Emma Thompson Calls Weinstein A Predator & Just The “Tip Of The Iceberg”

Emma Thompson (a.k.a. my celebrity mum) is an angel.

Since the Harvey Weinstein allegations broke, an incident from 2007 has been doing the rounds.

Apparently, Weinstein visited the set of the adapted film Brideshead Revisited, and called then-24-year-old actress Hayley Atwell “a fat pig” who should “stop eating so much.”

According to the story, Thompson – an Oscar winner and veteran of the industry – took Weinstein aside and called him out for being a misogynistic bully and threatened to quit if he forced Atwell or any other women on set to go on a diet.

Her willingness to stand up for others against this once-powerful man has been rightly earning her praise.

Now, Thompson is speaking out again about Weinstein, telling the BBC’s Newsnight that he is simply the tip of the iceberg.

“I didn’t know about these things but they don’t surprise me at all, they’re endemic to the system anyway,” she said. “What I find sort of extraordinary is that this man is at the top of a very particular iceberg.”

She also called bullshit on Weinstein for reportedly seeking treatment for “sex therapy”, which might be a real thing, but is almost certainly being used here by Weinstein to partially excuse his behaviour.

“I don’t think you can describe him as “sex addict”. He’s a predator. But what he’s, as it were, the top of the ladder of, is a system of harassment, and belittling, and bullying, and interference and what my my mother would have referred to in the olden days as ‘pestering’. ‘Is he pestering you?’ That’s the word we used to use in the olden days, if you recall.

“This has been part of our world, women’s world, since time immemorial. So what we need to start talking about is the crisis in masculinity, the crisis of extreme masculinity, which is this sort of behaviour, and the fact that it is not only okay, but it also is represented by the most powerful man in the world at the moment.”

When asked if there were others like Weinstein within the Hollywood industry, she replied in the affirmative.

“Of course. Many. Maybe not to that degree. Do they have to all be as bad as him to make it count? Does it only count if you really have done it to loads and loads and loads of women? Or does it count if you do it to one woman once? I think the latter.”

If my understanding of British monarchy is correct, this means that Emma Thompson is the queen now.

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