Is There Something Wrong With Me Or Right With Me That I Don't Find This Humor Offensive?
Rachel Abrams and John Koblin write in The New York Times about a settlement paid to an actress on the series "Bull" for sexual harassment claims. Here's a bit from the piece:
Then came the shooting of a scene involving a windowless van. With the cameras rolling, in front of the cast and crew, Mr. Weatherly said he would take Ms. Dushku to his "rape van," which, he added, was filled with phallic objects and lubricant, according to the interview notes.Mr. Weatherly said the "rape van" line was an attempted joke that misfired. "The scripted line in that scene was, 'Hey, young lady, step into my windowless van,'" he said. "I didn't particularly like that line, so I joked, in order to highlight how distasteful the emphasis of the line was, about an 'r. van,' a rape van. Which, in retrospect, was not a good idea."
Van aside: Luke Ford, an eccentric former Seventh-Day Adventist-turned-Orthodox Jew and friend of my late friend Cathy Seipp, used to joke about his old creepy van with a mattress in back. I thought it was funny (though I still can't believe any women actually got in there with him).
Back on topic, over the years, many people have made sex jokes to me and about me. I've laughed at these. If ever something were too rude in the moment, I would just tell the person to fuck off. (But I don't recall a time like that.)
So, whaddya think: Is there something wrong or right with me?
What is wrong with you is that no one can extort millions from you, on the premise that the only reason you would seek an attractive male's company is to sexually harass him.
Mentioned way earlier in this blog: when Netter Entertainment lawyers came to the set of Babylon 5 to have actors sign documents prohibiting sexual harassment, they were laughed out of the room, and a parody of the document was passed around in which signers attested that the reason they came to work was to be rude. This story was related to the audience at a panel at Dragoncon, starring Claudia Christian and Julie Caitlyn Brown... along with the likes of Tracy Scoggins and Patricia Tallman, alpha women who don't need somebody else to protect them from speech in an environment where work is more important than schoolyard politics.
Radwaste at December 15, 2018 6:33 AM
What is wrong with you, is you think that your experience is everyone's experience. Some people are not in a position to tell someone to fuck off when they harass them because they will lose their job, or their home, or something else. Shitty people who treat people shitty like to extract some sort of revenge when they are thwarted. So for you to assume that people are complaining about harassment instead of standing up for themselves and telling the offender to fuck off, is very narrow. Sort of like how you think people who prostitute themselves are simply doing it for the income and they enjoy the work, because that is how you want it to be. You fail to realize that people's experience differs from your narrow perspective. If solving the problem was a simple Fuck Off! and the harassment stopped and there were no repercussions, then it wouldn't be a problem.
Stormy at December 15, 2018 7:33 AM
It sounds like one of those 'you had to be there' jokes. I.e. the situation was already so retarded that making it a joke by telling the truth seemed reasonable.
Was he inappropriate or was she easily offended? Damned if I can tell. What I can tell is he messed up a shot on purpose. She was offended and got money. Did she get offended because it was an easy way to get more money? Damned if I can tell as well.
Ben at December 15, 2018 7:34 AM
No, I don’t find it funny. As humor, “rape van” is pretty lame; almost as lame as “windowless van.” The show needed to hire some talented writers.
As to the settlement, IMO it was a C-List actress whose career as a hot young thing, was on the past 30 slide, who was looking for a retirement account.
Dushku (now) claims she was molested at age 12 while filming the daughter in True Lies. No complaint (or settlement) then. She had a part in Buffy, killing vampires. As an adult, her roles focused on showing her C cups in bikinis, and sometimes getting felt up in a shower scene. But, there’s a lot of starlets with similar, undistinguished careers and similar, undistinguished savings. A future of selling autographs at Comic Cons, vs getting real offended and pocketing $5 Million (the lawyers will take about 40%, but settlements aren’t subject to income taxes) looks like an easy choice to me.
Wfjag at December 15, 2018 7:51 AM
No, I don’t find it funny. As humor, “rape van” is pretty lame; almost as lame as “windowless van.” The show needed to hire some talented writers.
