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Kevin Smith is donating all future residuals of his Miramax films to charity

A

Aiii

So not worth it
As per his podcast, via AVClub: https://www.avclub.com/kevin-smith-is-donating-his-weinstein-residuals-to-a-ch-1819640109

http://www.smodcast.com/channel/hollywoodbabbleon?audio=294 (starts at 1h25m), worth a listen, he is very emotional and it doesn't translate into the text.

I just wanted to make some fucking movies, that's it...And no fucking movie is worth all this. Like, my entire career, fuck it, take it. It's wrapped up in something really fucking horrible." Smith made it clear that he had no knowledge of Weinstein's behavior around women, saying, ”I know it's not my fault, but I didn't fucking help. Because I sat out there talking about this man like he was a hero, like he was my friend. I didn't know the man that they keep talking about in the press. Clearly he exists, but that man never showed himself to me."

Smith also said he intends to put his money where his mouth his; according to Vulture, he's pledged that he'll donating all future residuals from all of his Miramax films—including Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, Zack And Miri Make A Porno, and both Clerks movies—to Women In Films, a nonprofit organization that supports women filmmakers. (He alos [sic] added that, if The Weinstein Co. ends up folding, rendering those residuals worthless, he'll pay $2,000 a month to the group for the rest of his life.)
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Search is down, but a brief ctrl+f over the last pages for Kevin Smith yielded no results, sorry if double
 
W

weekev

Banned
silent-bob-nodding.gif
 
C

Choppasmith

Member
Wasn't he getting a lot of flack for something here a while back? I can't remember what it was. Despite any flaws, he seems like a really decent guy. Good on him.
 
D

DeathyBoy

Banned
It's a real shame Smith drank the Weinstein kool aid. He'd probably have a career right now if he'd moved companies like Affleck suggested with Jersey Girl.

Also, no. At the very least he heard rumours. This is nice damage control, but it's still damage control. Especially as, post TWC split, dude would've been privy to the real Harvey. Their split was not acrimonious.

ETA - and everyone should go read Down and Dirty Pictures. Smith talks frankly about how Harvey treated other people like shit, but was good to him and Scott Mosier.
 
S

SolidChamp

Banned
Smith is an incredibly gifted orator, and he should put those talents to use in speaking out more on this matter. Public seminars on this shit with whatever cautionary tales from Hollywood he may have would go a long way.
 
M

Markitron

Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
Is this his first reaction to this scandal? I didn't see anything anywhere else.
 
A

arab

Member
SolidChamp said:
I mean, is that really warranted right now? Does that NEED stating RIGHT NOW?

The man is trying to do some good. That’s a class act. No need to tear him down. We get it.
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you're naive if you think this is the first time he's heard of weinstein's sexual acts considering his proximity with ben affleck/miramax
 
G

grimmiq

Member
Markitron said:
Is this his first reaction to this scandal? I didn't see anything anywhere else.
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A few days ago he said he felt ashamed that Weinstein funded the first 14 years of his career while he abused others. I think it was worded in a way that implied he had no knowledge of it happening at the time.
 
M

massoluk

Banned
arab said:
you're naive if you think this is the first time he's heard of weinstein's sexual acts considering his proximity with ben affleck/miramax
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I think it's entirely plausible he figured Weinstein was a creepy man hitting on actresses and giving unwanted approach, but not to the level of raping and physical sexual assault.
 
D

DeathyBoy

Banned
grimmiq said:
A few days ago he said he felt ashamed that Weinstein funded the first 14 years of his career while he abused others. I think it was worded in a way that implied he had no knowledge of it happening at the time.
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Can you edit this to include sexual abuse? Dude is on record in a history of independent cinema as saying he knew Harvey (and Bob mentally and physically abused other people.

Sounds pedantic, but shows Smith was fine with others being mistreated so long as it didn't affect him.

massoluk said:
I think it's entirely plausible he figured Weinstein was a creepy man hitting on actresses and giving unwanted approach, but not to the level of raping and physical sexual assault.
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That's not what he said. He said he never saw that side of Harvey. Which suggests he was genuinely oblivious. I don't buy that for a second. This is the guy who had an older guy prey on a teenager in his second film, until it was cut at the last minute.
 
J

JettDash

Junior Member
massoluk said:
I think it's entirely plausible he figured Weinstein was a creepy man hitting on actresses and giving unwanted approach, but not to the level of raping and physical sexual assault.
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I agree. I'm sure most of the people that worked for/with him knew he is a creep but that doesn't mean they knew he is a rapist.


Anyway, good for Kevin Smith.
 
D

DeathyBoy

Banned
JettDash said:
I agree. I'm sure most of the people that worked for/with him knew he is a creep but that doesn't mean they knew he is a rapist.


Anyway, good for Kevin Smith.
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That's not Smith put it though. His statement implies he knew nothing whatsoever.

And for those in the cheap seats, being a creep shouldn't be shrugged off. Using your power to cajole actresses into sleeping with you is incredibly fucked up, and it being shrugged off is genuinely disturbing.
 
J

JettDash

Junior Member
DeathyBoy said:
That's not Smith put it though. His statement implies he knew nothing whatsoever.
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Fair enough.

And for those in the cheap seats, being a creep shouldn't be shrugged off. Using your power to cajole actresses into sleeping with you is incredibly fucked up, and it being shrugged off is genuinely disturbing.
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I think you're right. But I also think that most people are not going to do anything about this sort of sexual harrassment that they just kinda know about or guess when the victims themselves are not willing to come forward. It is just a fucked situation and why people like him are able to get away with it for so long.
 
