How difficult is it going to be for female actors to navigate sexuality in a post-#MeToo landscape?
Reese Witherspoon has spoken to Vanity Fair magazine about how actresses shouldn’t be made to feel they can’t express their sexuality because they’ve been vocal about #MeToo. Witherspoon (who previously spoke about being assaulted by a director when she was 16), said: “[A woman’s] sexuality shouldn’t be diminished because she’s having a conversation about consent. You should be able to be sexual, to display your sexuality, because consent is consent, no matter what.”
And if you really, really, want that role why shouldn’t you be allowed – no, not pressured, but allowed – to offer what you’re willing to give to get it?
Or are we talking about some other meaning of consent and sexuality here?
You should be able to be sexual, to display your sexuality
What do these words mean? I suspect ‘being sexual’ stands for ‘being provocative’ and ‘display’ does service for ‘flaunt’. By skirting around the true meaning flirtatious or even wanton behaviour becomes unexceptionable.
44 year old mother of 3 wants you to know she’s still sexy (no creeps, please)
This is simply further proof, as if it were needed, that actors should be ignored at all times, regardless of the topic.
As I read this, women should be allowed to act in the way they’ve always acted, but men can’t respond in the way they they’ve always responded.
She regrets the loss of the casting couch as a tool for career advancement, is how I read it.
Edward – eh, mebbe. But a lot of women in their 40’s – when male attention is harder to come by – are a lot franker about shagging than when they were in their 20’s and dicks were basically flying at them all the time. Not that she nesser-celery wants to hop aboard the cock train, but it’s nice to be wanted.
See also: middle aged blokes who decide to buy a sports car
Cake. Eat it; still have it.
Prostitution is illegal in California, so the acting profession can’t openly admit to breaking the law on a regular basis.
Even if it were legal, the vast majority of actresses wouldn’t want it widely known that they had slept their way to the top. So they have to at least maintain the pretence.
In the corporate world, the usual objection to sleeping one’s way to the top is that promoting less competent staff fails to maximise shareholder value (and is worse for consumers). Similarly, as consumers, we benefit most when Hollywood casts purely on merit; not on shags.
Just because I’ve got my tits out it doesn’t mean it’s ok for you to stare at them. I’m just displaying my sexuality, creep.
“we benefit most when Hollywood casts purely on merit; not on shags.”
Shaggability is merit. Reese’s merit is fading.
In fact, I’ve never understood Helen Mirren’s career. I never thought she was shaggable. Just annoying.
”In fact, I’ve never understood Helen Mirren’s career. I never thought she was shaggable.”
I found her rather fetching as Patricia in ’O Lucky Man’.
Surely not appearing revulsed by Harvey requires a certain amount of talent?
Mirren in her early roles was rather fetching. It wasn’t age which made her less desirable for me, it was gauntness, bitterness and the feeling that she would regard the average man as scum.
“And if you really, really, want that role why shouldn’t you be allowed – no, not pressured, but allowed – to offer what you’re willing to give to get it?”
You may be missing the wider problem here. If a noticeably non-zero proportion of budding starlets _are_ prepared to offer that sort of thing, it raises the bar for getting that sort of breakthrough role for essentially all budding starlets as all the fat, fifty-something balding men think they can extract that value.
There is then a sort of reduction of consent. There is – or was, or may still be – pressure to offer that. It’s a form of blackmail that, if you are a naive budding starlet that wouldn’t offer that kind of thing, makes this much more complicated than simply a free market transaction.
However, it’s simply inexcusable for all these female stars then to laud the likes Weinstein as a super chap, rather than a creep shamelessly exploiting desperate budding starlets.
Gamecock,
Shaggability is merit. Willingness to shag the casting director is not.
We have no dog in this fight.
@Gamecock
Helen Mirren is Bob Hoskin’s business not sex gangster’s moll in every part she plays. Shag only if want a bit of rough, but didn’t appeal to my “bit of rough” side
So flirt, tease and suggest as much as you need to
Get the part but god forbid someone takes you up on your implied offer
If it was well known about Weinstein then how many actress flirted to make sure he knew an offer of a deal was on the table?