Romeo and Juliet lawsuit another example of the MeToo movement shooting itself in the foot

 

The Criterion Collection just released a new 4K remaster of the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film Romeo and Juliet, considered one of the best film versions of a Shakespearean play. I watched it the other day, and it looks good both in the transfer and the film itself. There is a 2016 interview session included in the bonus section featuring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, in which it is briefly mentioned that all “everyone” wants to talk about is the bedroom scene…

 

…before passing on to the next subject. Hussey seemed to express  amusement about it, and in the past she had defended doing the scene as being important to explaining the relationship between Romeo and Juliet. The interview described the production and personal feelings about the experience, and there was no sense of acrimony at all; in fact both actors called it a "great" experience, and had nothing but praise for the director, and didn’t seem to regret anything at all.

But that has changed since California passed a law removing the statute of limitations on past memories of sexual abuse in regard to that now “infamous” bedroom scene which frankly was tame even for 1968. Hussey and Whiting are suing Paramount Pictures $500 million for being “forced” by the now evil Zeffirelli to bare, when  Whiting was 17 and Hussey was 16. 

Attitudes about sex were certainly different when I was younger, and now we find "new," self-serving views being retrofitted to old ones. I mean, if people didn't think it was "wrong" back then, why are they being punished now just because political attitudes have changed 50 years later? We can assume Italians (and Europeans generally) had different attitudes about sexuality both then and now than the people in California who passed the law, from which this lawsuit smells of “suppressed memory” and jumping on the MeToo bandwagon for money.

One thing I noted is that while film viewers (and Hussey) had a few seconds to gaze at the natural "exhibitionist" Whiting’s behind, the actual view of Hussey’s naked bosom was a blink-and-you missed-it occasion; in fact Criterion's transfer seemed to conceal it further by making it darker than previous editions on disc. Forgotten was Zeffirelli’s motivation was for this scene, since I don’t think it was precisely what Shakespeare envisioned: it was to underscore how “deep” their love was. And given the life expectancy of the time--32 years if a child survived to the age of ten--Romeo and Juliet were certainly considered to be "adult" for the time. Back in Medieval times, marriage was legal at the time of puberty, which for girls was at the age of 12.

But historical accuracy has no meaning for today's world. Hussey and Whiting now claim that the bedroom scene “hurt” their careers, with Hussey further asserting that the “trauma” of the experience continues to affect her more than 50 years later, despite the fact she has done nudity in film since then.  All of this is of course suspicious; IMDB lists 46 Oscar-winning actresses who have appeared “nude” in film, and I know they missed a couple (Mary Steenburgen, for example, who did so in her best supporting role in Melvin and Howard) while a couple of others don’t really belong on the list (I mean, you actually have to show something).

Even today, we are told that girls “mature” faster than boys. According to Psychology Today—which posted an article a week ago entitled “Borderline Personality Disorder and Character Assassination” which I suspect that the author had Amber Heard and a few others we know about in mind—“girls tend to optimize brain connections earlier than boys…researchers conclude that this may explain why females generally mature faster in certain cognitive and emotional areas than males during childhood and adolescence.”   

What I put in italics is important. Do you recall when you were 16-years-old? Didn’t you think you “knew it all”? In some states you can be charged with murder as an "adult" at that age, or even younger. I know I thought I "knew everything" when I ran away from home at 14 and was going to be a hermit or a mountain man living off the land (my new life lasted all of 12 hours).

We can go further: as noted, Whiting and Hussey were 17 and 16 at the time they shot the bedroom scene with only implied sex. How many 16-year-olds have had consensual sex with each other--or even younger? Why do we hesitate to call that “rape” too? According to the CDC, one-quarter of high school ninth-graders claim to have had sex—and how old are kids in that grade?—and 60 percent by the 12^th grade. That’s a lot of “traumatized victims” coming out of our high schools. Gender victim politics wants us to believe one thing, when the reality is another.

There are those who are suggesting that Hussey and Whiting are actually doing more harm to themselves than good, applying current victim “sensibility” to an era where attitudes about sex were a lot “freer” than they are today; good or bad, that is simply the case. In fact they are ruining their own reputations by attacking the one film they are best known for and is regarded as a “classic” in some film circles. Long-time San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle is one of those, calling the lawsuit an “embarrassment” for the two. He observes that

It’s always sad and depressing whenever people in their 70s turn against the wisdom they once had as teenagers. But it’s particularly sad in this case, because Whiting and Hussey are essentially sacrificing their artistic identities and desecrating one of the most beautiful films of a generation at the altar of today’s neo-Puritanism and in the pursuit of money — lots of money.

