Quote of the Day (Producer Peter Guber, on ‘Power and Sex’ in Movies)

“This business, movies, is all about two things—power and sex. And guess what, they're the same thing.”—Producer Peter Guber (Batman, Rain Man), quoted in Tina Brown, diary entry for June 6, 1989, in The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983-1992 (2017)

For decades, Hollywood execs pushed Guber’s neat equation to its natural limit. While most of America came to see rape as less an act of sex than an assertion of power, Hollywood continued to operate under a different set of rules, as old as the proverbial “casting couch.”

We’re about to see if the guilty verdict this week against Harvey Weinstein (pictured when he was riding high) is going to alter matters—if it actually represents “the biggest seismic change that we have ever had” that Oscar winner Julianne Moore thought she had witnessed last October. 

Don’t bet the ranch on it; the forces of reaction are awfully powerful. But maybe, after all this time, something fundamental has changed.

Bully baby that he is, Weinstein complained about the injustice of his indictment, saying his “work had been forgotten” after he had done so much for women. These last several days, that ludicrous statement may have turned out to be true after all—but only because it required a monster as repulsive as Weinstein to bring Americans face to face with the consequences of what they had excused for far decades.     

   

(The photo accompanying this post was taken by David Shankbone of Harvey Weinstein attending the 2010 Time 100 Gala. Seven years later, the magazine would feature Weinstein on its cover, in far darker hues, with the tag line, “Producer. Predator. Pariah.”)                               

Quote of the Day (Alan Alda, on the Wild Kinds of ‘Oscar Swag’)

“You do the work and then they give you all these gifts for being nominated. I actually got a gift certificate for Botox. And an appointment with a plastic surgeon, a whole suitcase full of face cream, a trip to China. But Botox? It's saying, ‘You were very expressive in that movie, shoot this in your face. See if you can act with no expression whatsoever!’"—Alan Alda, on the “swag” that came his way for his Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Aviator, quoted in Tom Shone, “Alan Alda: 'Laugh? I Nearly Died,'” The Telegraph (U.K.), Jan. 28, 2016

(The image of Alda accompanying this post was taken by the Moody College of Communications in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 17, 2015.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Thomas of Villanova, on Humility, ‘Mother of Many Virtues’)

“Humility is the mother of many virtues. From it spring obedience, holy fear, reverence, patience, modesty, mildness and peace; for whoever is humble easily obeys everyone, fears to offend anyone, maintains peace with all, shows himself affable to all, is submissive to all, does not offend or displease any, and does not feel the insults which may be afflicted upon him. He is happy and contented, and in great peace.”—Spanish Augustinian friar, preacher, religious writer, archbishop, and “Father of the Poor” St. Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555), quoted in A Year With the Saints,

translated from the Italian by a member of the Order of Mercy, Mt. St. Joseph's Seminary, Hartford, Conn. (1891)

The image accompanying this post is Santo Tomas de Villanueva, by Spanish painter Francisco Camilo (1615-1671).

Quote of the Day (Playwright Lucy Prebble, on an Effect of Writing Not Achieved by Speaking)

“If you look to writing stuff down, and if you're driven to do that rather than to say something to somebody, maybe it's because saying it doesn't achieve the effect you want. And the writing it down, and separating it from yourself, gives you — for me, I think this is very true — the authority that you worry you lack in person.” —English playwright Lucy Prebble (Enron), quoted in Griselda Murray Brown, “Lunch with the FT: ‘It’s Not That Hard to Empathise With Putin,’” Financial Times, Sept. 28-29, 2019