Weinsteins step down as Miramax CEOs

lol caitlin flanagan is a lot of things but “feminist” is not one

Didn’t say it did. I was suggesting the most extreme and malicious possible scenario, wherein an innocent Aziz Ansari finds his career in tatters bc a women set out to destroy him: is the conversation now less relevant? The answer is “no” (this is why you should all love “gone girl”)

As far as we are concerned, ansari’s Guilt or Innocence is ultimately an abstract question; we can never know “for real” any more than the average person is apt to know what it’s like to be in outer space. What we do know is the situation she described, in reaching for a Malicious Lie, was rendered in extremely convincing, relatable prose for many, many people. So fixate the conversation on that, marinate on what that means. Undoubtedly, at some point, one or even more of these accusations will be false, because there are psychopaths out there, lol. But does that change the fundamental conversation?

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, January 15, 2018 1:52 PM (forty-three seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for the record, I am not disputing the allegations against ansari. I have no reason to doubt the account and ansari comes across as, at best, a pig.

to your point, though, it would seem to me that an absolutely necessary part of this new social contract-paradigm is that the accounts need to be true. it is not, imo, enough that the “convincing, relatable prose” brings comfort to other victims who identify with the story: it may further a conversation that absolutely needs to be had, but someone who is innocent can’t be a means to that end. it almost sounds as if you’re saying the truthfulness of the story is a secondary concern.

but i mean yeah the question should be about how we can make affirmative consent more “fun” than this art of the chase bullshit and also maybe how western masculinity is at its core an entirely fucked up concept

also the shift between flanagan quoting women’s magazines from the ‘50s and then sneering “and who’s the REAL racist here” to The Youth one of the most egregious leaps of logic not taken by david brooks or andrew sullivan of late

like that sort of gotcha is the worst “refuge of the scoundrel” look and it’s embarrassing that anyone publishes her

yeah I’m honestly shocked that flanagan piece was published

i mean i’m not because she has credibility with a certain type of editor who is more interested in status quo preservation than anything else, and unfortunately they still run the game in a lot of places

I just read that Bitch piece about Flanagan. Wow. I hate her.

Re:many things - the "exposing men who take advantage of their power to assault / abuse / rape" conversation and the "public shaming is out of control" conversation are both important (to different degrees perhaps) but it seems hugely unhelpful to try to have them at the same time.

to your point, though, it would seem to me that an absolutely necessary part of this new social contract-paradigm is that the accounts need to be true. it is not, imo, enough that the “convincing, relatable prose” brings comfort to other victims who identify with the story: it may further a conversation that absolutely needs to be had, but someone who is innocent can’t be a means to that end. it almost sounds as if you’re saying the truthfulness of the story is a secondary concern.

― k3vin k., Monday, January 15, 2018 1:11 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

K3v: how will you ever, ever know? Under what circumstances will you be able to determine the absolute truthfulness of this? A video with clear audio of the exchange leaks? Is it your responsibility to determine it’s absolute truth before responding to the story ? If so, none of these stories will ever, ever have an impact on your life. What relevance does their absolute truth of their situation have on your or your life?

I can't really grok the Aziz Ansari scenario.. the Babe article was written in such a grotesquely inflammatory way, and had so many missteps, that I felt on first reading that it must be parodic, and even wondered if it had been written deliberately so "over the top" as to undermine the movement

The entire paragraph listing his accomplishments? The "this behaviour might be OK for an 18-year old, but Aziz is a 34-year old"-- so, it's only assault because Aziz wasn't a young man? Terrible writing imo

Overall tho I'm becoming worried about the way that the definitions of "what is consensual" and "what is assault" are broadening and broadening to include "run-of-the-mill weekday date behaviour"

Not because that behaviour isn't harmful

Or that it shouldn't be called out and stopped

But because the implication that this sort of behaviour is now criminal will only put men-who-engage-in-these-harmful-behaviours on the defensive, and be unapologetic and unwilling to hold themselves accountable

This came up a lot during the Franken defense that even I had to change my mind on it. Don't let a man's feminist or ally credentials or policy-making give them a protective shield from thinking they can't do shitty things to women too.