LaSalle goes on to note that for 50 years Hussey has defended doing the “nude” scene for artistic purposes, and had expressed nothing but affection for Zeffirelli. She never mentioned anything about feeling “distressed” or having long-term “trauma” over it. Further, calling the scene “pornographic” is absurd:

The scene at issue is not remotely pornographic. There’s no sex. Whiting’s backside is seen for several seconds. Hussey’s breasts are seen for perhaps one second. Hardly “poisonous,” the scene is simply beautiful. Marc Huestis, the impresario who brought Hussey in for a special program at the Castro Theatre in 2008, puts it this way: “It’s shaped so many young people’s sexuality — gay, straight, women, men — and in a good way.”

The film also hardly harmed the career of the actors, with Hussey previously admitting that she turned down many good roles that she now “regrets.” But that “regret” has now turned against the film that is basically the only real reason why she and Whiting have any “fame” or a career worth mentioning at all.

So what explains this sudden turnaround? The recent law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsome caving-in to pressure from activist groups not only considerably expands the statute of limitations on “sexual offenses,” but allows judges to triple a jury award if it is determined that there was an “attempted or successful cover-up” of the alleged offense. What does that mean, anyways? That the victim was told it wasn't a "crime" at the time, but she is now told she that was "lied" to?

Adults well past even the new statute of limitations are being given three years retroactively to claim to be victims, or the statute of limitations can be ignored if an adult suddenly becomes “aware” that something that happened in the distant past was actually "sexual abuse." This is the exception that Hussey and Whiting are trying to take advantage of now at the last minute.

It all just seems crazy, yet this is where the MeToo “believe all women” mentality has brought us. On one of the many California law firm websites which traffic in the presumably easy-to-win and highly profitable business of sexual offenses—of which actual “penetration” is a significant minority of cases—we are presented a list of “warning signs” that can make it easier to convince women at any age that they suffered sexual abuse as children:

·        Bleeding, bruises, or swelling in the genital area

·        Changes in hygiene, such as refusing to bathe or bathing excessively

·        Exhibiting signs of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder

·        Experiencing sudden difficulties in school

·        Committing self-harm behaviors

Even if there is no evidence of the first of these “warning signs,” a “therapist” or attorney who “specializes” in these cases can see anything they want to see, and persuade someone that they think can make a believable victim see the same thing. In the era of MeToo, there are people who are eager to oblige because it makes them feel “special,” and if they don’t like someone, or feel they were not “respected” during an encounter, or somehow reinterpret a perfectly normal interaction into a twisted pretzel, knowing that society is supposed to believe them without question. Now, a father showing any physical affection for his child (say, hugging) can be viewed as being “sexual” if needs to be seen as "evidence."

This is why the fanatics found the verdict in the Depp/Heard trial in Virginia so disturbing; unlike in the UK trial, Heard was forced to produce the “evidence” to back her claims of abuse while expecting the jurors to believe her fantastical claims simply because she was a woman. When the jury essentially called Heard a liar and the real abuser, this set in motion what the fanatics fear: that while real cases of abuse are adjudicated in the “normal” fashion, it is the questionable accusations that are getting most of the attention on social media. The fanatics only have themselves to blame for this by continuing—like Heard herself—to be in complete denial of the wrong-doing that almost everyone else sees. If they are going to lie to us, who else is lying too?

Last May I posted about the late Carl Sagan’s book The Demon-Haunted World in which he writes of his fears about a world turning to misinformation, “feelings” and pseudoscience instead of facts and science. He noted that the infamous McMartin Preschool case was only a “taste” of what was to come. Children were shown toy dolls and coached into pointing out areas they had allegedly been “touched,” and from there came tales of underground tunnels, baby sacrifices, children flushed down toilets and even the daycare workers turning themselves into witches and flying about. Yes, for years during the “satanic panic” people actually took those claims at face value before the accused perpetrators were cleared.

But just when you thought that alleged victims might refrain from making such fantastical claims if they want to be taken seriously, there is now the Marilyn Manson case, where the LA Times is now reporting that former accuser Ashley Morgan Smithline admitted that Evan Rachel Wood and her "associates" manipulated her into "misremembering" her relationship with Manson and to make false allegations against him.

As Sagan observed, a society of “victims”—especially of the sexual variety—exploded with the advent of what he regarded as the “pseudoscience” of modern “therapy,” which gives license to often unlicensed “therapists” to implant memories or offer “suggestions” to explain why someone feels or acts in a certain way. If a person is “unsure” if their interactions with a parent were “sexual” in nature, then the therapist or psychologist should work as though they were, without examining alternate explanations.

Victims of sexual offenses, real or imagined, seem to grow and spread like weeds today in an environment where declaring one a “victim” is not only encouraged but nurtured, especially if useful as blackmail for financial gain if the target has money; so often now we see that financial considerations are the primary reason to bring accusations. Do Hussey and Whiting really expect to win their case and be awarded a nine-figure settlement? As far as the money is concerned, they probably believe it is the “statement” that counts; but like how Heard’s fantastical claims drifted further and further away from her “evidence,” many people will look incredulously at their claims and only see a blatant money grab or act of vindictiveness, and that becoming the only reason why anyone would bother remembering who they are.