The Golden Globe nominations were announced yesterday and just as expected, Casey Affleck scored a nod for his role in “Manchester by the Sea.” There’s pretty much no doubt that he’ll also receive an Oscar nomination for his performance — indeed, he is considered the favorite to win. We are fans of the film, yet we would be remiss not to comment on the fact that Affleck is getting a pass for terrible behavior in the not-so-distant past. Contrast his treatment with “The Birth of a Nation” writer-director-star Nate Parker’s. Affleck’s scandal is being treated dramatically differently, and we find this inconsistency disturbing and unacceptable.
Did you know Affleck was accused of sexual harassment in two separate lawsuits in 2010? And both of the cases were settled out of court? We’re betting most people don’t even realize this. It’s not part of the conversation, and that’s a problem.
In the press leading up to the release of “The Birth of a Nation” earlier this year pretty much every article and interview addressed Parker’s history. He was questioned over and over about being accused of rape in 1999 as a college student. But we’ve yet to read or watch an interview where Affleck’s disturbing past has even been alluded to in anything other than a cursory way. Some profiles and articles about the actor mention this history, but most don’t.
Affleck admittedly hasn’t been accused of raping anyone, but sexual harassment is a serious offense. He was in his 30s when he displayed this predatory behavior. It was also in a professional context. Under his leadership, female crew members were harassed, intimidated, and verbally abused. So why isn’t most of the media talking about this? It really seems like Affleck is benefiting from being white and having a huge movie star for a big brother.
So let’s talk about the specifics of these accusations made by “I’m Still Here” producer Amanda White and director of photography Magdalena Gorka. When the cases get mentioned — if at all — they are usually summed up in a couple of sentences. A lot of important, grotesque details are overlooked. Thanks to excerpts from the cases (parts of which we’ve reproduced below) there’s plenty of information about what exactly Affleck was accused of.
White had collaborated with Affleck a number of times and had known him for ten years when she signed up to work on “I’m Still Here,” his ill-fated Joaquin Phoenix mockumentary. White had a hellish experience working on the film, and was subjected to shockingly inappropriate behavior, even by Hollywood standards. Check out an excerpt of a court document filed in 2010:
After White objected to Affleck’s treatment of her and other women involved in “I’m Still Here,” he didn’t apologize and/or work to resolve the situation. His behavior grew uglier. Affleck “refused to honor the terms of the production agreement, including an express agreement to pay Plaintiff her $50,000 producer’s free. And he failed to pay her a ‘living wage’ during the more than three months that she worked on the Project. At no time after Plaintiff’s objections to the harassment have Defendants offered to pay the $50,000 or the ‘living wage.’ To date, Plaintiff has not been paid for any of the work she performed in connection with the film, despite multiple emails from Defendants confirming that her work was ‘awesome’ and that she was ‘fantastically through and creative and good tempered’ throughout the time she worked on the Project.”
White was asked to re-hire Gorka, the film’s director of photography who had previously fled the project due to mistreatment. (Reminder: Gorka is the other woman to file a harassment suit against Affleck.) White’s suit includes details of why Gorka originally left the project:
White had an especially bad experience with the shoot in Las Vegas. After Phoenix performed at the Palazzo Hotel, Affleck told her that he wanted to “shoot another sequence in the hotel suit that evening.” A number of sex workers were present for the shoot, which Affleck didn’t specify would be happening. As the court document reads, White was “not aware of what Affleck planned for that shoot.” She and Gorka and “the rest of the nearly all-male crew went to Affleck’s and Phoenix’s hotel suite.” It gets weirder (from White’s case):
Antony Langdon, a close friend of Affleck and Phoenix’s, served as a camera assistant on “I’m Still Here” and was “heavily involved in the Project.” On a flight from Miami to Costa Rica, Affleck asked White if she wanted to see Langdon’s penis. She said no. “Affleck then told Langdon to drop his pants and he did, exposing his genitals to the Plaintiff. This was not part of the Project, and, on information and belief, this will not be shown in the film that is released to the public.” Here are more details from White’s case:
No one should have to deal with this bullshit. Affleck was well aware of what was going on and did nothing to intervene. He only made matters worse. As per White’s filing:
As the director and producer and the person in charge, Affleck had the responsibility of looking out for his crew. Instead, he seems to have encouraged bullying and harassment.