As to the settlement, IMO it was a C-List actress whose career as a hot young thing, was on the past 30 slide, who was looking for a retirement account.
Dushku (now) claims she was molested at age 12 while filming the daughter in True Lies. No complaint (or settlement) then. She had a part in Buffy, killing vampires. As an adult, her roles focused on showing her C cups in bikinis, and sometimes getting felt up in a shower scene. But, there’s a lot of starlets with similar, undistinguished careers and similar, undistinguished savings. A future of selling autographs at Comic Cons, vs getting real offended and pocketing $5 Million (the lawyers will take about 40%, but settlements aren’t subject to income taxes) looks like an easy choice to me.
Wfjag at December 15, 2018 7:51 AM
> As humor, “rape van”
> is pretty lame
I totally giggled.
Not really, I only read the comments on this one. But I think your being a desiccated, witless killjoy.
Crid at December 15, 2018 8:08 AM
The settlement wasn't for harassment, it was because she was unfairly removed from the role - i.e. wrongful termination by retaliation.
I've read differing accounts of what transpired, but it seems her lead was prone to making dirty jokes and comments to her. She confronted him, and either he had her fired a/o the producers removed her expecting trouble. But she never made a harassment claim. She tried to stop his behavior herself and was fired for it.
norma at December 15, 2018 8:16 AM
What is wrong with you Amy is that you haven't devoted your life to constantly looking for something by which to be offended.
Jay at December 15, 2018 8:23 AM
According to IMDb, she was on three episodes. That's $9.8 million paid to what was essentially a guest star for some borderline immature on-set banter.
The "rape van" joke was a riff on the scripted line "Step into my windowless van." Who doesn't see a "rape van" joke in this?
The joke was in a similar vein to the TV show wherein the main characters proposed getting a van to provide an Uber-like service to take kids around to local comic book stores - a windowless van - and using the offer of free candy as a marketing gimmick. At least until one character pointed out that driving around town in a windowless van and handing out candy to kids might end badly.
I think Wftjag is on the right track - a fading actress no longer able to get by on being "the hot chick" needs to make some cash or keep her name in lights, so she sues for an imagined offense. With that, she gets to join the #metoo monstrous regiment and bank some cash.
Conan the Grammarian at December 15, 2018 9:05 AM
It's offensiveness makes it funny.
But I'm a bad judge, I use humor to diffuse. Five minutes after I heard about 9-11 I went looking for offensive 9-11 jokes online because I needed to release. It was too soon. It probably is too soon still.
NicoleK at December 15, 2018 9:13 AM
At an ISIS checkpoint somewhere in Syria...
"STOP! STOP! WHO ARE YOU??!!"
"Me? Name's Ford, Luke Ford. I'm just an eccentric former Seventh-Day Adventist-turned-Orthodox Jew driving this old creepy van with a mattress in back."
"JEW??!! WE HATE JEWS!!" BUT...OMIALLAH...WE LOVE OLD CREEPY VANS WITH MATTRESS IN BACK EVEN MORE THAN WE HATE JEWS. OLD CREEPY VANS WITH MATTRESS IN BACK VERY GREAT FOR TAKING INFIDEL GIRLS AND KEEPING THEM AS SLAVES!!! BIG SCORE FOR ABDUL!!!"
JD at December 15, 2018 12:16 PM
Amy, she did do exactly what you're saying you would do if you felt something crossed the line. She did say something to him directly and probably thought that would be the end. But then she was fired. Her character was very popular and was being set up for more than just the 3 episodes. The payout reflects the 4 or so seasons they were setting her up for that were denied her simply for standing up to a creep (the rape van joke wasn't the extent of the creepiness). That's wrong. Regardless of your personal comfort level with similar comments.
She's did just that at December 15, 2018 1:15 PM
"the rape van joke wasn't the extent of the creepiness"
That's right. If you read CBS's acknowledgment, they admit that Weatherly's behavior encouraged a climate where the crew and production staff were making lude comments to her as well. The 'rape van' joke was just an example, not the extent of the behavior.
