Duckshoot Strikes Back
Dec. 14th, 2018 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7Follow me here, folks. This is both complicated to explain, and yet extremely simple to understand. It involves everybody's favorite brunette vampire slayer and how she completely slaughtered her opposition...
In case you haven't heard, Eliza Dushku just won a $9.5 million settlement from CBS as compensation for being written out of a prime time series under extremely suspect circumstances.
The back story: last year, Eliza Dushku signed on to the TV series "Bull" for a three episode arc, with plans to set her up as the regular romantic interest of the lead character, played by former NCIS star Michael Weatherly. However, during the filming of these episodes, Dushku was subjected to multiple attempts at alleged humor--of a sexual nature--by Weatherly. Dushku told Weatherly--in a firm, polite manner--to fucking cut that shit out. At that point, Weatherly and the producers re-evaluated Dushku's status on the series, and her character was written out.
It's not precisely clear what happened next. News articles only state that Dushku "entered negotiations" with CBS in order to resolve the circumstances of her dismissal. (It wouldn't be too much of a guess, though, to suppose that the words "massive lawsuit" were thrown around before "entering negotiations.") In the end, Dushku was paid the amount of money she would've been paid for four seasons' work as a series regular. End of story.
Only not really.
I watched NCIS on-and-off for a couple of years, and one of the big storylines (up until 2013) was the tempestuous relationship between Weatherly's Agent Tony DiNozzo and Cote de Pablo's former Mossad operative, Zira David. Then, at the end of S10, de Pablo abruptly left the series, under vague circumstances. There has never been a definitive explanation, but it's widely suspected that she could no longer tolerate an atmosphere of sexual harassment, but was unwilling to name names. The cloud over NCIS never really cleared, but the ratings didn't suffer, either. So the series sailed on smoothly...
Until last year, when Pauley Perrette, who played enormously popular NCIS lab technician Abby Sciuto, announced SHE was leaving the series under vague circumstances. (In case you're wondering, Weatherly had long since moved on to his new series.) There are odd stories about a conflict between Perette and series star Mark Harmon over Harmon bringing his dog onto the set--and the dog biting a crew member. But it all seems a little slight for Perette to toss away such a well-paying gig; unless, of course, the dog incident was just the last straw.
There seems to be a pattern of "incidents" on CBS' longtime dramas. Criminal Minds lost its lead actor, Thomas Gibson, due to "anger issues," and the show's DP was fired after incidents of sexual harassment piled up too high to ignore. Did CBS investigate the mood on the set of their most profitable properties, and let some fresh air into the room? No, of course not. Like many other institutions, the higher ups buried the conflict, paid off the victims, and plowed ahead.
Then Les Moonves got caught, and shit got real.
I guess it just goes to show that "isolated" incidents aren't isolated at all. If the powers that be are not confronted, and the victims' voices aren't heard, the toxic atmosphere will stay in place. Eliza got paid, but the struggle goes on.
In case you haven't heard, Eliza Dushku just won a $9.5 million settlement from CBS as compensation for being written out of a prime time series under extremely suspect circumstances.
The back story: last year, Eliza Dushku signed on to the TV series "Bull" for a three episode arc, with plans to set her up as the regular romantic interest of the lead character, played by former NCIS star Michael Weatherly. However, during the filming of these episodes, Dushku was subjected to multiple attempts at alleged humor--of a sexual nature--by Weatherly. Dushku told Weatherly--in a firm, polite manner--to fucking cut that shit out. At that point, Weatherly and the producers re-evaluated Dushku's status on the series, and her character was written out.
It's not precisely clear what happened next. News articles only state that Dushku "entered negotiations" with CBS in order to resolve the circumstances of her dismissal. (It wouldn't be too much of a guess, though, to suppose that the words "massive lawsuit" were thrown around before "entering negotiations.") In the end, Dushku was paid the amount of money she would've been paid for four seasons' work as a series regular. End of story.
Only not really.
