While at a women entertainment event on Monday, actress Jessica Chastain ripped into the hypocrisy of Hollywood which has recently been exposed. The sexual accusations against Harvey Weinstein are what got the ball rolling when it comes to dialogue on this issue.
Per Daily Wire:
At ELLE's "Women in Entertainment" event, in a room The Hollywood Reporter notes included many famous faces, Chastain laid bare the egregious "disconnect" between what Hollywood preaches in public and what it actually practices behind closed doors.
"This is an industry rife with racism, sexism and homophobia," said Chastain, who was one of the actresses to quickly come out in condemnation of Weinstein and those who looked the other way over the decades. "It is so closely woven into the fabric of the business that we have become snowblind to the glaring injustices happening every day."
"Oh we're very quick to point the finger at others and address the issue with social action and fundraising," she continued. "Yet there is a clear disconnect between how we practice what we preach in our industry."
Citing Hollywood's public promotion of same-sex marriage and gender equality but private suppression of homosexual relationships and perpetuation of the gender pay gap, Chastain slammed the industry for failing to honestly look inward. Chastain specifically cited Weinstein and pointed out that while the industry was allowing his alleged behavior to continue, Hollywood was rallying against Donald Trump for his "grab them by the p****" comment.
"We rally against the presidential candidate who slants a narrative of his sexual assault as mere locker room talk, but at the same time we ignore the stories and warnings of sexual predators in our offices," she said.
I was warned from the beginning. The stories were everywhere. To deny that is to create an enviornment for it to happen again.
— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) October 9, 2017
There are many other celebrities, such as Meryl Streep, who are claiming to know nothing about Weinstein's actions. According to Chastain this would be virtually impossible.
Reese Witherspoon also came forward at the event and alleged she was sexually assaulted at age 16, but kept her mouth shut in order to keep her employment.
"I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier," she said. "[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16-years-old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment."
Hollywood looks worse and worse as these stories continue to come out. It is a shame it took so long, but it's good that scumbags such as Harvey Weinstein are going to be held accountable for their actions.
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