,
18 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
I'm wondering if I should write something about the Weinstein case but it's kind of painful & personal, since has to do with my mother.
Weinstein seems to have been particularly bad but this kind of abuse is absolutely systemic, the "casting couch" goes back to the 1910s
3/ what I'd write about would be an extension of my bully piece, in a way, as it's about both the psychological effects on the self-esteem..
4/ of women, the crushing of egos of those who won't sleep with producers, & the permanent effects it has on them & those who love them
5/ first of all, the apparatus: not just the lawyers & functionaries & PR flacks that protect predators but the underlying assumptions
6/ i.e., after Dominique Strauss Kahn was arrested in NYC, for attacking a chambermaid in a posh hotel, so was an Egyptian businessman
6/ maybe a week later. This could hardly be a copy-cat crime inspired by DSK, since everyone knew he was arrested & in big trouble. Only
7/ possible explanation: old fat ugly rich guys rape or assault chambermaids everyday & it's always covered up. This one time a survivor
8/ must have heard about DSK & said "wait we can call the cops on these rapists now? Great! I will!" and was eventually told not to
10/ since DSK had enemies who didn't make the usual phone calls to make the problem go away. So hotels regularly cover for rapist guests.
10/ clearly it's like that in show business. My mom was in labor theatre, a play called Pins & Needles that was a surprise hit on broad way
11/ she was the female lead & for 3 years a big star, or well, a moderate-sized stars, but she was featured in magazines & gossip stories
12/ then the show toured the country, was a big hit, but eventually closed down. Some of her colleagues ended up pursuing acting careers.
13/ she went back to the factory, then married my dad who was a Spanish civil war vet, plate stripper by professional. She never made a ...
... career though she was clearly a comic genius and super talented. Languished bitterly away & in many ways took it out on us kids.
11/ her sister Tova always said, "why didn't she just become a teacher & live a middle-class existence like me? What was stopping her?"
now I realise it's the way the system crushes your self-confidence if you don't play along with the game where you have to fuck producers
the violence of these abusive power relations destroys the soul & it ramifies, if affects almost everyone in ways we don't even recognise
