There’s a superb movie which I think is on streaming now though I saw it while back, probably before any cuts were made, it’s called Pleasure. Rather like Bombshell only set in the porn industry, it reveals some of the very powerful subtleties that can fuck someone psychologically while leaving the actual physical facts of coercion in what for the victim can seem bewildering. It’s not about rape but about the psychological dynamics and has some amazing twists. A real eye-opener (and a good film).
I’ve never heard of Ton whatsisface and certainly hope the chap isn’t typical of the industry, any more than despicable ‘sports’ personalities who have committed rape are typical. I can only suppose that the ease of getting sex as a celebrity becomes a template, a fucked-up assumption that ‘they all want it really’. Most porn companies I understand have checklists to be signed beforehand on what is and isn’t allowed. Could that absence of spontaneity somehow feed into a frustrated power trip? The other thing is the speed with which stuff happens. ‘Assuming’ the woman wants it (for instance if, as a porn star, she’s signed up for it) negates the need to listen carefully for the woman’s indication at each stage that she wants to proceed.
I think this is one of the bad sides of the Internet-reliant world. Young men don’t learn how to chat up women (which involves treating her as a person) and instead learn from porn, with or without a slightly artificial checklist. This doesn’t in any way justify abuse: it maybe helps to explain its prevalence among unevolved ‘men’ (I put it in inverted commas as I don’t think that a ‘man’ goes against the wishes of a woman when proceeding sexually is a real man at all, just a scumbag).
Weinstein is mentioned, and a comment by Ms Streep that, let’s face it, can’t be taken as her condoning Weinstein (even if Streep does live on another planet). Weinstein turned out it seems to have been a really evil fucking shitebag (QT apparently threatened him if he were to ever touch one of his actresses, which makes one wonder how generally known was Weinstein’s behaviour in the industry). The difficulty now is separating the shitebag from his movies. Hitler’s filmmakers, DW Griffiths and much later, Weinstein, all represented milestones in cinema. A megalomaniac, a racist and a rapist. Their legacies influencing the history of cinema for many — and their hurt to so many others a terrible and lasting shame.
