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 Compel wrote:
It's worth saying that this is the first of the recent ones that someone has come out saying, "no this is horse****" Not just a, "oh, I was drunk, I don't remember" or "the bible says it's ok" but a very strenuous denial of anything of the sort.

Which is one of the odder things about Roy Moore, to circle back for a bit - he gave a pretty bizarre, at best, defense of himself. Do you date teenage girls? "Not generally, no", and "that wouldn't have been my customary behavior" are definitely not the kind of denials that should engender proxy defenses of him.

I think that the funny thing about the rape culture 'debate' is that a need to deny it is pretty strong confirmation it exists. If someone said "witch trials are a problem in society" the response would be of confusion over why someone would have such a silly viewpoint. It's like when when people say "racism is dead" or "sexism is dead" if it were actually dead no one would make that statement. No one goes around saying "witch trials are dead" or "slavery is dead" because such a statement is accepted as a basic truth.

 Ouze wrote:

 Compel wrote:
It's worth saying that this is the first of the recent ones that someone has come out saying, "no this is horse****" Not just a, "oh, I was drunk, I don't remember" or "the bible says it's ok" but a very strenuous denial of anything of the sort.

Which is one of the odder things about Roy Moore, to circle back for a bit - he gave a pretty bizarre, at best, defense of himself. Do you date teenage girls? "Not generally, no", and "that wouldn't have been my customary behavior" are definitely not the kind of denials that should engender proxy defenses of him.

Indeed. That screams piece of gak.

 LordofHats wrote:
Points for being ballsy I guess, but I'm not so sure that one will pan out.

Yeah, it's a hell of a demand. I mean, there's been some amazing star requests over the years, I don't think I've ever seen a demand that a major studio completely change their financing arrangements on almost all the major films in the studio.

As to whether it happens... dunno. It's a hell of a request, but the DC franchise is hugely important to WB, and Gadot is the star of the only film in that series that people actually like.

I just doubt that Gadot is valued by the executives as much as the financing Rat-Pack provides. My suspicion though is that there will be some kind of token apology/statement from Ratner/Rat-Pack about how they don't support these things/his thoughts have changed or whatever bs suits them, and everything will just go along as normal.

Mario wrote:
One could also think of rape culture as shorthand for "a culture that makes life easier for (would be) rapists and sexual harassers and enables them even if that culture is superficially/technically against it and that culture often lets them get away with it". Rape culture is just a bit shorter and easier to handle and more of a technical term that's not commonly used in general small talk.

That's a good summary. I'd add that it is also a culture that also makes abusers more common, through ideas such as men being owed sexual gratification, or women being deceitful or manipulative or otherwise deserving of rape.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
I just doubt that Gadot is valued by the executives as much as the financing Rat-Pack provides. My suspicion though is that there will be some kind of token apology/statement from Ratner/Rat-Pack about how they don't support these things/his thoughts have changed or whatever bs suits them, and everything will just go along as normal.

I doubt a statement from RatPac-Dune will be enough, unless Gadot thought she had more power than she does, and then blinks when she realise WB is going to call her on this because they can't walk away from the financing deal. What's also possible Mnuchin and Packer will buy out Ratner, Packer certainly has the money. Or they'll rework the funding balances so more RatPac Dune money goes in to non-DC films? I guess its also possible that WB sever ties with RatPac Dune, with some other financing group coming in, but those deals typically take a long time to set up.

This whole thread is depressing, it's come to this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=RDSBBe0X813z4¶ms=OAFIAVgC&v=hMtZfW2z9dw&mode=NORMAL

 Ouze wrote:
Which is one of the odder things about Roy Moore, to circle back for a bit - he gave a pretty bizarre, at best, defense of himself. Do you date teenage girls? "Not generally, no", and "that wouldn't have been my customary behavior" are definitely not the kind of denials that should engender proxy defenses of him.

Yeah, also telling was the defence attempted by Alabama Republicans. If the motive was just to protect a man they believe was falsely accused, then it is the most thing to say 'the charges are false' and start pointing out all the ways that the stories given by the 4 victims and 30 witnesses don't align with the facts. Instead we see one guy claim that the relationship would be biblical and therefore okay. Another called to prosecute the accusers. On FOX News Hannity started making up claims that many/most accusations were false, but never attempted to disprove any part of any claim by any of the 4 girls or the 30 witnesses. Breitbart sent reporters to Alabama to investigate the claims, and so far their big break is claiming that the women didn't approach WaPo, but after WaPo heard about the allegations they spoke to the women and convinced them to speak on the record - which is exactly what the WaPo story described. So that's a lot of media resources motivated to defending Moore, and so far none of them have found any flaws in the WaPo story, and in fact they don't even seem to be trying.