S

Savitar

Member
That's a worthwhile gesture, good on the man. I question how many people didn't know about the guy but if Smith didn't know I can believe it, he wasn't exactly high up on the ladder compared to some. If he heard rumors that might have easily been dismissed. Now, things have definitely changed.
 
C

curiouscharles

Member
arab said:
a shit director with good actions
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we'll never evolve into Star Trek quality humans guys, this post is my proof.

OT - fucking love Kevin Smith, what a good dude.

totally plausible he would never know - many of these predator type males only show such colours to women, and hide them entirely from their male counterparts.

and obviously it's freaking scary for women to speak up, so you never know if the subject would be raised by anyone around him.
 
A

Aiii

So not worth it
Kevin Smith is nowhere near a good enough actor to fake that emotional response he had there, to be fair. I see no reason not to trust that he had no idea, the man sounds completely defeated.
 
R

RetroDLC

Foundations of Burden
DeathyBoy said:
Can you edit this to include sexual abuse? Dude is on record in a history of independent cinema as saying he knew Harvey (and Bob mentally and physically abused other people.

Sounds pedantic, but shows Smith was fine with others being mistreated so long as it didn't affect him.



That's not what he said. He said he never saw that side of Harvey. Which suggests he was genuinely oblivious. I don't buy that for a second. This is the guy who had an older guy prey on a teenager in his second film, until it was cut at the last minute.
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Give us the source that confirms he knew anything. You thinking he is suggesting so isn't proof.
 
H

hodayathink

Member
DeathyBoy said:
And for those in the cheap seats, being a creep shouldn't be shrugged off. Using your power to cajole actresses into sleeping with you is incredibly fucked up, and it being shrugged off is genuinely disturbing.
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That's the thing, that up until the last decade or so (if that), most people didn't really see the soft coercion he was doing as a bad thing, but a legitimate way to try to pick up women. Like, everyone knew he was basically asking every actress in Hollywood that he was attracted to to sleep with him, and that was seen as fine as long as they were able to still able to say yes or no (and he didn't explicitly threaten their careers). The fact that he was powering his way though some of those nos seems to be the thing that's genuinely shocking people, even though it shouldn't as it seems like was that way when it came to a lot of aspects of his business as well (and those things were public knowledge).
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
Oh wow thats admirable of him. Everybody using their words in hollow press statements but this guy's actually doing something here.
 
S

ShadowKingpin

Member
I trust Kevin. I just don't see him as the type to knowingly allow that shit to go on if he had known. Not joining the witch hunt on this one.
 
D

Darksol

Member
I mean, he’s not obliged to make such a gesture but it speaks nicely of his character that he feels compelled to help make amends. Good on him.
 
A

Aiii

So not worth it
BocoDragon said:
Man I do not believe Tarantino is "stunned". I'm not saying he knew specifics... but "stunned".... enh.
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If one of your friends is ousted as a rapist, would you not be stunned?

I know people think that it's easy to spot a serial rapist (or murderer, or any kind of other demons walking about in this world), but really, there's a reason "hiding in plain sight" is a thing. You can be more easily fooled by others than you think.
 
D

DeathyBoy

Banned
RetroDLC said:
Give us the source that confirms he knew anything. You thinking he is suggesting so isn't proof.
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Of course it's not proof.

I think he knew Harvey's rep. I think he knew Harvey gave women he sleeper with breaks he wouldn't otherwise. I don't think he knew Harvey raped anyone in the sense of overpowering them.

Can I prove it?

No. But Smith isn't an idiot, and he was at Miramax far too long to have been that out of the loop that he thought Harvey was a family man. There's almost no way he was oblivious to all of this.

Course there's also the chapter in one of his books where he hung out witn Selma Blair and they shared Hollywood gossip. So im assuming if she comes forward then maybe people won't assume Smith knew nothing.
 
A

a.wd

Member
Look one of my favourite things about Kevin Smith (apart from the writing) is the fact the mother fucker will recount his life experience warts and all with no filter, go watch him speak he drops secrets like no one else and is never afraid to lay Hollywood's shit bare.

If he says he didn't know I trust him, and I think this is a super classy move.
 
D

drowsy

Member
Kevin has gone on record in the past about knowing that Weinstein wasn't exactly a model citizen, so he knew that there was something there at least. But I think his case is a textbook example of why this stuff keeps happening in every industry, all around the world: it doesn't affect him, and it's not something that he himself thinks about, so it kind of stays in a blind spot. It often takes a first hand experience or the experience of a close personal friend for a person to really get how shitty other people can be. It took me until my twenties to really understand how easy life is as a straight white male, even as I saw people get bullied (and worse) over differing from me in any one of those ways, and I only really got it after people around me brought it up. I'm sure that if I'd stopped to think about it I could have figured it out on my own (looking back, I feel like an idiot for not seeing it), but it wasn't a part of my personal daily life, so it stayed in that blind spot.

I just hope that these revelations go beyond Weinstein, beyond Hollywood, beyond show business. It's just difficult to stay positive knowing that tens of millions of people voted for one of these assholes, and would love to vote for him again in a couple of years.
 
A

Ambient80

Member
Good night, a guy can’t even make a REALLY good gesture/donation without a few people coming out and trying to take a dump all over it, based on zero information or facts at all.
 
S

Shredderi

Member
Very nice move from Kevin. I won't take part in the speculative witch hunting though. Not for me. If people who have worked with him comes out and tells that they have talked or heard Smith talking to people about Harvey's behaviour and thus proving he had to know exactly what was going on, I ain't going on that road.
 
Kadayi

Kadayi

Banned
Didn't the Weinsteins sell Miramax to Disney years ago? Unless there are some financial tie-ins still, I don't think either of the brothers would be profiting off of any residuals at this juncture.
 
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