The grandees of Hollywood are approaching this year’s Oscars in a pretty subdued and wary mood, the most subdued since the days of 9/11 and the Iraq war. Because this is the Former Court of King Harvey, the first ceremony since Weinstein’s downfall, and that of many others. This is the arena in which Harvey Weinstein could preen himself; this is part of how he dazzled and intimidated his victims. It is the award-ceremony ecosystem that allowed Weinstein-style predators to flourish.
There are probably plenty of undiscovered Hollywood abusers who are keeping their heads down, waiting for this problem to go away – rather like tense occupants of a submarine in a war movie, maintaining nerve-shreddingly tense silence as an enemy warship passes overhead. This ceremony could prove to be their undoing. At the Golden Globes, James Franco was at one moment the hero of the hour, winning for The Disaster Artist, and then he was denounced by a victim watching on TV, infuriated that Franco wore a Time’s Up ribbon. Within what seemed like microseconds, Franco’s image was airbrushed from Vanity Fair’s Hollywood cover photo. It happens that quickly. Certain men will be wondering: do I risk looking unwoke by not wearing the #TimesUp ribbon? Or risk catastrophe by wearing it? We could see some weird, unexplained no-shows at this year’s event.
There is also the question of male victims. Brendan Fraser has won much praise for giving an interview about his depression and career spiral, which stemmed from being abused and groped at the 2003 Golden Globes by a senior official from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Fraser made a complaint at the time, for which he received a boilerplate non-apology. The strange truth is that if Fraser had remained silent and then revealed this event right now, he could probably have inflicted a devastating blow.
So there will be defiance at the Oscars this year, and qualified celebration that women are finding more recognition. Frances McDormand is a widely tipped best actress nominee for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, for her role as the mother looking for revenge. It makes sense to reward McDormand in the Time’s Up era, and this will almost certainly happen.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
