Like, I sweat Gilliam’s movies pretty hard. Ask Tati about Brazil. I like it much more than I should. I’ll go out of my way to tell you how good The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was. So the news that he’s being a jerk about women and #metoo is pretty sad. I was gonna write a clever tweet, and then realized, nope, tweeting is really the worst response to something like this. So I spent more time to write more of a blog? *sigh* I guess it’s just that, because I sweat his movies, I feel a need to say something, when I don’t need to say anything about, say, Woody Allen.

I can’t find the full interview. Here’s the best subset I could get.

“the #MeToo movement has morphed into “mob rule”” - no, stop. mob rule is when people get killed, not when people say mean things about überfamous Gilliam and Damon for a couple days, and Gilliam and Damon go on with their übersuccessful lives.

“Weinstein “is a monster” and that there are “plenty of monsters out there… There are other people (still) behaving like Harvey” in the film industry, abusing their power for sex.” - I am confident this is true!

“But Gilliam said the reaction against the wave of sexual abuse and harassment revelations had become ugly and “simplistic… people are frightened to say things, to think things.” - uhh - like, this statement is true, but tarnished by the fact that most people saying it are being assholes.

“It is a world of victims. I think some people did very well out of meeting with Harvey and others didn’t. The ones who did knew what they were doing. These are adults, we are talking about adults with a lot of ambition.
“Harvey opened the door for a few people, a night with Harvey – that’s the price you pay,”” - are you insane? justifying sexual-favors-for-success?

“the atmosphere around #MeToo has “got silly, people are being described in ridiculous terms as if there is no real humanity left anymore.
“I feel sorry for someone like Matt Damon who is a decent human being. He came out and said all men are not rapists, and he got beaten to death. Come on, this is crazy!”” … uh oh, I think you’re either straw-manning Damon’s critics, or motte-and-baileying.
(side note: Matt Damon said some things that I agree with and some things that I don’t. He looks a lot better than Gilliam in this situation.)

“I know enough girls who were in Harvey’s suites who were not victims and walked out.” - yeah, and Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t murder_ everyone_ he knew.

“It’s crazy how simplified things are becoming. There is no intelligence anymore and people seem to be frightened to say what they really think. Now I am told even by my wife to keep my head a bit low” - well… I guess your old beliefs are becoming unacceptable? And given how crummy they are, I’m ok with that? I agree with your point that everything is just knee-jerk good-or-bad these days. But we need a better arguer against this tendency.

“It’s like when mob rule takes over, the mob is out there they are carrying their torches and they are going to burn down Frankenstein’s castle” - no, it’s like if the mob got real mad at Frankenstein for a couple days and, like, didn’t buy his movies on Amazon or something.

-–

And why the hell am I blogging about this? Why did I let you take an hour (or more?) of my day, you old goat with crummy old goat beliefs? And why is everyone who’s saying “let’s stop the witch hunt” acting so much like a witch?

I guess it’s just another point in favor of the idea that you can argue difficult things publicly, but you gotta be superjesus. Gilliam, you have some points, but you also have a lot of antiquated and/or otherwise shitty beliefs; so as a whole, best to keep them to yourself.