I guess I just don’t see the purpose of having such a stake in the Court or Public Opinion when you bring nothing to the case in terms of evidence or insight, and it’s that very court of public opinion that so concerns you, giving it power by endlessly debating if the court has gone too far & instead thinking through the case’s wider implications in your own conversations with friends and loved ones and ilxors, lol, seems like the healthiest option imo

The court of public opinion will be what it is, i guess, but ppl get canceled and rehabilitated every day & it seems like pushing a boulder uphill to try & fight that

These were xps to k3v btw not a response to flamboyant goon tie who is making a difft point

xp to FGTI

The 'Babe' piece is doing an incredible disservice to the person who feels abused imo. It's clutching at straws, most of the indictment is cased into "but wait, and then this happened... ok I hear you say that's not a big deal but under *these* circumstances... no wait please read on". Listing his filmography is nagl.

It's not just terrible writing, floating out there as if it too should be held accountable, it's also a *huge* disservice to victims of sexual abuse coming out imo. It's lowering the bar for people already thinking people are lowering the bar of what constitutes abuse and what doesn't. No winners here.

deej I really can't even parse that last post

i feel some of what fgti is saying
there is def a lot of noise in the babe article

i don’t disbelieve her account but there are lot of details in the piece that made me quietly question the intent & even thd audience of the finished writeup. it was almost written AT Ansari

someone said it reminded them of the xojane piece that presaged the ghomeshi stuff and i think that’s somewhat accurate in tone and sloppy editing. obv we have to wait and see about its bearing out

the Anzari piece is frustrating because yeah it's sensationalistic but also by going chronologically lots of readers check out halfway through and think that it's just a description of an awkward date; if you read all the way through though the woman tells him no, clearly, verbally, and he goes "ok we don't have to do anything" and then goes for it anyway:

Grace says she spent around five minutes in the bathroom, collecting herself in the mirror and splashing herself with water. Then she went back to Ansari. He asked her if she was okay. “I said I don’t want to feel forced because then I’ll hate you, and I’d rather not hate you,” she said.

She told babe that at first, she was happy with how he reacted. “He said, ‘Oh, of course, it’s only fun if we’re both having fun.’ The response was technically very sweet and acknowledging the fact that I was very uncomfortable. Verbally, in that moment, he acknowledged that I needed to take it slow. Then he said, ‘Let’s just chill over here on the couch.’”

This moment is particularly significant for Grace, because she thought that would be the end of the sexual encounter — her remark about not wanting to feel “forced” had added a verbal component to the cues she was trying to give him about her discomfort. When she sat down on the floor next to Ansari, who sat on the couch, she thought he might rub her back, or play with her hair — something to calm her down.

Ansari instructed her to turn around. “He sat back and pointed to his penis and motioned for me to go down on him. And I did. I think I just felt really pressured. It was literally the most unexpected thing I thought would happen at that moment because I told him I was uncomfortable.”

Like, sure, that doesn't make him Weinstein or even Louie CK. But "no means no" is pretty basic shit, guys.

xpost w/ maura

The Babe article totally was sloppy editing. I had to re-read the part about the white and red wine a couple of times to figure out the point.

omg yes

That was the part that made me think "was this article written by Russian hackers to undermine the #metoo movement"

It seems like the Atwood thing reads differently in the US versus Canada, though I'm not sure how to articulate it. An uncharitable CA reading of it is that it's defensive posturing from someone who, well before #MeToo, chose solidarity with the lit community over solidarity with victims of sexual harassment. It's also shitty timing with the scandal going on at Concordia right now. Whereas to Americans it's reading as a feminist icon claiming this has gone too far as of Jan 2018.

― rob, Monday, January 15, 2018 1:50 PM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wanting UBC to stick to a fair process is choosing lit community over the victims of sexual harassment? How? If anything a fair process is everything the victim deserves. It is everything that future victims will alway deserve.

and otm maura

I was thinking this morning about how weird it was that we'd gone in three years from "three women have stated that Jian violently beat them without their consent" to "one woman has stated that she felt pressured into oral sex by Aziz"

