Weinsteins step down as Miramax CEOs

^ he knows whereof he speaks, folks.

extremely curious what folks think of this piece by laura kipnis, who i have issues w/ (including some glaring ones in this piece cf the notion of women as the 'last' colonized people which is a bizarre variation on the old 'woman is the nword of the world' chestnut) but who seems to at the very least have thought pretty hard about this...idk i suspect part of her brand is being contrarian & suspect lots of guys will share this, but also conventional wisdom is bad so at any rate before i say any more, i'm curious what people think:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/12/21/kick-against-the-pricks/

i havent even finished reading it but its bringing up some interesting observations for sure & yikes did it just go to a dark place

good piece imo. The paragraph about Dinnerstein is a little o_0 but I don't generally go in for that level of Freudian discourse as applied to broad social patterns.

She touches on something that has been bugging me about a lot of this story but I wasnt sure how to word it without sounding weird:

bout those chopped-down potentates and lords: many of them, one couldn’t help but notice, were not the most attractive specimens on the block: bulbous, jowly men; fat men who told women they needed to lose weight; ugly men drawn to industries organized around female appearance. Men with weird hair. Is it wrong of me to bring this up?

These guys have everything, but they are still gross and middle aged and fat so with power comes the ability to just take it anyway, take what they believe they are owed.

i feel like theres some questionable glossing over going on in some of this but maybe some also worthwhile points? i know shes seen as fairly controversial (or arguably an apologist) but those are the least-interesting aspects of this imo

oh god bari weiss linked it i regret everything

http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/01/bohemian-rhapsody-production-halted-bryan-singer/

I thought i'd read that film was done shooting.

anyway nice of EW to only refer to Freddie Mercury's "health struggles" on World AIDS Day.

OK, I'm kinda taken aback at this one

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/writer-radio-host-john-hockenberry-harassed-co-workers-article-1.3671639

So the "Broadway" revelation is about Ad-Rock's dad?

Nah, that went around again a couple of days ago -- all indications are it's something more.

One of the Cats surely

Israel Horovitz has only had one or two plays on B'way ever

My guess is that it will be 3-5 names that few outside Bway would know, but everyone involved w/ Bway will know very well. And to the sadness of many ILXors, probably not LMM.

I dont think LMM is even on Broadway anymore

https://nypost.com/2017/12/02/legendary-opera-conductor-molested-teen-for-years-police-report/amp/

i liked that kipnis piece. i strive to be as electric in my writing as she is

re: Maura's link, that was the most open of open secrets; it was the first piece of gossip I heard passed around when he became artistic director of the BSO in 2004.

+ maura to list of women itt

i think that brings us to 6!

what did they change the name of Prairie Home Companion to?

i thought the kipnis piece was probably good but i didn't get most of her references :-/

"Town Hall" apparently

even for Shakey the LMM comment....yeesh

prairie home switched to chris thile quite some time ago
http://www.startribune.com/chris-thile-addresses-scandal-around-his-prairie-predecessor/461547363/

tough spot for him but that seems pretty, and i don't usually use this word, weaksauce

it would be extremely minnesotan not to talk about what happened, tho

Yeah I remember the James Levine rumors from decades past

On the death of an abuser of teenage boys which was an open secret in the Minneapolis suburb I’m from, a few men tried to say something about being his victims on our town page. The wrath of the Barbs and Cathys who were admins/self-appointed trauma police - “how dare you, HIS FAMILY might read this!” - was absolutely toxic, and they deleted the topic.

thile knows that he inherited Keillor's audience as well as his show and it would not be prudent to denounce K too harshly, for fear of alienating a good chunk of the people who underwrite his paycheck. it's not very admirable, but it's certainly understandable.

good lord that picture from the Post, Maura

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/levine2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&strip=all

there was a hilarious-to-look-at article that went around shortly after the announcement of Levine's tenure at the BSO detailing the salaries of all of the top orchestral conductors and it was literally a parade of handsome early-middle-aged men, plus Levine

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Men-Wonder-if-Hugging-Women-Still-OK-461960683.html

🤦🏻‍♂️

Steve Wyard thought he knew what sexual harassment looked like: a put-out-or-lose-your-job overture. Now he's not so sure.
"Have we gotten to the point now where men can't say, 'That's a nice dress' or 'Did you do something with your hair?'" says the veteran sales associate for a Los Angeles company. "The potential problem is you can't even feel safe saying, 'Good morning' anymore."

🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

1) many men are fucking stupid
2) a meaningful minority of men are criminal assholes

lots of category 1 men are suddenly wondering if they are category 2 men because see description of category 1

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a13978884/charlie-rose-sexual-harassment-accuser-story/

In 1997, I joined the production team of Charlie Rose’s popular interview show. I was the only black journalist on staff. At the time, there was little to no recognition of what it meant to be black and female in a workplace dominated by white men. Twenty years later, in this watershed moment of examination and reckoning as one powerful white man after another is disgraced following allegations of sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to assault, we’re still not talking about the ramifications for black women—or the broader connection to structural racism in America.

xpost See also: acknowledging other religions' holidays as a threat to Christianity, people eventually marrying horses because we allow gay marriages to happen, other overly-sensitive overreactions to (not entirely inaccurately) perceived attacks on a status quo that was working just fine for some people before a bunch of killjoys had to go and assert their personhood.

I dunno. Sure there's racism aplenty and more than enough to occupy us for uncounted decades ahead. But can you just let the groped women have their moment? kthxbye.

If you don’t how to hug or compliment people without being creepy then I see an amazing market opportunity in the immediate future for people who can, and as sad as that may be, I’m OK with it

Can definitely see my way to $300/hour consultant fees on how to show affection without being a slime - except A BAZILLION PERCENT OF CHILL DUDES ALREADY KNOW THIS and we made bad jokes about it for years whenever stories made the rounds, which is another aspect of feeling complicit, I think.

xxp you are the living embodiment of the smug white-dude mentality that needs to be burned to the fucking ground

sure, sleeve, I’m OK with that but which of us graybeards did you mean

if it makes sleeve feel any better, he can pretend I am typing from the grave.

To explain, I’m conflating the “am I allowed to hug?” piece that Omar little posted above, with this other fucked up piece that forks posted on the Elf Shelf thread (https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/cognition-builders-family-intervention-parenting-help-adhd.html)

This is all phenomenally stupid and sad to me. There are boundaries, morals, and/or basic manners we are supposed to teach each other and abide by. Several if not most of us will test those in our adolescence, but be corrected by peers, not consulting firms.

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-pierce-the-secrecy-around-sexual-harassment-cases/

we made bad jokes about it for years whenever stories made the rounds, which is another aspect of feeling complicit, I think.
what does this mean?
you made bad jokes about how you were a chill dude but those other guys were gross and you made self-aggrandizing jokes at their expense behind their backs?

'Did you do something with your hair?'"
one of the most chillingly off moments i have ever had with one of my friends' (ex) partners was when her ex-husband, who i was trying to give the benefit of the doubt (i had doubts) greeted me upon entering their apt by saying "did you do something with your hair?" and i had absolutely NOT done anything with my hair. first. i hadn't cut it in 8 months. I wore it up and off my face every day and every other time he had seen me. it was the same color. he hadn't known me long enough or well enough to have seen me with any other hair than this one. the cluelessness combined with the stock phrase nature of "did you do something with your hair?" made him seem like a total psychopath. at the time i didn't know how to react because what he had said was so superficially innocuous but to this day i remain extremely dubious of any man who says this to anyone.

There are boundaries, morals, and/or basic manners we are supposed to teach each other and abide by.
these are not universal and they do need to be taught by someone -- no one has this clear responsibility, i think i learned in school? i went to all-girls school grades 1-7 though.

Several if not most of us will test those in our adolescence, but be corrected by peers
imagine if you were the person they were tested on and the violation was never corrected by peers...

Masterson has finally been 86'd.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/danny-masterson-netflix-ousted_us_5a2698a0e4b086e4e50461b1?k3f

that took way too much effort

you made bad jokes about how you were a chill dude but those other guys were gross and you made self-aggrandizing jokes at their expense behind their backs?

yes, just talking shit instead of doing anything. abdication of the responsibilities alluded to about establishing and reinforcing norms when it comes to manners, privacy, and people’s bodies belonging to the people who live in them.

imagine if you were the person they were tested on and the violation was never corrected by peers

yup

i guess for me it's shocking to hear someone admit this but i see it as ultimately a positive development. i have a very small handful of experiences in which i remember any correction, but i do remember them, albeit not as viscerally as the experiences in which there was not.

I dunno. Sure there's racism aplenty and more than enough to occupy us for uncounted decades ahead. But can you just let the groped women have their moment? kthxbye.

what the actual fuck

i have definitely been cowardly in my life about confronting men around me when they say something I find abominable.