White and Gorka were the only women on the shoot in Costa Rica and shared a bedroom at the production team’s living quarters. After going out for dinner one night, the two returned home to “learn that Phoenix and Affleck had locked themselves in Plaintiff’s bedroom with two women. They were told by a third individual as well as one of the crew members that Affleck and Phoenix were engaging in sexual activity in their bedroom. Although Affleck had his own room, he chose to invade Plaintiff’s privacy and violate her personal space.” Following the trip, Affleck called White and Gorka in for a meeting and “berated” them “for their performances in Costa Rica.”
Affleck also pressured White to stay in a hotel room with him in San Francisco. When she said she needed to get back to LA, he “became hostile and aggressive. He violently grabbed Plaintiff’s arm in an effort to intimidate her into staying.” Afterwards, he sent her “abusive text messages” and called her “profane names” for refusing to stay with him.
Gorka, who had more than 16 years of experience behind the camera prior to working on “I’m Still Here,” described the treatment she received while working with Affleck — “including routine instances of sexual harassment … by far the most traumatizing of her career.” At one point, prior to White signing on to the project, Gorka was the only women involved on the crew. “After a long night of shooting, Phoenix told Plaintiff to sleep in his bed and he would sleep in the living room.” She woke up to an unwelcome surprise. From Gorka’s filing:
Gorka eventually left the project, and as previously mentioned, was re-hired when White came on board. Gorka agreed to resume her duties after “receiving assurances that White would be present during all filming.” Unfortunately, things weren’t better the second time around and now both women became subject to the harassment. Gorka was “subjected to numerous incidents of outrageous and offensive conduct. She was subjected to a near daily barrage of sexual comments, innuendo, and unwelcome advances by crew members, within the presence and within the active encouragement of Affleck.”
A court document from Gorka’s case explains that Gorka “only endured the harassment as long as she did because she was proud of her work on the Project and wanted to receive fair credit for her work” and reveals that she “suffered and continues to suffer from humiliation, embarrassment, and emotional distress as a direct result of the harassment and abuse she endured during production.” The aftermath of the shoot included “severe anxiety and a loss of sleep as a result of Defendants’ offensive and humiliating treatment, including their retaliation against her when she objected to the hostile work environment.” Like White, Gorka experienced problems being compensated for her work on “I’m Still Here.”
“During her 16 years of working in the entertainment industry, Plaintiff has never accused anyone of sexual harassment,” Gorka’s filing specifies. “She has never filed a lawsuit against anyone or any reason. And she struggled with the decision to file this lawsuit — she is justifiably concerned about the effect this lawsuit will have on her career. Gorka realized that Affleck would use “his celebrity and wealth to intimidate her” but proceeded nonetheless. She “decided that her story needs to be told, and that she is strong enough to withstand the attacks mounted by Affleck’s high-paid publicists in New York and his ‘bulldog’ attorneys. She wanted to come forward “to speak out in order to prevent this from happening to to other young women who are simply trying to make a living in the entertainment industry and expect and deserve a non-hostile working environment.”
“Coverage of these types of cases often seems to operate according to an invisible scale,” writes The Daily Beast. “At first, unsavory allegations are cast aside in the service of palatable profiles. We subscribe to easy narratives; reporters don’t want to irritate stars with unpleasant questions, and fans don’t want to complicate their adoration with dark details. At a certain point, there is no longer an easy way out. The balance of public opinion shifts toward guilt, or, at the very least, suspicion. That’s why, after years of preserving Bill Cosby’s Teflon reputation, journalists suddenly stopped writing off the dozens of allegations that had been brought against the comedian.”
As The Daily Beast rightly observes, “These types of allegations haven’t always acted as insurmountable obstacles to continued Hollywood success. Audiences have historically stood by men who have been accused of harassment, sexual assault, and abuse. But by selectively choosing which stars to put through the wringer, the media becomes complicit in this cycle of easy forgiveness and celebrity-related amnesia.”
Maybe — hopefully — Affleck regrets his behavior. But maybe he doesn’t regret it enough to publicly address these allegations and risk his Oscar chances. His publicists are doing a fine of keeping the details of the cases under the radar, but we feel it is important to highlight these issues whenever they happen.
The problem is that no one really cares enough to say this is unacceptable. Affleck doesn’t even have to apologize because no one cares enough to call him out. We are, after all, going to have a groper in chief in the White House, so of course the appetite for accountability is minuscule. Women need to keep saying, no, this is not ok, and we will keep having their backs.
