Even The Wolf likely can't clean up Harvey Weinstein's pending troubles

If Tarantino were running for president, it would be a bigger issue. He makes movies.

 

Sure ... just struck sometimes by how elastic the quasi-"statute of limitations" can be.

 

You're assuming he's not.

 

I'm genuinely not trying to be intellectually dishonest here. Az said that Tarantino is "cooked," meaning, in my opinion, the end of his current career. I think, considering the age of the quote and the fact that he's not talking about his own behavior, he'll be fine so long as he responds the right way. (Not for nothing, but the, "Values are different there" excuse was one rolled out by Roy Moore supporters recently, too.)

Also keep in mind, although I did use it to ding YF a little there, I've been a defender of the Trump quote to the point of permanently alienating some of my fellow posters.

 

Tarantino at least offers his perspective. Doesn't make him look a whole lot better, but he offered it.

I'm reminded how good of a cultural critic he is when he says: "I didn’t think the New York Times piece was absolutely horrible, it was all the other articles, extrapolating from what they thought the New York Times piece was saying. And there became this narrative out there. Are these asshole male auteurs out of control? Can no one tell them no? At what price, art? Owen Gleiberman writes a piece saying Quentin needs to say what he was thinking, and what was on his mind when he forced Uma to get into that car!"

The amount of extrapolating done today is purely driven by "let's capitalize on this piece of news by writing a hyperbolic essay that drives traffic." One news outlet does the reporting and 100 respond to it with hot takes.

Damn that's a shitty model for the news world. But you can't escape it now. It's the Internet.

 

Slate started that crap.

 

I'd agree that in a different circumstance Tarantino might simply sidestep this with a thoughtful apology. But his next movie includes Roman Polanski as a character, so this will likely last a while.

 

I think you misunderstand my post. We're in much more agreement on this than you might think, and your links prove my point.

I think we all looked at the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, not only as abhorrent, but as unique. The scandal wasn't just the abuse -- which was horrific. The larger scandal was that those in power covered it up. They transferred abusers, who were able to abuse again. They naively thought that some counseling could change years of predatory behavior, and allowed abusers to interact with children again, without giving the new community any warning about the abuser's past. And, when the abuser was himself a member of the Church hierarchy, even greater steps were taken to cover up the crimes, and those who took part in the cover up included some at the highest levels of the Church.

What we've learned in the years since, is that powerful institutions of all sorts engage in similar behavior.

Whether it's Orthodox Jewish communities, Muslim communities, sports departments, like those at Penn State or Michigan State, or groups like the NYPD and the NFL, they all behave similarly.

And, at all of them, there's a level of self policing, among the members of these organizations/institutions, that requires no direction from leadership. There's an instinct to shun and/or silence anyone who makes potentially damaging claims.

And, the point I made, in the wake of Penn State scandal -- which was criticized by @Dick Whitman among others -- was that powerful institutions cannot sit back, and wait to see if there are claims against it.

Institutions should proactively self inspect. Have they created the kind of atmosphere where these kinds of abuses and cover ups could take place?

Have certain people been given so much autonomy, or gained so much power, that they could stifle any claim made against them?

Have the powers that be encouraged their members to come forward? Have they made it clear that claims will be investigated, and that those abuse will not be shunned, and that the very act of shunning a victim is the kind of behavior which will not be tolerated?

Have they followed up on past claims that were dismissed, or on the rumors that everyone had heard, but no one had investigated?

Our entire society needs to recognize that no group that doesn't put the welfare and safety of it's most vulnerable members at its forefront, don't deserve the loyalty of its members, and don't deserve protecting.

 

My argument was a little more nuanced than that.

 

I look forward to further nuanced posts by all parties.

 

I think my argument was that full-scale internal investigations, done right, are extremely expensive, and, frankly, the kind of cover-ups that occurred at Penn State and within the Catholic Church are, though horrific, still extremely rare.

 

I understand. You still pushed back at the idea colleges of rigorously investigating themselves, and their athletic departments proactively.

If institutions have set up fiefdoms, like the one Joe Paterno had, or existed at Michigan State, they are creating the environment where these abuses can happen, and almost inviting abuse, and the coverup thereof.

These athletic departments at major universities no longer serve the the schools, or the vast majority of the students. They exist only for their own aggrandizement. In fact, they may well operate at the risk of the student body as a whole. They bring in kids who wouldn't otherwise be there, who don't fit into the culture on campus, aren't asked to fit in -- the team has its own culture -- and who, if they commit acts of violence against the average student, will be protected by the system.