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THE ACADEMY OF Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was due to hold an emergency session Saturday to discuss kicking out Harvey Weinstein amid mounting sexual harassment, assault and rape accusations.
An avalanche of claims have surfaced since the publication last week of an explosive New York Times report alleging a history of abusive behavior dating back decades.
On Thursday, American actress Rose McGowan became the fourth woman to accuse the 65-year-old of raping her.
The Academy issued a statement describing the nature of the allegations as “repugnant, abhorrent, and antithetical” to its standards ahead of the meeting of its 54-member board of governors.
The Academy is not expected to hold a news conference after the meeting, scheduled for 10 am (6pm Irish time) but said it would release a statement on the proceedings.
The Producers Guild of America will also meet today to “consider disciplinary proceedings and the status of his membership”, a source close to the union told AFP.
Since the outbreak of the scandal, several actresses including Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Lea Seydoux have said they were sexually harassed by the producer.
Weinstein was seen in public for the first time in days when paparazzi descended upon him as he left his daughter’s home in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
‘Sleazy’
“Guys, I’m not doing OK but I’m trying,” he said in a video obtained by ABC.
I got to get help. You know what, we all make mistakes.
As he climbed into an oversized sports utility vehicle, he said he hoped people would give him “a second chance”.
Celebrity gossip portal TMZ reported that Weinstein later flew to rehab in Arizona, possibly at The Meadows, a facility near Phoenix where golfer Tiger Woods and supermodel Kate Moss have been treated.
Weinstein appears to have garnered little sympathy from the public, however, according to a survey conducted by celebrity branding expert and bestselling author Jeetendr Sehdev.
Some 82% of 2,000 people questioned as part of an ongoing study into American attitudes to celebrity and entertainment said he should be kicked out of the Academy.
Six in 10 said they would be less likely to watch the annual Oscars ceremony if Weinstein is allowed to remain and 40% said he should be stripped of the Oscar he won for producing “Shakespeare in Love” (1998).
More broadly, a striking half of respondents said they now viewed Hollywood as a “sleazy” brand.
“It’s critical for the Academy to show a zero tolerance policy towards the heinous and vile allegations against Weinstein. They need to strip him of his membership immediately,” Sehdev said.
‘Predator’
With the Academy’s image already damaged over the 2016 “Oscars so white” controversy over the lack of racial diversity among acting nominees, it can’t be seen to be supporting a “serial sexual predator,” he added.
Hollywood, too, has largely turned its back on Weinstein, with just veteran filmmaker Oliver Stone and fashion designer Donna Karan offering any words of support.
While Stone merely warned against Weinstein being “condemned by a vigilante system”, Karan went further, triggering outrage when she suggested women had been seeking a reaction from Weinstein by dressing provocatively.
“The Academy should consider condemning him in the most forceful terms,” former president Sid Ganis told The Hollywood Reporter.
Kick him out? He’s already out.
Expulsion is a sanction the Academy has used just once in its history, according to the trade magazine, against The Godfather II actor Carmine Caridi.
He was accused of giving tapes of around 60 Oscar movies seeking consideration for the Academy Awards to a neighbor who turned out to be a pirate.
Weinstein’s films have received more than 300 Oscar nominations and 81 statuettes, according to The Weinstein Company, which he co-founded after selling Miramax.
The studio fired him on Sunday and is exploring a sale or shutdown, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile the producer’s wife, English fashion designer Georgina Chapman, has said she plans to divorce him.
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The public service will finally bankrupt this country once and for all. The money just isn’t there to meet their demands. Unless the Government can raise money through taxing the private sector workers or raising corporation tax, there is no way this money can be paid. Then again a Government desperate to get re-elected are capable of doing anything to hold on to power. The unions are well aware of when the best time to declare war is.
@jo mixon: It’s the Consultants on big money who are draining the system not the hardworking nurses imo.
@ianglen: And why is 1 in 5 consultant jobs unfilled?
Perhaps you should campaign for further pay cuts for consultants ?
ANd any that dont like it can go off to Canada/Australia.
@jo mixon: Weel . They found the money to give the banks a 30 year tax write off.
@jo mixon: And there’s way too many clipboards managers as well. Morale isn’t good among hospital staff atm.
@ianglen: anyone who believes this is an idiot.
@jo mixon: yep the public service ie people who live work and spend in this country as unlike nama bondholders banks developers tax exiles and the other fuxxers who have had free run protected by government ask my hole merry xmas fg trolls
@ianglen: actually..healthcare workers are are team, we work together to care for our patients and it is an insult when ignorant comments such as this are made. I am an NCHD and work 80+hour weeks. I will leaving Ireland in July to Canada…leaving my family and friends in Ireland..this is not for money, but for a decent work life balance and a better system. I will be supporting my nursing colleagues as they strike. The system needs to change and the public needs to stop pointing fingers at those healthcare workers in it; we all work hard to do our best in a system stretched beyond its limits.
Duties above their original description. Bloody unions will co.e up with any inventive way of saying we want more money . Black hole of a health service. Cost multiples of the bus in Manchester and services the same amount of people where is the logic.
@john s: exactly, wont fix or go in any way to solve the mess that is the HSE and the inefficiences in that system which results in suffering for everyone
People blame consultants. Consultants are amazing, not when you have to fork in 150 euro for a consultancy,but when your life is in their hands. They are people that fix people. They face more decisions in a week, than a bank CEO and get paid less. I would hate their job.
This problem is on repeat now, Wage Inflation. We have an artificial property bubble that is driven by lack of supply. It is the source of all our ills at the moment. Money is the means to make things more affordable, but the driver is affordability.
Insurance, mortgage rates, house prices, we’re like an out of shape flabby tiger.
It will tank the economy, it tanked it before. It depends on Government action and leadership they need put about 2Bn into a NAMA style build project. This will just get worse and the strikes and protests will continue. We all sign into a private/public economic stability model, where the government delivers affordable housing as a core tenet and freely fully opens sectors such as insurance etc., mortgage rates. This public worker, private workers is nonsense, we all live here.
Remember the New children’s Hospital is running close to a billion over cost which also has to be paid the whole system is f##} up
Follow a consultation, Dr, Nurse and hca for a week at work and tell me that 99% don’t deserve a good wage compared to all the other fu#k wits in the HSE and other government departments.
Leo our leader was in charge of Health for a while and did SFA and
watch as he performs the same act again as the unions walk all over him
Blame the unions, blame the consultants, blame the public service. Such other and total rubbish.
The problems have been pointed out repeatedly by the unions and the nurses and the unions and even the patients and have been ignored by government for years,
The hard working private sector pay for everything. Wrong guess what public servants pay tax as well.
The HSE and Dept of Health is top heavy and technically in the dark ages as regards records and such. The actual part of the system of curing and helping people works well its the admin and management that costs so much.
Doctors should do doctors work and managers manage the business. At times its the other way around.
Take it apart and start again is the only solution
Britain spends 125 billion with 70 million people we spend 20 billion with 4 million people. I suppose some Numpties are going to tell me that Britain are spending too little ???? Doing the math that means Britain should spend a 2.2 trillion. Scary isnt it ????
@Marcus o Dhonnghaile: £127 ( 142 billion euro) billion spend is on England alone ( pop 55 million).
Irish population is 4.7 million HSE spend is 17 billion.
Not sure where you are getting the 2.2 trillion?
I find this scary, but for different reasons.
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