McGowan's wrath has spread to others as well. First, she scathingly castigated all of the women who hadn't come forward to tell their tales of harassment by Weinstein.
She criticized Jeff Bezos for the fact that Amazon Studios had a deal with the Weinstein Company.
When Ben Affleck pretended not to have known what Weinstein had been up to, Rose Tweeted, "YOU LIE!"
Woody Allen's take on the situation was, “The whole Harvey Weinstein thing is very sad for everybody involved. Tragic for the poor women that were involved, sad for Harvey that his life is so messed up.”
McGowan's response to that was to call Allen a "vile little worm."
Two days ago, comedian James Corden made a few jokes about Weinstein at an AIDS benefit. Among them:
“It has been weird this week, though, hasn’t it — watching Harvey Weinstein in hot water. Ask any of the women who watched him take a bath — it’s weird watching Harvey Weinstein in hot water.”
“Harvey Weinstein wanted to come tonight, but he’ll settle for whatever potted plant is closest,” he added.
McGowan's response was to say to Corden --
-- "YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIGLET!"
According to the NY Post, McGowan said:
She also demanded that CBS, for which Corden hosts “The Late Late Show,” to donate money to the East Los Angeles Women’s Center “OR YOU TOO SUPPORT RAPE CULTURE,” and added the hashtag “f–kjamescorden.”
To McGowan, even jokes at Weinstein's expense are unacceptable.
(If a good-looking male actor referred to a fat female comedian as a "piglet," wouldn't that be considered irredeemably sexist and unforgivably fat-shaming?)
All of which makes one wonder, is McGowan the right person to be leading this charge?
She is, after all, one of the eight women who took money from Weinstein on the condition that they sign a nondisclosure agreement. McGowan took the money, in 1997, on the condition she remain silent. So she lied when she said she'd keep her mouth shut.
And not only is she violating the terms of that agreement, she is scathing towards anyone who doesn't speak up -- never mind that she herself remained mute for 20 years.
Post-rape, McGowan starred in at least three more Weinstein-produced or distributed movies: Phantoms, in 1998; Planet Terror, in 2007 (Dimension Films was owned by the Weinstein Company); and Death Proof, in 2007.
And, as commenter LBD just pointed out, in 2011 McGowan starred in Rosewood Lane, which was directed by Victor Salva, who had previously been imprisoned for child molestation.
Here's a picture of Weinstein and McGowan in happier times:
But McGowan, with her demands for donations to a women's center and her talk of rape culture, now sounds like a fire-breathing feminist. And she currently sports a hairstyle to match:
In case you were wondering what a feminist looks like when she's young, here's McGowan at 25:
(I remember seeing pictures of McGowan with then boyfriend Marilyn Manson and thinking, can't she do better than that? What kind of sex do those two have? Isn't there some more healthy, masculine guy she'd rather be with?)
And here's the budding feminist at 35, promoting the Weinstein film Death Proof in 2008, 11 years after she says she was raped by him:
McGowan seemed happy enough to take Weinstein's money up until 2008, which makes her current role as ultra-feminist a little less convincing. I would as soon buy her as the one-legged machine gun artist in Planet Terror:
(This picture, by the way, doesn't seem a bad metaphor for her current incarnation as a Fury.)
If McGowan seems a little confused, you can hardly blame her. A look at the "Early Life" section of her Wiki bio is revealing:
Rose Arianna McGowan was born on September 5, 1973 in Certaldo, Tuscany, the second-eldest of six children of American couple Terri, a former writer and Microsoft employee, and Daniel McGowan, who worked as a commercial artist. McGowan also has two half-siblings. Her ancestry is French and Irish.
Her father ran an Italian chapter of the Children of God, to which both he and his wife held membership until 1978. McGowan spent her early childhood amid the group's communes, often traveling through Europe with her parents. When interviewed by Howard Stern in 2001, she stated she had avoided the group's calls for members to become sexually active as children and stated that she never personally experienced abuse as a child.
Through her father's art contacts in Italy, McGowan became a child model and appeared in Vogue Bambini and various other Italian magazines. Her parents returned to the United States when she was 10 years old, and settled in Eugene, Oregon. McGowan had a wayward childhood, living as a teenage runaway in Portland, Oregon and associating with a group of drag queens in the city. After her parents divorced, McGowan lived with her father in Seattle, Washington, attended Roosevelt High School and Nova Alternative High School, and worked at McDonald's. At the age of 15, she officially emancipated herself from her parents and relocated to Los Angeles.
It's enough to make you feel sorry for her. What was the story with her mother? (In 1983 it wasn't common for fathers to get sole custody.) And what does it say about her parents -- and McGowan -- that she would want to legally "emancipate" herself from them at age 15? A lack of stability early on in life generally presages instability later on as well.
(Her early association with drag queens certainly helps explain her comfort with Marilyn Manson.)
McGowan is fully embracing her role as rape victim (now, finally, two decades after it happened) and women's advocate. I've written before about how many of the prominent feminists of the past half century seemed to have come from mixed up backgrounds; McGowan fits that pattern.
Once again: I have no doubt that all those actresses, including McGowan, are telling the truth about Weinstein, who, as I pointed out a few posts ago, is a sociopath.
And Weinstein should, undoubtedly, be in prison.
But McGowan should probably be on a psychiatrist's couch.
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14 comments:
What a nightmare. Is she still acting?
Anon --
According to Wiki, four of the six films she has appeared in since 2011 have been "short films." So, the work seems to have dried up somewhat.