I watched NCIS on-and-off for a couple of years, and one of the big storylines (up until 2013) was the tempestuous relationship between Weatherly's Agent Tony DiNozzo and Cote de Pablo's former Mossad operative, Zira David. Then, at the end of S10, de Pablo abruptly left the series, under vague circumstances. There has never been a definitive explanation, but it's widely suspected that she could no longer tolerate an atmosphere of sexual harassment, but was unwilling to name names. The cloud over NCIS never really cleared, but the ratings didn't suffer, either. So the series sailed on smoothly...
Until last year, when Pauley Perrette, who played enormously popular NCIS lab technician Abby Sciuto, announced SHE was leaving the series under vague circumstances. (In case you're wondering, Weatherly had long since moved on to his new series.) There are odd stories about a conflict between Perette and series star Mark Harmon over Harmon bringing his dog onto the set--and the dog biting a crew member. But it all seems a little slight for Perette to toss away such a well-paying gig; unless, of course, the dog incident was just the last straw.
There seems to be a pattern of "incidents" on CBS' longtime dramas. Criminal Minds lost its lead actor, Thomas Gibson, due to "anger issues," and the show's DP was fired after incidents of sexual harassment piled up too high to ignore. Did CBS investigate the mood on the set of their most profitable properties, and let some fresh air into the room? No, of course not. Like many other institutions, the higher ups buried the conflict, paid off the victims, and plowed ahead.
Then Les Moonves got caught, and shit got real.
I guess it just goes to show that "isolated" incidents aren't isolated at all. If the powers that be are not confronted, and the victims' voices aren't heard, the toxic atmosphere will stay in place. Eliza got paid, but the struggle goes on.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-15 03:15 pm (UTC)Anyhow -- from what I know about the television industry? It's a nasty business. (Not at all what it appears to be on the surface.) A former boss (at the video game developer) used to work at CBS. He said it was a nightmare. So too was NBC. He confirmed what a recruiter told me once -- for a job interview? They put you in a room, shine a light on your face, and interrogate you for five hours.
Although - I think you are right, with Les Moonves reveal. It really comes from the top down. I've learned over the years, an organization is only as good as the people who run it. Whoever is in charge sets the overall tone.
If you're CEO is a sexist pig, who molests women on his lunch break -- then don't be surprised if his underlings do the same.
The problem with the entertainment, publishing, fashion, music and well "glamour" biz -- is that the majority of the people didn't go to school, didn't learn how to manage others, and learned how to run things from their experiences as assistants to nasty bosses, who basically learned the same behavior. Also, since they are all privately owned corporations, often with oversees heads, they don't have the same "regulations" in place that many of the non-glamour biz corporations currently do.
It's weird -- but I've seen less of this stuff at the Railroad, then I did in the Library Reference Publishing Company. I remember taking an HR course at NYU in 2003 and every time they mentioned an infraction or something that should not happen -- and asked if anyone had experienced it in their company, I raised my hand. After a bit, the instructor asked me what company I'd come from. I told her. She said -- "ah, publishing, got it."
no subject
Date: 2018-12-15 04:54 pm (UTC)It seems worse now, because people are finally turning over the rocks that have been planted for decades. (A lot of ugly, crawly things underneath.)
For more Les Moonves unpleasantness, Cybill Shepherd and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (creator of Designing Women) recently chimed in with their experiences. Makes you wonder just how many creative people he drove out of CBS during his tenure.
One more tidbit about Eliza and "Bull": apparently, the producers and the network wanted to show dailies from Eliza's episodes to prove to a judge that she cursed a lot and was a disruptive influence. Instead, the footage showed Weatherly being an asshole. That's when the negotiations began.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-15 06:46 pm (UTC)LOL! Always look at your evidence first -- apparently they didn't. Michael Weatherly doesn't have a great rep. He was on Dark Angel -- and there were "rumors".
It seems worse now, because people are finally turning over the rocks that have been planted for decades. (A lot of ugly, crawly things underneath.)