It's near impossible to reconcile that approach, by Moore and his various defenders, with how people would go about defending an actual innocent person.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
No one goes around saying "witch trials are dead" or "slavery is dead" because such a statement is accepted as a basic truth.

Except in the latter case it really isn't. I'll say nothing of The Deep South for the former case.

Which indicates that denying something exists for long enough, and consistently enough, can drown the problem out when the next horror of human nature - The Global Scourge(tm) of Communism for example - is exposed and shouts so loud that said denied subject is pushed aside as, to put it politely, boring. I think someone called it outrage fatigue - something we as a species should learn to handle better, because the internet isn't going to make it less frequent.

 sebster wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I just doubt that Gadot is valued by the executives as much as the financing Rat-Pack provides. My suspicion though is that there will be some kind of token apology/statement from Ratner/Rat-Pack about how they don't support these things/his thoughts have changed or whatever bs suits them, and everything will just go along as normal.

I doubt a statement from RatPac-Dune will be enough, unless Gadot thought she had more power than she does, and then blinks when she realise WB is going to call her on this because they can't walk away from the financing deal. What's also possible Mnuchin and Packer will buy out Ratner, Packer certainly has the money. Or they'll rework the funding balances so more RatPac Dune money goes in to non-DC films? I guess its also possible that WB sever ties with RatPac Dune, with some other financing group coming in, but those deals typically take a long time to set up.

It does seem most likely that, as things go on, Ratner will get bought/pushed out, making everything hunky-dory again. If not, and Gadot doesn't back down, I'm sure she's banked enough off her work so far to live quite a comfortable life. And I bet Marvel would find a use for her, just to stick it in DC's eye.

And, apparently, Ratner isn't the only problem in the DC-universe. The showrunner for some of the TV shows is also in trouble.

The more of these stories I see, I sometimes ask myself: "who is the one person I most don't want to hear any allegations about?" One name that comes to mind is Joss Whedon. I feel like so much of his work would just be completely undermined if he turned out to be one of these scumbags. That could just be the huge Buffy/Firefly fan in me talking, though.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
It does seem most likely that, as things go on, Ratner will get bought/pushed out, making everything hunky-dory again. If not, and Gadot doesn't back down, I'm sure she's banked enough off her work so far to live quite a comfortable life. And I bet Marvel would find a use for her, just to stick it in DC's eye.

Her pay for Wonder Woman was about $300k. Even when its a big budget film, if the star isn't famous in their own right they don't get that much - the value is in raising their profile and the big payout if the film demands sequels. She'd be commanding a lot more now, both as WW and in all her other film roles, but she can't walk away from films and go buy herself an island yet.

Regarding Takei, the fact that it took almost 40 years for the victim to actually come out in public makes me slightly suspicious. Reading trough the story, it feels more like a date-gone-wrong between two individuals who initially had mutual feelings of attraction towards each other.

"Inappropriate" is the word that comes to mind, not "rape" or "sexual abuse".

 MinscS2 wrote:
Regarding Takei, the fact that it took almost 40 years for the victim to actually come out in public makes me slightly suspicious. Reading trough the story, it feels more like a date-gone-wrong between two individuals who initially had mutual feelings of attraction towards each other.

"Inappropriate" is the word that comes to mind, not "rape" or "sexual abuse".

40 years is normal. Abuse is often cause for shame and being gay 40 years ago certainly complicated coming out (perhaps both as in gay to the public and a victim). Eventually time sets in and you might not want to come forward and bring up all those memories again. But now with so many people telling their stories, it might be easier to tell their own.

It certainly starts off as a possible date gone wrong or perhaps Takei was mistakingly thinking it was a date.

The problem with the date gone wrong/inappropriate approach is the part where the man is allegedly drugged by Takei. If that is true, that is beyond a doubt assault. So far one person has come forward and Takei has denied everything. Its hard to know what the truth is.

Although to be honest, once the drugged part came in I started thinking that this doesn't sound like a one off. What I mean by that is that once someone is prepared to drug people to get sex, s/he certainly wouldn't do it only once right? Cosby comes to mind. Maybe more people step forwards against Takei, making judgement easier. If not, then its going to remain a complicated case.

 MinscS2 wrote:
Regarding Takei, the fact that it took almost 40 years for the victim to actually come out in public makes me slightly suspicious. Reading trough the story, it feels more like a date-gone-wrong between two individuals who initially had mutual feelings of attraction towards each other.

"Inappropriate" is the word that comes to mind, not "rape" or "sexual abuse".