That crewcut says to me she's pretty much given up on roles which call for a sex symbol.
I can't help but wonder if deep down Rose is mad at herself for:
- not speaking up sooner
- taking the hush money
- continuing to appear in movies associated with her rapist
If what she claims is true, as a rape victim, she might also be blaming herself for her rape.
GT --
All that is probably true. But I think it goes even deeper; she's probably not happy about the way her life has turned out. Her three year marriage to David Leavitt ended in 2016, with both of them agreeing to destroy the embryos they had been planning to use for in vitro fertilization, so at age 44 it seems that opportunity has passed her by. And her days as a hot young actress are now over, too; that has to be a little depressing. So it's probably a confluence of a lot of things.
Agree John - She is lashing out at any and everyone but the root of her rage maybe internal. Living in Hollywood, I could see her going under the cosmetic knife to keep up her appearance. That might explain why she now has a shaved head; to separate herself from "Hollywood". Of course, she could have a shaved head due to a part she is about to play...
I just did a search on Rose McGowan and cosmetic surgery and a bunch of positive hits come up. She does appear to look different in the before and after photos.
Your right about McGowan, she had no qualms about working with and posing with a man who supposedly molested. As a woman I would find that extremely difficult. She knows she does not have anymore mileage in the beauty department so the best way to get attention is fight for the rights of abused woman. What a hypocrite - enjoyed making hay while she could.
The one actress who has not joined the "Woman Abused by Harvey Bandwagon" is Uma Thurman and hope she does not. Having made so many movies with him surely, she must be having her
own stories. Except for a few cases most women had the choice of walking out of the
man's orbit. But they chose to stay and work and pose with him. Says a lot about their character. In most cases it was a mutually beneficially association. He definitely did
not point a gun to their heads.
Sherie
GT --
I just did the same search and yes, she does look different. A lot of times when actresses do this is pretty much spells the end of their careers; they look different, not better. I've never liked those filling procedures; to me, if a woman stays fit (i.e., doesn't gain weight) while she ages naturally, she stays attractive. But those plumping out procedures often make them look like different people, and all of the original, subtle beauty is lost, where it wouldn't have been if the only change had been a few wrinkles.
Sherie --
You're right, Uma hasn't said a word. Neither has Charlize Theron, or Renee Zellweger, or a bunch of others who've starred in his movies. And yes, in most cases it was mutually beneficial, though it sounds as if there were also some cases of rape. And indecent exposure.
Though the last few posts shouldn't e interpreted as a defense of Harvey, he was definitely a bad guy, it's just that the rest of Hollywood is showing a fair amount of hypocrisy too. I'm sort of glad it's coming to light though, it also sort of exposes the hollowness of so many of their other virtue-signaling poses.
John - Is there no legal consequence for breaking a non disclosure agreement?
Shaun
Shaun --
Normally there would be, at least giving back the money, but Harvey may be a little too distracted to go after her at the moment.
I don't think men understand quite how much bottled up rage most women carry around due to the continual harassment we experience when young and powerless. What men view as trivial or harmless (such as catcalling) or consider a "compliment" can be frightening to a lone young girl. Nearly every woman has had a scary encounter in her teenage years with men who do not consider themselves predators in any way, and often would be baffled that they were seen as such.....until it happens to their teenage daughter.
Compounding the problem is our societal denial of the need to protect girls and young women. Earlier ages insisted on chaperones, now girls are expected to handle everything themselves. Whenever an older woman tries to point out that it's simply not safe to get drunk in public, not safe to be alone with a man in his hotel room, dorm room or apartment, we are screamed at for "blaming the victim" and denying women and girls their freedom.
Movies depict girls ludicrously winning physical fights with men, and young girls often will say "I can take care of myself". They don't know how delusional they are.
Cindy Crawford has told of her early days in modeling. Her mother accompanied her to her shoots in Milan and Paris. The result was that she never experienced the horrendous exploitation that her fellow teen models did when they were alone in Europe. These were fifteen and sixteen year old girls sharing apartments in foreign countries unsupervised. What were their parents thinking?
John - I will say that this person Rose McGowan's credibility comes into question when she decides to break a non disclosure agreement. It strike me as totally - mercenary.
LBD --
Feminism has screwed a lot of things up, and what you describe is one of them. You simply can't push two completely and diametrically opposed agendas at the same time: on the one hand, that women can do everything men can do, and can be Army Rangers and be in combat positions in the Marines, and that they should be liberated from any kind of social strictures and have the same kind of sexuality men have. And on the other, that women are such delicate flowers that if you crack a dirty joke in their presence or look at them the wrong way it constitutes harassment, and that after two drinks they are unable to make a simple yes or no decision when it comes to having sex. Both of these agendas are wrongheaded, too, on top of the fact that they are entirely in conflict with each other. You've just described what's wrong with the first agenda very well; and the natural order of things is that a lot of young girls WILL be frightened by male sexuality, all the propaganda of "Sex and the City" aside.
Nonetheless, all that said, Rose McGowan has still gone off the rails. She no doubt has a legitimate beef with Harvey Weinstein, who I'm guessing DID rape her. But now that beef has extended to a lot of other people. And given how she used to present herself, and how she worked with Weinstein perfectly well after the rape, and how she worked with Victor Salva, there seems to be a certain hypocrisy there.
Shaun --
Yes, especially after waiting two decades to do so, and having worked with Weinstein in the interim.
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