It might seem ironic that James Franco would support the TimesUp movement and would speak out on sexual harassment now, especially considering that he’s been accused of the same thing. His very presence at the Golden Globe awards was put into question by none other than Ally Sheedy, a famous actress that he’d worked with in the past, when she tweeted out such things as why a man was hosting the Golden Globes and why James Franco was even there. Since then Franco has come under fire from a few different women it would seem regarding what he did to them in the past. The accusations are, as Franco has stated, not accurate, and to make matters a bit stranger Ally Sheedy has taken down her tweets that helped to inspire such a sudden fervor.
If not for Sheedy taking the tweets down it might have been possible to take the accusations a little more seriously, but since she’s allowed her words to disappear from Twitter it leaves a big mark against the movement that many influential women have created. Others might state that this not so, that Sheedy simply wants her privacy and to disappear from the spotlight once again, but simply cutting and running when one’s words are refuted in any way doesn’t look all that good. Franco is for the most part denying the accusations and attempting to sort out just why he’s being accused of anything at this point. And the idea of a man not being allowed to host the Golden Globes is a little odd, since the gender of the host shouldn’t matter. The host is there as a showpiece mostly to make sure the show has a voice, they’re not the judge of who wins nor even that important outside of their expected duties.
I’m not going to go on and on stating how one man is innocent and another isn’t, but the continued accusations seem to be wearing a bit thin now. While many of them might be true those that lack the evidence or the fortitude to be pursued as far as humanly possible lose a great deal of veracity once those that are so vehement about speaking out suddenly go silent of their own accord. The hope is that they are in fact doing such a thing on their own and aren’t being coerced, but if they are going silent on their own then they’re bound to do more damage to the cause than good. Also, those stepping forward to settle a score or find a supposedly easy paycheck, yes there are those out there, are doing just as much damage as anyone by making it personal and attempting to gain their comeuppance by any means necessary.
If those women that have been abused or harassed in any way desire justice, and many deserve it, then they need to find a way to curb the accusations that have little to no merit. If the cause is to move forward as it should then the idea must come from a need for real justice, not just a measure of payback for one slight or another.
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