While next week’s Academy Awards ceremony will be bereft of the physical presence of Harvey Weinstein, his image is already causing a stir in Hollywood near where the ceremony is taking place thanks to a piece of anarchist art that’s popped up on the streets.
A gold statue of what appears to be Weinstein sitting on a casting couch has been spotted in the centre of Hollywood, not too far from the Dolby Theatre where the Oscars ceremony is scheduled to take place.
The statue is the product of LA street artist Plastic Jesus, in collaboration with Joshua “Ginger” Monroe, the former of whom was previously responsible for similar Oscars-disrupting statues like the Crucifixion of Kanye West statue from last year, as well as an installation that depicted an Oscars statuette snorting cocaine.
The new statue has Weinstein, a pariah in Hollywood now following the countless accusations of his shocking past behaviour, sitting on the casting couch in a robe, clutching an Oscars statue in his hand.
In a post on Instagram, Plastic Jesus explained the meaning behind the piece.
Harvey Weinstein became an icon in the entertainment industry. His power and influence was almost without compare. However, whilst many thought the ‘casting couch’ was a thing of the past it was clearly still a part of the Hollywood culture.
For many years the exploitation of many hopefuls and established names in the industry was brushed under the carpet with their complaints of harassment and sexual abuse being ignore [sic] or worse.
Hopefully now in the light of recent allegations against many leading figures in Hollywood the industry will clean up its act.
How the Oscars ceremony itself responds to the growing Time’s Up movement remains to be seen. But either way, it’s gonna be an interesting watch.
The 90th Academy Awards goes down on Monday, Australian time.