My guess is that once she finally complained the producers realized it had gone too far, but couldn't stop it because Weatherly instigated the whole thing. So they just made her go away.
Norma at December 15, 2018 2:03 PM
"making lude comments"
As in, 'Gee, I miss the 1980s and all those tasty 714s. Good times. Good times!'
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 15, 2018 2:53 PM
They made her "just go away?" By paying her almost $10 million? She was essentially a guest star in a recurring role. All they had to do to make her "just go away" was to write her character out of the show.
The amount of the payoff tells me there may have been more to it than just a few tasteless jokes.
==================================================
Nice.
Conan the Grammarian at December 15, 2018 3:36 PM
"The amount of the payoff tells me there may have been more to it than just a few tasteless jokes."
Again, this isn't a harassment settlement - Amy and the NYT article are wrong about that. This isn't another #MeToo incident. It's a case of illegal retaliation.
The amount they compensated her was gauged on the income she'd lost as the result of being fired. It wasn't based on the severity of Weatherly's or others' behavior.
And the way you make an actor 'go away' is by writing them out of the story - so you're right about that part.
It's obviously a very large amount of money. But that is the income scale for actors on popular network shows. She wasn't a 'guest star', this isn't The Love Boat. She had a recurring role and was asked to commit to a longer engagement. That means that she was expected to turn down other roles for an extended period. The fact that they were willing to pay her this amount, and wanted her to keep quiet about it is because the producers acted in bad faith and created a legal liability for CBS.
Norma at December 15, 2018 7:06 PM
> It was too soon.
No Twitter yet in 2001. Nowadays your needs would be met.
I like everything about that blog comment.
Crid at December 15, 2018 10:16 PM
"The amount of the payoff tells me there may have been more to it than just a few tasteless jokes."
It could be. Or it could be a squirrel sent out by CBS to draw attention away from the Les Moonves fiasco. CBS is pulling out all the stops to make that disappear from the news cycle.
Cousin Dave at December 17, 2018 7:08 AM
One other thought occurs to me. It's hard to tell from the reports (there are different versions floating around), but it appears to me that Weatherly was speaking in character as John Bull when he said that. I watch that show some, and one of the reoccurring themes is that although Bull is brilliant, he's also pretty unstable. So the "rape van" comment is the sort of thing his character would say.
One of the ironclad rules of Hollywood is that if the star of a show or movie decides that they can't work with a secondary member of the cast, that person is out, no ifs, ands or buts. So if Weatherly felt that he couldn't improv with her without her getting offended, he may very well have told the producers to fire her -- and by Hollywood's rules, he would be absolutely in the right. If Dushku ever achieved lead status on a show, she'd have the same privilege, and likely would not hesitate to use it.
Cousin Dave at December 17, 2018 7:15 AM
One other thought occurs to me. It's hard to tell from the reports (there are different versions floating around), but it appears to me that Weatherly was speaking in character as John Bull when he said that. I watch that show some, and one of the reoccurring themes is that although Bull is brilliant, he's also pretty unstable. So the "rape van" comment is the sort of thing his character would say.
One of the ironclad rules of Hollywood is that if the star of a show or movie decides that they can't work with a secondary member of the cast, that person is out, no ifs, ands or buts. So if Weatherly felt that he couldn't improv with her without her getting offended, he may very well have told the producers to fire her -- and by Hollywood's rules, he would be absolutely in the right. If Dushku ever achieved lead status on a show, she'd have the same privilege, and likely would not hesitate to use it.
Cousin Dave at December 17, 2018 7:15 AM
I have no idea how that posted twice. Apologies.
Cousin Dave at December 17, 2018 11:31 AM
"One of the ironclad rules of Hollywood is that if the star of a show or movie decides that they can't work with a secondary member of the cast, that person is out, no ifs, ands or buts."
That's what I got from talking to actors... there are a couple of cases where the "Special Guest Star" arrives unprepared, wastes a lot of the regular cast's and production time, and is still protected from criticism by the status their appearance somehow brings to the set. Jerry Doyle found that out about Paul Winfield.
Radwaste at December 17, 2018 12:36 PM
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