MovieChat Forums > Casey Affleck Discussion > No one knows the truth...

No one knows the truth...

posted 8 years ago by smokebreak
9 replies | jump to latest

In regards to the sexual harassment claims... at the end of the day, none of us know the truth. Sexual harassment is a vile and disgusting thing, but we have zero facts. We have claims, but claims are not facts. False claims are made every day. People try to take advantage of others all the time. If he DID in fact do those horrible things, then shame on him and I would cease to support him as an artist. But none of us know the truth. It's JUST as likely that those producers were shady and tried to take advantage of him by making false claims. In which case, shame on them. But the fact is, we don't know the truth.

However I completely understand people's reaction to these claims, and how disturbed, angry and saddened they are. Seems unlikely that these producers made all this up out of thin air for money... maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe he isn't as guilty as they are making him out to be, and maybe they aren't as innocent either. Maybe one of them flirted with him and he flirted back, and it escalated, and then later on he treated them poorly so they decided to twist the story and claim that he was worse than what really happened? I've also read about the experimental nature of this movie, and how Phoenix and Affleck were trying to go for this whole Andy Kaufman idea of pushing and insulting the people around them to the point where people really didn't like them, for the sake of the movie (because the movie is about this loser actor who pathetically attempts to become a rapper). Maybe they took it too far with these women and the crew in general, and they lashed back. If that is the truth, then was it worth it? Obviously not. It's never worth hurting another person for the sake of art. That's not what art should be about. Maybe none of that happened and these two women are friends who decided to scheme against him. People are capable of being manipulative. There are hundreds of possibilities. Or maybe he straight up did all of it, and he is a disgusting piece of $hit. It's absolutely possible. I'm not trying to tell people to react differently, or to take his side, or to be against him, I'm just offering different perspectives, and stating the fact that none of us REALLY know...

[–] chungmusic 8 years ago

You are looking at it from only one perspective. Like you said court cases takes years and money. If he counter sued them, then that'd mean the case would follow him for years, and a man who is being tried for a sexual harassment, even if it is false, has to bear the stigma of the society. It's better to settle and move on than to pursue it. If you look at actual statistics, you'll find that majority of the sexual harassment cases ends in settlements (that includes both false and true claims). And these two women had nothing to lose? They asked for 1.2 million before settling for an undisclosed amount.

Either way, the justice system in a democracy was created to keep out innocent people not to imprison guilty people which is why there's "Innocent till proven guilty". Since there's no witness nor evidence to this case, there's a huge reasonable doubt cast over it. Not to mention the LACK of mens rea doesn't help the women's case. So simply rebuffing the case should not be done, but jumping to quick judgement should not be done either. Because has these articles proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he did the act? No. Refraining should be the apt course of action.

And these articles does nothing but crucify an man, who could be or could not be innocent, in a public manner. Justice system judges a man for the crime, not common citizens nor reporters. Gossip magazines taking justice into their hands is the worst kind of voyeurism one can come across. What happened to old media, where NEWS matters not gossips. Not to mention citizen journalism is one dangerous tool which can potentially destroyed lives (and has done it before). But that's a discussion for another day.

One day in the year of the fox came a time remembered well...