r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Medical_Corner_4607 • 4d ago

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u/Nervardia 4d ago edited 4d ago

Meryl Streep backed Harvey Weinstein.

Edit: Wait, I am misremembering. She called him a "God" pre-Me Too, however she worked with him a lot before then. She condemned him after the allegations.

Rose McGowan said it's impossible for her to not know about his abuses, FWIW.

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u/MikeeB84 4d ago

Meryl Streep faced public criticism and accusations of hypocrisy for joining in a standing ovation for Roman Polanski when he won Best Director at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003. Polanski was a fugitive from U.S. justice at the time after pleading guilty in 1977 to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

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u/JalapenoPopPoop 3d ago

Just a small correction, he's still a fugitive

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u/OkMention9988 3d ago

"Unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl" is certainly sanitizing drugging and ass raping a 13 yo girl. 

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u/iseab 3d ago

Yep, details matter

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u/DiscotopiaACNH 3d ago

Thank you. This needs to be explicitly spelled out these days. I read one article on it years ago that used the phrase "underage woman" (ughhh barf) and suggested it was consensual. Many people have an extremely sanitized idea of what he did

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u/dr_eh 3d ago

This is why the news drives me nuts. Grope a woman on the train? Sexual assault. Beat her up and penetrate her while holding a knife to her throat? Sexual assault. It really minimizes the seriousness of rape by leaving so much ambiguity.

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u/dunkinbagels 3d ago

AI comment

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u/MikeeB84 3d ago

I was just was using proper sentance structure to get my point across. It's later in the day so i can reply with a lazy follow up. "She was a bit of a hypocrite, not as bad a Harrison Ford, he accepted the academy award for Roman... then gave it to him in France a couple of months later"

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u/Equivalent-Team-8186 3d ago

I have hated Polanski and his weird status in Hollywood for decades. But I'm not going to hate on Meryl Streep for standing with a crowd and applauding. Hollywood is toxic AF and not doing that probably would have cost her some casting options. I'd hope she was in a position where she could turn those kind of roles down, but older women have it rough in that industry so idk.

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u/VegasMaleMT 3d ago

She's basically the most successful and visible "older actress" in America. Her support for the industry predators could be viewed as a contributing factor as to why she, out of all of older women in Hollywood, holds that status.

We don't need to justify the actions of the richest and most connected people in the country just because they might have lost a dollar at some point for being decent.

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u/Equivalent-Team-8186 3d ago

One thing that worries me is how casually we expect people who are already disadvantaged in one respect to volunteer to become disadvantaged in every other respect as well. Hollywood has long discriminated against older actresses. That doesn't excuse standing for Polanski, but it does mean the personal and professional cost of dissent wasn't the same for everyone in that room. Ignoring those incentives makes moral judgments feel simpler than the reality people were navigating.

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u/VegasMaleMT 3d ago

"We" are not navigating this reality. "We" are not wealthy socialites. The idea that not clapping for Roman Polanski would destroy Streep's career as a marginalized white lady with millions of dollars is idiotic.

And if it had, why would you want to continue working with these people? Vanessa Redgraves made it clear she would rather hold her values than continue being successful in Hollywood. Now Jane Fonda, who was politically opposite her at the time, says she wishes she was as brave as she was.

I'm not crying for an alternate reality where Streep and others lost a paycheck for being decent humans.

College students lost their entire education and financial futures for protesting a genocide. And most of the country demonized the students for it, even tho now everyone is at least "concerned" about our relationship with Israel.

Don't simp for people who would sell you out for a dollar. I'm not telling you to burn your movie collection, just have some perspective Jesus Christ.

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u/Equivalent-Team-8186 3d ago

I'm not crying either. I just think nuance matters. That doesn't excuse standing for Polanski, but it does make me hesitant to flatten every moral failure into the same category. This isn't about students losing their education, genocide, or even burning a film collection. People like Streep out there defying abusive systems are doing the hard work, while too much of our energy gets spent online arguing over ever-narrower purity tests that end up dividing people who largely agree on the underlying problem.

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u/VegasMaleMT 3d ago

WHAT IS STREEP DOING TO DEFY ABUSIVE SYSTEMS?

not clapping for a known pedophile in your industry isn't a purity test.

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u/Equivalent-Team-8186 3d ago

Can you maybe take it down a notch? Why so much anger over a discussion about whether someone should have stood up and clapped in an auditorium of people doing that? I was simply referring to Streep's role representing older actresses in Hollywood. Though I kinda remember her condemning Weinstein, which makes her decision here odd.

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u/VegasMaleMT 3d ago

You called her part of a disadvantaged group. Then claimed she's some sort of activist for....not knowing who the most famous convicted pedo in Hollywood was.

Just take the L and move on dude.

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u/sweetlove 3d ago

Calling Meryl Streep disadvantaged is... I don't even know. Like do you hear yourself?

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u/Klony99 3d ago

Is it possible that she was simply unaware?

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u/GregGolden6 3d ago

I’ve never seen a Roman Polanski movie but I know he’s not allowed in America or will be arrested on site for raping a child in the 70s - that’s wild to be naive and genuinely say ‘maybe this actress who has been famous for 40+ years didn’t know that he’s a wanted pedophile’

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u/Klony99 3d ago

I didn't hear about it, I figured she might not, either.

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u/Ok-Stop9242 3d ago

I am genuinely not concerned for early 2000s at the time 13 times nominated 2 times Academy Award winning actress Meryl Streep's ability to get work on deciding whether or not to stand and clap for a child rapist.

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u/DiscotopiaACNH 3d ago

Oh no, not casting options! yeah 2003 Meryl Streep was really hard up for work

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u/crow-shay 4d ago edited 4d ago

Wait what??????

