Reply to Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Still not a peep from Blake on Kevin Costner. I thought she wanted to be the voice for women?[/quote]

Uh, the news came out today. Where's Baldoni? I thought his whole thing was holding me accountable for their treatment if women?[/quote]

Justin’s never proclaimed himself to be the voice of victims of SH or SA. But Blake on the other hand just gave a long speech at the time 100 gala saying just that. Now another woman much less powerful than her comes out against an A lister and she’s quiet as a church mouse, just like she was with Harvey and Woody. I guess she stands up for “victims” only when she’s trying to steal a movie. [/quote]

I’m not sure this is a sincere argument. But in case it is, I don’t think this victim would want the attention of Blake Lively taking her side right now.  Do you? If Lively actually did this, wouldn’t you criticize her for performing support to draw attention to herself?[/quote]

Neutral DP. I think you're probably right that Baldoni fans would criticize her either way, but it's also fair to question why she takes up the mantle of supporting all women and then doesn't comment when the accused is a big Hollywood name. That would be sort of gross. It's a pretty similar situation regarding the lack of IC and unscripted intimate scenes being added, so reasonable to think Lively would support. OTOH I'd hate to see the Baldoni fans flood comment threats with hate for this woman.[/quote]

DP but I think it's absurd to expect Blake or her legal team to publicly comment on this woman's lawsuit the day the news breaks, and I do think that would be performative and attention seeking if she did it.

The fact patterns are so similar that I think it's highly likely the stunt woman's lawsuit was at least in part inspired by Lively's. The questions of whether it is sexual harassment to push an actress (or stunt woman) to do unscripted nudity or intimacy haven't really been litigated before, and the question of when it is necessary for an intimacy coordinator to be on set and what their job is has also not really been legally explored. Until Lively's lawsuit. So to me there is no way that, at a minimum, the stunt woman's lawyers have not read Lively's complaint and explored the case law and the arguments she is leaning on in her case.

In that way, Lively's lawsuit *is* functioning as a form of support for the stunt woman, whether they ever touch base publicly or privately (and I expect they likely will because they are alleging such similar things). This is actually one of the main arguments in favor of someone like Lively, who is powerful and wealthy and has a lot of industry support, coming forward and calling out this behavior -- it can make it easier for people like this stunt woman, who have none of those resources, to come forward as well. So even if Lively never publicly says she supports this lawsuit, she has shown through her actions that she believes women on movie sets deserve better than what this stunt woman experienced on set. That is actually more meaningful than a public statement, IMO.

People can criticize Blake all they want but what if her lawsuit leads to more actresses on films sets speaking up when they are asked to do nudity that wasn't in the script, when the director or a scene partner pushes a form of intimacy that feels uncomfortable or bad to them without discussing it first or involving an IC? What if Blake's lawsuit leads to the industry adopting stricter industry standards for the filming of nudity and intimacy, and to a better understanding that "intimacy" can involve any scene where an actor's body is put in an intimate or compromised position (such as simulating childbirth or medical procedures)? I think all of that would be a net positive for Hollywood and for women in Hollywood. I think a lot of actresses, regardless of how they feel about Blake personally or how they view this particular case, would be happy to see those changes. And that's not even getting into the the retaliation aspects of her lawsuit, which I think are of particular interest to celebrity women at all levels who know how easy it is to harm their livelihoods and their personal lives by plugging into the online misogyny generator and focusing it on a famous woman.

This is what it means when we say "women helping women." This is why I think her lawsuit is important and fully support her in bringing these allegations and pursuing legal remedies. This could change things for women for the better in a way that hashtags and online info campaigns can't.[/quote]

These are great point!  I agree with you. Specifically, even if Lively doesn’t make some public statement of support right now which might unintentionally encourage Baldoni supporters to attack this victim also, Lively’s suit itself may already have helped in a way by bringing public attention to these nudity and intimacy issues.

I don’t really know if Lively should publicly support this victim and/or whether the victim would even want it. And I look at the terrible online beating that Dorsey is getting right now, and just have a lot of respect for former victims like her and Amber Heard who have come out in support of Lively despite the cost to them online. Nerves of steel, these women. [/quote]

NP. I don't agree with you and here's why.  It's been my belief that the law doesn't concave to benign actions. What I mean by this is that there is a range of what can be included as harrassment.  Is it a glance (very benign and perhaps unprovable) or is it constant contact at all hours of the day/night suggesting sexual behaviors and engagements (not benign and a high level of discomfort + provable)? I want to believe from everything I know about the law, that the courts use a reasonableness standard and asks of juries to do so as well.  And I tend to believe that juries get it right in a lot of cases -- they tend to pass on the benign and unprovable, but support strong legal action for intentional, abusive and/or egregious behavior. Again, not always, but in many cases.

I think that in applying this rational to the Baldoni case and the new Costner stunt woman case, I think you have two opposite ranges of accused behavior.  There is the "he looked at me the wrong way/made me feel uncomfortable and I think it could be SH" Blake behavior versus the "he raped me in a scene" without an IC behavior.  Juries will see the difference and imo will only support strong legal action for the behavior that is most egregious to set that behavior as a bar.

In wanting to punish someone harshly for lukewarm/non-existent behavior, you are setting a really bad bar that will be ripe for overturning because it simply is not reasonable. And if there is anything that I know about American law, is that it always finds its way back to the reasonableness standard.

That's the way I see it with court cases, and that's why I assert that Baldoni would win if the case is given to a jury. No reasonable person would argue that the standards that the law has set for SH is being met with Blake's accusations. Nowhere even close.

Plus, if the law were to concede that what Blake is accusing amounts to SH, the bar will be lowered to even lesser actions as constituting SH.  E.g., if a guy even has the thought of looking Blake's way without an IC present, it would be considered SH. The courts don't intend that to be the case at all. Hence my views on Baldoni having the stronger case. There is just not a lot of evidence that Blake has shown to support any decent notion of SH.

And yes, I can see how the lawyers for this new case (and probably even more that are waiting to see the outcome of Baldoni) are hoping that Blake's case provides the opening needed for their cases to succeed. At the same time, having two cases at opposite ends of the spectrum on SH/SA is not a good thing for Blake, especially given that hers is the one alleging the weakest action.

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Dp. Agree. Although I can’t see how any capable lawyer looking at the facts would think Blake’s case would succeed [/quote]

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