THE Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which runs the Oscars, has voted to expel Harvey Weinstein amid a wave of sexual assault allegations against the US movie mogul.
The board of the Academy, made up of 54 leading directors, executives and actors, including Tom Hanks and Whoopi Goldberg, said its board "voted well in excess of the required two-thirds majority" at emergency meeting in California yesterday evening.
In an emotional interview Bob Weinstein, the co-founder of The Weinstein Company studio, had called for the Academy to kick his brother out.
The Weinstein Company issued a statement saying the allegations came as “a complete surprise” despite counter claims it was aware of three of four cases that had been settled out of court.
Bob Weinstein called his brother “sick and depraved” and said he had no idea of “the type of predator that he was”.
The British Academy Film Awards (Bafta) has already suspended the producer’s membership, following allegations from well over 30 of the industry’s leading actresses, dating from 1984 to 2015, that range from sexual harassment to rape.
The allegations were first made public by the New York Times on October 5 with allegations made by actress Ashley Judd. Angelina Jolie, Rosanna Arquette and Gwyneth Paltrow were among other A-listers who later came forward before Rose McGowan accused Weinstein of rape.
The producer and co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, best known for hit films such as Shakespeare In Love, Pulp Fiction and Scream, has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.
Allegations are continuing to emerge, however. Yesterday, the mother of Casino Royale star Eva Green claimed her daughter was sexually harassed by Weinstein. French actress Marlene Jobert said her daughter tried to deter his advances, in 2010 and 2011, but alleged he threatened to destroy her career. Actress Alice Evans also described being “propositioned” by Weinstein.
Many have condemned men’s silence in the US film industry, even after the scandal broke. Commentators claim the misogynistic culture that allowed Weinstein to go unchallenged for decades is intrinsically linked to male
power at the heart of the industry.
Men directed 96 per cent of the 100 top-grossing movies last year, while the pay gap is so marked the top 10 actors’ combined earnings are three times the total of the top 10 women. Feminist writer Rebecca Solnit said: “Many men seem erotically excited by their ability to punish, humiliate, inflict pain on women – the subject of a lot of porn.”
Last week, Matt Damon was forced to deny claims he had called reporter Sharon Waxman 13 years ago to “kill” a story she was investigating about rumours an employee of Weinstein in Italy was procuring women for him.
Director Oliver Stone was also
accused of groping by a former Playboy model, hours after he declared Weinstein had been condemned by a “vigilante system”. Ben Affleck was earlier in the week forced to apologise for groping a woman on MTV.
Meanwhile, Roy Price, the head of Amazon Studios, was also put on “indefinite leave” after Rose McGowan accused him of ignoring her allegations that Weinstein raped her. “I told the head of your studio that HW raped me,” she wrote in a tweet to Amazon’s CEO, using Weinstein’s initials. “Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof.”
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