Oscars told to expel Cosby and Polanski
UNITED STATES: Pressure is growing on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to follow its expulsion of Harvey Weinstein with a purge of Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski and other tainted members.
The British comedian John Oliver said on his Emmy-winning late night TV show on Sunday that it was not just Weinstein’s behaviour that was ‘‘troubling, it’s the way that people around him excused it’’.
He singled out the organisation that hosts the Oscars.
‘‘Yes, finally, the group that counts among its current members Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby and Mel Gibson has found the one guy who treated women badly and kicked him out,’’ the comic said sarcastically.
‘‘So congratulations, Hollywood. See you at the next Oscars where ... Casey Affleck will be presenting best actress.’’
Affleck, who won the best actor Oscar this year for Manchester By
The Sea, was accused of sexual harassment in 2010 by two women, but reached a settlement with both of them and was never charged.
He received his award from Brie Larson, an advocate for sexual abuse survivors. She conspicuously did not clap and later said that her reaction on stage ‘‘spoke for itself’’. Affleck has always denied the allegations.
When Polanski won the best director Oscar for The Pianist in 2003, many in the audience stood to applaud while others remained seated in protest. He was unable to collect the trophy because he has been a fugitive from US justice since fleeing the country in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Cosby remains a member despite being accused of raping or sexually assaulting 59 women and admitting acquiring sedatives for women he wished to have sex with.
Gibson, who won best director for Braveheart in 1996, fell temporarily from grace in Hollywood when he admitted to beating his girlfriend and was taped screaming racist and antisemitic abuse.
Before the academy’s board voted on Saturday to throw out Weinstein because of the rape and assault allegations against him, it had only expelled one member in its 90-year existence. Carmine Caridi, who acted in The Godfather
Part II, was ejected in 2004 because he passed Oscar-screening VHS tapes to a film pirate.
The academy board said Weinstein’s expulsion was intended ‘‘to send a message that the era of wilful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behaviour and workplace harassment in our industry is over’’.
It said ‘‘the board continues to work to establish ethical standards of conduct that all academy members will be expected to exemplify’’. –