden I had, you know, first Charlotte and then Aidan, these little people in the world, I wanted the world to be a healthier, more equitable, more just safer place for them than previous generations,” she said.

Making the world a safer place, in Clinton’s eyes, also means abolishing bullying.

It’s a topic Clinton knows only too well, enduring brutal criticism of her looks when she was growing up in the White House (“Saturday Night Live” did a skit poking fun at her at the time). There were also those who targeted her because she was the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

“So when I was confronted directly — even as a child — and people would say awful things to me, I would say, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t feel that way. I don’t think I’m ugly or born in sin or the family dog or that my parents should have aborted me or you know that like we all should be dead,’” she recalled. “I mean these are all things that people said to me when I was a kid and they were always said by much older people.”

Decades later, the taunts still come — these days via social media. At first Clinton ignored them, but recently she started to speak up.

“I started to worry that by ignoring it, it wasn’t depriving the trolls of oxygen, it was maybe taken as kind of implicit — not endorsement — but that I was somehow OK with that language and that behavior,” she said. “And I think particularly being a parent now I never want my kids or any kid to think that that’s OK.”

She added: “And I do think even if you don’t agree with me politically it’s never OK to attack me personally in the same way, like if I don’t agree with you politically it’s never OK for me to attack you personally, and so I want my children to see their mom standing up for respect and kindness and to know that that is not a sign of weakness.”

Clinton pointed to a recent mention of her family that came from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as he defended himself against sexual assault allegations in a combative hearing on Capitol Hill. He said allegations against him came from Democrats seeking revenge over the Clintons; Kavanaugh was an investigator for Kenneth Starr, who led the probe of then-President Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment.

While Clinton had already opposed Kavanaugh — in part over concerns about abortion rights — when he mentioned her family, her feelings were cemented.

“I thought, ‘Oh goodness like judge Kavanaugh, I don’t even think I knew who you were until you were nominated.’ So clearly we were looming larger in your mind than at least you were looming in mine,” she said. “But even if he’d gone after a former Republican president or a current Republican senator or politician I would feel the same way, that that kind of blatant partisanship should be disqualifying.”

While Clinton worked for her mother during the 2016 presidential campaign, she’s hoping the people who pick up “Start Now!” will be Democrats and Republicans.

“And I hope that children whose families come from across the political spectrum would read this book and then think about how to channel whatever kind of their political values are … into issues that they care about.”

 
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