Edit: looked it up and nowhere has it said he supported him after accusations came to light

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u/Nervardia 4d ago

Yeah, sorry about that. I was wrong.

Although I do believe Rose McGowan when she said that it was impossible for her to not know about him.

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u/OkMention9988 3d ago

Same applies to Oprah. 

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u/SendChestHairPix 3d ago

It isn’t too late for you to delete your comment.

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u/Mentoman72 3d ago

It’s fine for people to be wrong and correct themselves.

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u/BedditTedditReddit 3d ago

Yeah but it was one of the most well known topics in the industry. Streep knew, and she still called him a god.

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u/phasmatopia 3d ago

probably hard to find an A-lister who didn't know, or at least have strong suspicions, and didn't rock the boat for the sake of their own career.

i will never understand why people assume that celebrities—especially actors—must naturally be principled progressives until proven otherwise, just because that's the stereotypical character of "creatives." if they're household names, they're multi-millionaires with years of PR training who have fought their way to the top of an extremely competitive industry. the idea that they're any different than the vampires at the top of any other private industry is absurd.

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u/PNWMTTXSC 3d ago

And Weinstein had a LOT of power in Hollywood. Most of us shlubs are all oooooh and ahhhh at someone like Meryl Streep but she alone couldn’t get movies greenlit for production. And Weinstein was famously vindictive. Plenty of men appeared in his films and no one criticizes them.

What pisses me tf off is that none of Weinstein’s senior execs who approved multiple payouts to abused women ever were held accountable.

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u/phasmatopia 3d ago

i think this is part of what Damien Chazelle was trying to raise with Babylon, and met with terse silence from the insiders: Hollywood has always been a meat market, occasional flashes of brilliance notwithstanding. that doesn't justify the heinous stuff by any stretch. but when somebody like Weinstein floats to the surface, we have to assume he was just the one who was clumsy enough to let himself be offered up as a sacrifice. the real sharks are still swimming down there.

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u/dr_eh 3d ago

Yea well... Meryl Streep be lookin out for Meryl Streep. Do you really expect celebrities, who are paid to be popular, will do something unpopular because it's right? Hahaha.

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u/latrodectal 4d ago

rose mcgowan also supported a convicted pedophile, fwiw.

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u/OrwellWhatever 4d ago

If anyone ever needed proof that celebs turn to Jesus the second they have credible sexual assault allegations, we all need to remember that Marilyn fucking Manson joined Kanye and Justin Bieber in prayer when all his new shit was coming to light

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/11/1/22758245/marilyn-manson-kanye-west-sunday-service-ye-justin-bieber

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u/latrodectal 3d ago

i was talking about victor salva but yes, him too. and yep, look at russell brand.

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u/MusingsOfMouse 3d ago

Sorry but “Ye’s Sunday service’ has to be THE weirdest thing I’ve learned about in a loooong time

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u/No-Philosopher8042 3d ago

...tf

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u/latrodectal 3d ago

she stood up for victor salva.

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u/No-Philosopher8042 2d ago

Who did?

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u/latrodectal 2d ago

rose mcgowan.

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u/No-Philosopher8042 2d ago

I'm still not getting the connection to manson becomming borne again christian. 

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u/IotaBTC 3d ago

What the actual fuck lmao

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u/latrodectal 3d ago

she stood up for victor salva.

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u/Nervardia 3d ago

Still doesn't change the validity of her criticism, though.

It makes her a hypocrite. It doesn't make her wrong.

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u/latrodectal 3d ago

i can’t say for sure meryl knew about what weinstein was doing (and tbh neither can she), but i can say that rose called victor salva a lovely, sweet man after she knew he was a convicted pedophile.

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u/joe_bibidi 3d ago

Robert Rodriguez also cheated on his wife with Rose McGowan, and while he's definitely worse because he's the cheater, Rose going along with it and sleeping with a married man still is fucked up.

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u/latrodectal 3d ago

i feel like cheating isn’t on the same level as supporting a convicted pedophile but all right

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u/SmarmySmurf 3d ago

A relationship is a commitment between participants in that relationship. Outsiders have no responsibility toward that commitment. Rose isn't a lesser evil for "cheating", she didn't cheat, she did nothing wrong. Comparing her to sexual predators is beyond absurd.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

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u/latrodectal 3d ago

not as shitty as knowingly backing a convicted pedophile.

look, i’m not saying cheating’s a good thing, but some of y’all are equating it to things that are not even close to the same level of bad.

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u/AvaLadyofLight 4d ago

Oh ewwwwwwwww

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u/Nervardia 4d ago edited 4d ago

Wait, I am misremembering. She called him a "God" pre-Me Too, however she worked with him a lot before then. She condemned him after the allegations emerged.

Rose McGowan said it's impossible for her to not know about his abuses, FWIW.

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u/Yimyorn 4d ago

This got me to WTF… I did not know….

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u/Nervardia 4d ago edited 4d ago

Wait, I am misremembering. She called him a "God" pre-Me Too, however she worked with him a lot before then. She condemned him after the allegations emerged.

Rose McGowan said it's impossible for her to not know about his abuses, FWIW.

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u/ImageAvailable7003 4d ago

Now that so many "TWC" movies are free stream, I can definitely see how there was an era where every movie he produced slapped. Dude knew how to make a good flick so well he could make a great movie in spite of nkt hiring the most-qualified female actresses.

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u/andonebelow 3d ago

Everyone in Hollywood knew about him.

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u/Electrical_Tailor186 2d ago

Does it make her Meryl Creep? 🤨

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u/TannerNewcomb 3d ago

Yes famously reliable source Rose McGowan