As Disciple of Fate said, it isn't unusual for people to keep this quiet for 40 years. Through the pedophile scandal people spoke out having lived 50 or 60 years in silence about things done to them when they were little kids. Victim's wives didn't know, it was horrific to read. And then you start to realise there's probably even more cases of people never speaking out and going to their grave carrying that secret. So yeah, coming out after 40 years, when other people begin speaking out for the first time is quite normal.

As to the actual case, its a difficult one. Brunton has told the story to friends before, just not publicly. So I have to say Brunton's story sounds quite believable to me. I mean, what's the plan behind concocting a story and telling it every so often to friends for decades, so that maybe one day if large numbers of Hollywood rape stories started Brunton could launch his plan decades in the making to.... something?

As to what Takei was accused of doing is quite believable. The drugging thing is possibly just a case of drinking more than you realised, or the booze hitting you harder than normal (empty stomach etc). From there what Takei was accused of - taking advantage of someone drunk enough to be on the edge of consciousness... was fairly horribly seen as a normal thing at that time. It is not like other recent cases where there was a premeditated attempt to use power to force compliance (Weinstein) or the victim was very young (Spacey/Moore), or where no consent was attempted at all (Loius CK).

So if Takei gave a mea culpa, I could see everyone moving on. But instead Takei has denied the events entirely. And there's no chance he actually just forgot about this. I mean, I've got a terrible memory but there's no way I'd forget the time I was undressing someone and they suddenly got up and fled the house.

Which means someone has to have been lying. And well, I can't say it with any certainly but I gotta say I believe Brunton's story a lot more.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think that the funny thing about the rape culture 'debate' is that a need to deny it is pretty strong confirmation it exists. If someone said "witch trials are a problem in society" the response would be of confusion over why someone would have such a silly viewpoint. It's like when when people say "racism is dead" or "sexism is dead" if it were actually dead no one would make that statement. No one goes around saying "witch trials are dead" or "slavery is dead" because such a statement is accepted as a basic truth.

That doesn't really follow, just because you have to say that creationism isn't a legitimate scientific counter to the theory of evolution doesn't make creationism a legitimate scientific counter to the theory of evolution

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

The more of these stories I see, I sometimes ask myself: "who is the one person I most don't want to hear any allegations about?" One name that comes to mind is Joss Whedon. I feel like so much of his work would just be completely undermined if he turned out to be one of these scumbags. That could just be the huge Buffy/Firefly fan in me talking, though.

Sadly, there's plenty of allegations about Joss out there, some of which I'm believe he's admitted to.

I think they *did*, end up being consensual but when you look at the whole power dynamic thing between producers/showrunners and actresses, well...
His wife wasn't exactly a fan of it though... Which, if memory serves, is where a lot of the allegations came from during his recent divorce.

Melissa Benoist has commented on the CW thing.

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think that the funny thing about the rape culture 'debate' is that a need to deny it is pretty strong confirmation it exists. If someone said "witch trials are a problem in society" the response would be of confusion over why someone would have such a silly viewpoint. It's like when when people say "racism is dead" or "sexism is dead" if it were actually dead no one would make that statement. No one goes around saying "witch trials are dead" or "slavery is dead" because such a statement is accepted as a basic truth.

That doesn't really follow, just because you have to say that creationism isn't a legitimate scientific counter to the theory of evolution doesn't make creationism a legitimate scientific counter to the theory of evolution

You're presenting an example that supports the argument you're challenging. People only say 'creationism isn't a legitimate scientific counter to the theory of evolution' because there is a significant group of people argue otherwise. The expression only exists because the problem exists.

You misunderstood the argument, NinthMusketeer argued that if people felt a need to deny something, that thing actually exists or at least a strong confirmation of it existing, not just that people that argue for it exists.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think that the funny thing about the rape culture 'debate' is that a need to deny it is pretty strong confirmation it exists.

So my point was that doesn't make sense and I used the example of denying creationism as legitimate science, in NinthMusketeers world that would be a strong confirmation that creationism was actually a legitimate science

 sebster wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:
Regarding Takei, the fact that it took almost 40 years for the victim to actually come out in public makes me slightly suspicious. Reading trough the story, it feels more like a date-gone-wrong between two individuals who initially had mutual feelings of attraction towards each other.

"Inappropriate" is the word that comes to mind, not "rape" or "sexual abuse".

As Disciple of Fate said, it isn't unusual for people to keep this quiet for 40 years. Through the pedophile scandal people spoke out having lived 50 or 60 years in silence about things done to them when they were little kids. Victim's wives didn't know, it was horrific to read. And then you start to realise there's probably even more cases of people never speaking out and going to their grave carrying that secret. So yeah, coming out after 40 years, when other people begin speaking out for the first time is quite normal.

