Latest debates
Harvey Weinstein Scandal and #TimesUp Campaign
By Madi Payne and Imogen Chorlton We all love films, but what happens behind closed doors? What don’t we see? Harvey Weinstein, a former american film producer, co-founder of the film company Miramax, has had more than 50 women make allegations against him, including Angelina Jolie and Ashley Judd. Rape included. On October 5th 2017 the New York Times published a detailed article about some allegations towards Harvey Weinstein.  He promised that he would help them in their careers in return for sexual favours. With some he asked them to watch him shower, or allow him to massage them. Shockingly, one in three women age 18-24 have been sexually harassed at work, 71% of those women didn’t report it. On the first of January the #TimesUp campaign was founded in recognition of the injustices towards women. It started with a few informal meetings where celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd attended. They were disgusted by the acts of these men abusing their power and these women decided to do something about it. By using the power of social media people were made aware of the campaign. On the 7th of January the celebrities involved, and the campaign itself posted the phrase ‘Why I wear black today’ and this triggered the amazing global reaction where we saw an excellent turnout of women wearing black to the Golden Globe Awards on the 8th of January. Some of the quotes and phrases of the evening being ‘It’s not a moment... it’s a movement’ and ‘We stand with you, we support you’. We have also seen the gender pay gap in the news recently with Claire Foy, the queen in the Crown, being paid less than Matt Smith, who played her husband. The producers claimed later that Matt Smith being a former Doctor Who was more famous and should therefore be paid more for the role that he was paying. However is it right that an actor or an actress is paid more for being famous than being paid for the amount of hours that they work? No, it is not; the #timesup campaign is striving to change this. The figures of the pay gap has not yet been released although it is sure to be quite shocking. ‘I think people are aware now of the power imbalance… its led to abuse in our own industry. It’s in the military, it’s in the congress, it’s everywhere. We want to fix that. We feel sort of emboldened in this particular moment to stand together in a thick black line…’ - Meryl Streep. We shall stand in solidarity. |
Manslaughter Merely for the Views
Monalisa Perez, a women charged with manslaughter after attempting a stunt which backfired immensely, causing the death of her boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz. Fame hungry, her boyfriend used an encyclopaedia as a shield whilst she shot through it which a 50 calibre handgun. To conclude in what they supposed an act where no one was potentially harmed and the possibility of uploading it to YouTube, which would terminate into a colossal sum of views and subscribers. Nevertheless as we are aware of, unfortunately instead of protecting him the bullet easily pierced the encyclopaedia and shot him dead. During a court hearing in Minnesota, the judge said Perez would serve her time in 10-day increments over three years in accordance with the plea agreement recommendations. In addition to this she is banned for life from owning firearms and will be on probation for 10 years. She also agreed not to seek any financial gain from the case. |
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