It’s Time To REALLY Talk About Harassment and Discrimination in Hollywood

The Golden Globes #TimesUp display did what Hollywood does best, posture for the media while offering little to no actual solutions. It’s time we all, especially the men, do better.

You can be forgiven for not being up to date on the first week of 2018, seeing how enough things happened to fill three wildly inappropriate and mildly funny Seth Rogen movies. And only like five of those were the president’s tweets.

The year got off to a “great” (beams parenthesis size into space) star with Logan Paul, a “famous” YouTuber traveling to Japan to exclusively make fun of a foreign culture in a way that only a 22 year old white, blonde boy can. The most insensitive way. The video culminated in Paul traveling to a forest know to be a destination for unfortunate souls who choose to end their lives and of course, because Logan Paul is white and clueless, they found a dead body in the forest. And of course, for all the above reasons, that part made the video and the views. And YouTube let it run. Because clicks.

Eventually, the video itself got taken down and Logan Paul issued the whitest non-apology ever. It was basically dripping with caucasity and focused entirely on him. I like how men tend to say “this is not who I am” when being discovered exactly for who they are as if their words can carve some sort of marble reinterpretation of themselves for the world and make us forget their actions.

What followed was an array of YouTubers both speaking out against Logan Paul and issuing statements on mental health and suicide prevention. Except, the timing made it cheap and disingenuous. It felt like a slew of “influencers” who measure their life’s worth in clicks and views have simply stumbled upon another topic that was trending and worked to capitalize on it while the getting was good. Sure, I appreciate the need to talk about important and serious issues, but if you only do so when it is at a convenience to you, then I would prefer that you sit in the back and catch your licks and shrapnel from the people ACTUALLY addressing these things.

That’s how I felt about the Golden Globes.

The intent was there, sure, but once again Hollywood even fumbled the statement moment. In protest of recent sexual harassment allegations that have been rocking Hollywood, the attire du jour was “all black” in support of and solidarity with victims, minorities and women in the industry. Except, you know, men already wear pretty much exclusively black to these events. It’s like saying basketball players will wear basketball sneakers when playing a basketball game in protest of something. The demographic that needed to specifically adjust and actually change something to make the protest felt were… *drum roll*… women.

I’m sorry, but I don’t buy into the narrative that most of the men pushed. No one would be shocked if they found out 95% of white men were either aware off or complicit in many of the acts that the protests addressed, just as no one would be shocked if the president took an IQ test tomorrow to find out that it’s lower than that of a folding chair. It was a systemic industry issue that the majority of men chose to be quiet about for the convenience of their careers, until, it was convenient for their careers to speak out about it.

Now, I don’t want to smear and discredit the people who went into the night with genuine intentions and hopes of change. I applaud them and I hope that they continue their work and advocacy in their day to day lives, which I know they will. But, the issue remains that if you only posture when the cameras are on, it’s more of an insult than a gesture of actual support, because you’re taking an important issue for many people and making it about you and how you support it. You’re giving us the Logan Paul apology.

Oh, and let’s not forget that in the industry that tends to discard women once they reach a certain age, they made the choice to drag out Kirk Douglas, who at this point of his life looks like a dehydrated prune. And let’s also not forget that he allegedly raped Natalie Wood. Because, Hollywood.