As to the actual case, its a difficult one. Brunton has told the story to friends before, just not publicly. So I have to say Brunton's story sounds quite believable to me. I mean, what's the plan behind concocting a story and telling it every so often to friends for decades, so that maybe one day if large numbers of Hollywood rape stories started Brunton could launch his plan decades in the making to.... something?

As to what Takei was accused of doing is quite believable. The drugging thing is possibly just a case of drinking more than you realised, or the booze hitting you harder than normal (empty stomach etc). From there what Takei was accused of - taking advantage of someone drunk enough to be on the edge of consciousness... was fairly horribly seen as a normal thing at that time. It is not like other recent cases where there was a premeditated attempt to use power to force compliance (Weinstein) or the victim was very young (Spacey/Moore), or where no consent was attempted at all (Loius CK).

So if Takei gave a mea culpa, I could see everyone moving on. But instead Takei has denied the events entirely. And there's no chance he actually just forgot about this. I mean, I've got a terrible memory but there's no way I'd forget the time I was undressing someone and they suddenly got up and fled the house.

Which means someone has to have been lying. And well, I can't say it with any certainly but I gotta say I believe Brunton's story a lot more.

It is entirely possible he wouldn't remember. As he was drunk himself he could be prone to blackouts. I've seen that happen to many people. Along with that though the victim being so drunk could have dreamt the incident and his drunk mind thought it was real.

Which is why the he/she said incidents are so hard to get to the truth of it all.

and speaking to the culture, apparently 37% of "you know who" are more willing to back moore because of the assaults. His actions also were common knowledge in his circles.

 LordofHats wrote:
I just doubt that Gadot is valued by the executives as much as the financing Rat-Pack provides. My suspicion though is that there will be some kind of token apology/statement from Ratner/Rat-Pack about how they don't support these things/his thoughts have changed or whatever bs suits them, and everything will just go along as normal.

On the flip-side, it can't be difficult to find someone else with the money to finance a gold mine like the Marvek pics. The key blocker would be if the Ratner group have a legal contractual position.

sirlynchmob wrote:

It is entirely possible he wouldn't remember. As he was drunk himself he could be prone to blackouts. I've seen that happen to many people. Along with that though the victim being so drunk could have dreamt the incident and his drunk mind thought it was real.

I know it's frequently a quick talking point to jump on the "if we are both drunk, then neither can consent, so how can one drunk person rape another drunk person" excuse when people start talking about intoxication and consent. I'm usually not a fan of that talking point, but I also admit that it can be a handy excuse to have in court when you are trying to determine if one person was intoxicated enough not to be able to consent, and the other was not intoxicated enough to not know they were raping someone.

As far as Takei, I don't know what to make of it. I would like to think that it wasn't a "I'm gonna drug a fan and try to rape him" situation and more of a "he just broke up, he's hanging out with me, he wants to come to my house, he want's some action" kind of misunderstanding fueled by alcohol on both their parts. One person drank more than they thought and passed out, the other so drunk that they are trying to feth someone who passed out drunk.

 d-usa wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

It is entirely possible he wouldn't remember. As he was drunk himself he could be prone to blackouts. I've seen that happen to many people. Along with that though the victim being so drunk could have dreamt the incident and his drunk mind thought it was real.

I know it's frequently a quick talking point to jump on the "if we are both drunk, then neither can consent, so how can one drunk person rape another drunk person" excuse when people start talking about intoxication and consent. I'm usually not a fan of that talking point, but I also admit that it can be a handy excuse to have in court when you are trying to determine if one person was intoxicated enough not to be able to consent, and the other was not intoxicated enough to not know they were raping someone.

As far as Takei, I don't know what to make of it. I would like to think that it wasn't a "I'm gonna drug a fan and try to rape him" situation and more of a "he just broke up, he's hanging out with me, he wants to come to my house, he want's some action" kind of misunderstanding fueled by alcohol on both their parts. One person drank more than they thought and passed out, the other so drunk that they are trying to feth someone who passed out drunk.

I'm not even getting into consent, This could be a case of false memories on the victim, Or again takei could have blacked out the night.

http://science.time.com/2013/11/19/remember-that-no-you-dont-study-shows-false-memories-afflict-us-all/

It was a common game at a previous work place, called "what did I do last night" where a group that was way to drunk tries to piece together what happened the night before. It was amusing who remembered things that never happened and those that forgot key details.