Weirdly, I think the election of Donald J. Trump sort of caused the rocks to get turned over in pretty much every corner of our society. If Hillary had been elected? This wouldn't be happening now. Ironic, isn't it? A co-worker recently stated it's like he just keeps turning over the rocks and all this horrible stuff crawls out, which was of course always there.
But because he's going on and on about it -- we can't ignore it any longer.
Trump has over 150 sexual harassment allegations against him and counting, and he got elected. What he did on the Apprentice, Celebrity Apprentice, Miss America Pagents and prior to that makes Les Moonves and Weatherly look like saints.
The fact that people blatantly ignored it and elected him anyhow -- was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back.
In short, they woke up a sleeping giant...who up until 2016, was being pretty complacent and thinking, eh, this will resolve itself. I don't have to do anything. Or it's always been like this -- it's not that bad. Then Trump, the poster child for bad white privileged male behavior across the board -- and whoa, people like Dushku, Amber Tamblyn, etc...thought, wait a minute, if I don't speak up and stop this -- it's going to get a 100 times worse. We need to do something now.
I should add -- that the Me#Too Movement has issues. For one thing, people lie. And actors lie for a living. They are basically professional liars.
So...when you get into the whole sexual harassment/violence situation, it is often difficult to determine the truth. Which is why they were going to show the footage -- because it gets into a he said/she said debate -- and who is more credible? There's no way of knowing. Men and women both lie.
That was the whole problem with the Kavanagh case -- there was no way to know who was telling the truth. And no evidence to support the allegations, or rather corroborating testimony. People online were whinging about a woman's testimony should be enough -- and I thought, eh, no, you really don't want that to be true. Think about that -- if someone's word is all it takes -- then someone who hates you, could frame you for a crime, and put you away for life on their word alone. Hence corroborating evidence.
Dushku had corroborating evidence of this one. (She'd learned from her past situations...to speak up when the evidence was still around and not years later. It's very hard to obtain corroborating evidence twenty years after the crime has been committed, DNA isn't that durable nor are people's memories -- also tapes can be deleted.)
Also...it is all too easy to turn the Me#Too Movement into a witch hunt, and they need to be careful about that -- because it will shut down that movement. I think they want to go after Mr. Trump, but are waiting until they can build up enough concrete evidence against him to do it. Because he's a slippery devil.
This is going to get worse before it gets better...I think we've just hit the tip of the proverbial ice-berg. I'm not looking forward to 2019.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-15 10:28 pm (UTC)THIS.
Apparently the other two actresses defended Weatherly.
I don't think Weatherly or Harmon were the problem, I think it was the higher ups...always is.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-16 12:24 am (UTC)At a Q&A both Dushku and Julie Benze said that David was goofy, he flashed people on the set. (By flash -- I mean he showed his penis.)
He's also had allegations of sexual harassment filed against him by actresses on Bones and Seal Team. And during Buffy, cheated on his wife of the time with Buffy actresses, which broke up his marriage. Did it again during his second marriage to a Playboy Centerfold, with actresses on Bones.
In addition, Acker and J August Young despised him -- according to the puppeteers who worked on Smile Time, they said he was a notorious prankster -- who set production time back by doing stuff -- like setting off the sprinklers. They were happy that they got a break from him on Smile Time.
Not everyone had this experience. Marsters was shocked to hear these stories. And Acker kept her mouth shut off-set.
He's rather powerful -- so shut these down. I can't stand him and can't watch him any longer, makes my skin crawl. I won't watch anything he does post Angel.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-16 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-16 01:34 am (UTC)Reminds me of Dushku and Benze supporting Boreanze less than gentlemanly behavior on the set of Angel. And I have to admit, it is easy to do, handwave it. I saw a guy in power do crap like that at my workplace ten years ago and handwaved it out of fear of reprisals. In fact another co-worker and I explained to a Compliance Officer why we couldn't report them.
It's so easy to say -- oh, I'll report this person -- but if they have power and you don't? Not so easy.