As the waterfall of sexual assault allegations against powerful men in the entertainment industry continues to rain down, there is a way for consumers to ensure the content they’re watching is ‘clean’.
That is, without anyone involved who might be guilty of sexual misconduct or harassment.
New website Rotten Apples allows users to type in the name of a film or television show and see if any alleged sexual predators are involved in its production.
The platform, which is a clever take on the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, will display either “Rotten Apple” or “Fresh Apple” depending on the people involved in the show.
Type in House of Cards, for example, and a big red “Rotten Apple” will appear alongside a link to an article detailing the allegations of sexual abuse levelled against the show’s main actor Kevin Spacey.
Search Lady Bird, on the other hand, and a nice green "Fresh Apples" will appear alongside the caption: "This movie has no known affiliation to anyone with allegations of sexual misconduct against them. If you believe this is an error, please let us know by clicking here and we’ll fix it as soon as possible."
It's a clever and easy way for us, the public, to become empowered in Hollywood's undoing.
LISTEN: Why do we still revere men such as Bill Clinton in the post-Weinstein era. Post continues after audio.
It's an encouraging sign that the system that has enabled those in power to get away with sexually coercive and dangerous behaviour is slowly dismantling. By becoming conscious of what we're consuming and who - exactly - it's benefiting, we can help dismantle the same system from the bottom-up.
After all, we've had conversations about where our clothes and iPhones and coffee are made. Why not "consciously consume" our entertainment, too?
Top Comments
The problem with this is that there are many innocent people who just turned up to work and did their job on these projects - they just happened to be unfortunate enough to work alongside a predator. If you were to stop watching anything that Harvey Weinstein was involved in, you’d likely end up punishing people who were his victims, as he frequently employed women he wanted to prey on. Not to mention all the cast and crew who, while not being direct victims, had nothing to do with the crimes of their colleague. When House of Cards was originally cancelled, It seemed unfair that all those people were made unemployed when they had done nothing wrong, so I’m glad they’re continuing, without Spacey - that’s the fair outcome.
The purpose as the article mentions is to "empowered in Hollywood's undoing" - if what it takes to make such movies as what Weinstein made is a person like Weinstein, then it was an error to have made them.
Let's be honest, a part of Weinstein, et al's success has to be the fact that they didn't take no for an answer when confronting the myriad of challenges that must arise in producing such profitable movies and shows. People tell their Supervisor's "no" all the time and a good chunk of the "no's" is to avoid inconvenience, extra work, or extra challenge. Someone like Weinstien no doubt was able to clear a lot more of those "no's" in his quest to be successful. Unfortunately, his moral compass did not stop him from applying the same uncompromising approach when trying to sexually gratify himself.
The impression is that the behavior was well enough known that the only conclusion that can be drawn is that people wanted to be near him for their own career's sake but wanted to turn a blind eye to his behavior. As the saying in safety goes "What you walk past is what you condone".
I'm almost afraid to look. I've already had to delete Six White Boomers from my Christmas playlist, I'm not sure I want to open that can of worms.