This late in the game it's impossible to tell what really happened that night with takei. Takei is the Schrodinger's rapist, only two people should know what happened, and both were way to "drunk" to be credible witnesses.

Why is it that we're defending Takei but not the other people in this thread?

Because Takei has denied it and not all cases are equal and everyone of them should be analyzed individually?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Why is it that we're defending Takei but not the other people in this thread?

Dunno. Maybe it's harder to believe an activist like Takei behaved that way? Also, the story is about 2 drunk people and it's easier to justify a sharing of the blame, whether that's fair or not.

Of all the stories that have come out, it's the one I don't want to believe and hope isn't true.

Oh, I don't want to think it's true either, but in fairness' sake would "they were drunk!" really have been a good excuse in the other cases? I think there's a lot of us that don't want to believe that Takei did something like this, he's a living meme after all, but we've got roughly the same level of evidence regarding him as we did with a number of others that we've condemned without a second thought.

Plus, as was pointed out, the accuser's told this story to friends for decades, it's not like he made it up on the spot.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Oh, I don't want to think it's true either, but in fairness' sake would "they were drunk!" really have been a good excuse in the other cases?

The other cases seem to be more than two drunk people ending up in a sexual situation, so it probably wouldn't be an excuse.

Trying to feth a minor? Being drunk is no excuse.
Spending years masturbating in front of people you have power over? Being drunk is no excuse.
Etc etc.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Why is it that we're defending Takei but not the other people in this thread?

Because Takei is more liable than even Santa.

sirlynchmob wrote:
[This late in the game it's impossible to tell what really happened that night with takei. Takei is the Schrodinger's rapist, only two people should know what happened, and both were way to "drunk" to be credible witnesses.

Aye. If one is too drunk to consent and the other is too drunk to recognize it, well, it's a bad situation but not quite the same sort of bad as demanding sexual favors from people dependent on you for a job.

Besides, you don't actually have to be drunk (or affected at all) in order to make mistaken advances on someone. You might just be bad at reading people. I remember an article connected to the college sex scandals (hiding sexual assaults to protect the reputation of the school, basically) where a guy made advances on a girl he'd gone out with after they came back to his place and sat in the same sofa watching a movie. He thought it was OK - she stayed in his company after all - and that she'd say if it wasn't fine. But she was in fact straight up too scared to say anything, and this guy was just a fellow student, not someone who could blacklist you from the career you wanted. If the guy was more experienced he'd have noticed she wasn't warming up at all, and if she had a bit more self-confidence she'd have told him to stop. What happened was nothing, except the guy getting reprimands later when the girl filed a complaint. Not an undeserved complaint, but if she hadn't been scared at the time she could have told him off and no complaint would have been necessary. Freezing up or fleeing when in a really unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation is, however, not in any way an unknown human response.

No, I don't think Weinstein or most of the other listed people were "mistaken" about how attracted young actresses were to them. But misunderstandings also happen.

 sebster wrote:
As to what Takei was accused of doing is quite believable. The drugging thing is possibly just a case of drinking more than you realised, or the booze hitting you harder than normal (empty stomach etc). From there what Takei was accused of - taking advantage of someone drunk enough to be on the edge of consciousness... was fairly horribly seen as a normal thing at that time. It is not like other recent cases where there was a premeditated attempt to use power to force compliance (Weinstein) or the victim was very young (Spacey/Moore), or where no consent was attempted at all (Loius CK).

So if Takei gave a mea culpa, I could see everyone moving on. But instead Takei has denied the events entirely. And there's no chance he actually just forgot about this. I mean, I've got a terrible memory but there's no way I'd forget the time I was undressing someone and they suddenly got up and fled the house.

Which means someone has to have been lying. And well, I can't say it with any certainly but I gotta say I believe Brunton's story a lot more.

Yes, I don't think you would just forget something like this. And at the same time, why the hell would someone make up something like this.

But the part I wanted to adres was the drinks thing. They had dinner so it shouldn't have been an empty stomach and Brunton said this:

The two men went back to the actor's condo for a drink the same night. "We have the drink and he asks if I would like another," Brunton recalls. "And I said sure. So, I have the second one, and then all of a sudden, I begin feeling very disoriented and dizzy, and I thought I was going to pass out. I said I need to sit down and he said sit over here and he had the giant yellow beanbag chair. So I sat down in that and leaned my head back and I must have passed out."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/george-takei-accused-sexually-assaulting-model-1981-1056698

It being his second drink plus that experience sounds like more than just too much alcohol. Unless Brunton didn't remember the right number. The way this comes across is far darker than just having a drink too many (i.e. drugged). But maybe I'm just reading too much into it.