But yeah it's true, I have two Facebook friends who've told me that this is only the tip of the iceberg with Aziz-- I hope it isn't-- I hope this is the iceberg-- but it's possible yeah that this Babe article is to Aziz what the xojane article was to Jian

deej I really can't even parse that last post

― k3vin k., Monday, January 15, 2018 1:34 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You are very concerned with joining in the Court of Public Opinion to determine the absolute truth of aziz Ansari’s creepiness, and think its absolute truth is something that can be determined. I have an existing gut instinct about his level of “guilt” of course too, as everyone here does; but I don’t have any special insight into the Absolute Truth, and I don’t think that any degree of tea leaf reading will ever bring us any closer to it. So: what is your concern here? Of course I don’t want innocent ppl to have their careers destroyed, the same way I feel sympathy for the owner of sal’s when his window was smashed. But it’s a distraction to say that’s what the convo on this thread is about

<Insert meme> of "Find a man who will look at you like you are the reputation of a man he has never met."

Our general notion of the truth of who he is as a person can of course change as the evidence changes but that’s not something that happens cuz kev argues about it on an ilx thread

This episode really puts Ansari's 'dating and relationship are complicated' shtick into perspective, uh.

Also if this cultural moment leads into another parallel discussion about how male sexuality is bereft of empathy and respect even within the boundaries of consent then that's good too. Of course some knuckleheads will interpret that as witch hunt or everything is criminal but hey not everyone can be saved.

I'm a little pissed they didn't remove Bright from netflix. Partly because I hate that it keeps showing up on my main menu.

i want to believe you meant to post that on this thread

it would be really, really easy for me to believe that Ansari was not so secretly a dirtbag, but I was admittedly pretty unfazed by that story

xpost I did. We've already forgotten how Max Landis is a pos because we'll have hundreds more to get through.

babe is partially owned by news corp so who knows :(

I am pretty sure I have never been aware of Babe before yesterday.

Same!

Apparently they have 5 million monthly readers

Pretty sure I won't be aware of Babe tomorrow.

Oh, and the mention of having never seen Seinfeld!?!

I thought she just hadn’t seen that one episode

Landis seems to have gone silent in the last month. No Twitter activity or statements about the allegations. I wonder if he thinks he can wait it out.

xpost Sloppy editing!

Wanting UBC to stick to a fair process is choosing lit community over the victims of sexual harassment? How? If anything a fair process is everything the victim deserves. It is everything that future victims will alway deserve.

― Van Horn Street, Monday, January 15, 2018 2:44 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I explicitly stated it was an "uncharitable" reading, but I just reread the original open letter and there is no concern expressed for the victims to have access to fair processes, only for Professor Galloway. Yes, her follow-up statement expresses concern for "survivor people," but it came after the fact and is also badly written.

Anyway, my point was more that there's a context around Atwood's G&M piece that Americans most likely don't know about, including that Atwood has been criticized widely and publicly for her stance on these issues and, particularly, the recent Concordia scandal--why exactly does Atwood want to be the go-to hot taker whenever a creative writing program is accused of harboring sexual abusers? Maybe everything in her column was righteous on an abstract level, but it's gross timing.

It’s weird that there was a plotline on the most recent season of ansari’s aggressively mediocre show where his costar is brought down by accusations that he was a “creep” with women who worked for him. The Aziz charactef stands up to him. In ANOTHER episode, in season one, he stands up to a subway masturbator and is praised by women he knows for doing this. Almost more than any other male celebrity he’s trued to set himself up as pne of the woke ones. Could have been a way to get ahead of accusations, could have been a lack of self-awareness, could be nothing becausw this babe story is a newscorp plant (least likely), but in any case it’s odd.

what does a talking pig have to do with any of this

Don't call her that, Peggy is a national treasure

that babe site is one of those locations on the web where you need to be real careful about specifying the ‘.net’ part of the address huh

*clears desk in anticipation of visit from the it office*

it's been a while since I read it, but iirc this Rebecca Traister piece gets at some of what we're talking about with Ansari: https://www.thecut.com/2015/10/why-consensual-sex-can-still-be-bad.html

babe is a spin-off of the tab, which is a fairly popular site with the youth (i have students who have worked for its offshoot on my campus). it’s filling the hercampus void

also i’m not surprised that a twentysomething hasn’t seen seinfeld. isn’t it only on hulu?

my students however watch A LOT of FRIENDS

It’s syndicated on a buncha channels