James Franco has stayed pretty quiet after a number of women – some of whom were his former acting students – accused him of “harassment” and “sexual exploitation” and brought a lawsuit to his doorstep, but now he’s finally responded to the accusations by *checks notes* attacking women and the MeToo movement. Yeah.
The GOAT team talk about the Harvey Weinstein trial and the MeToo movement on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
According to a demurrer filed to Los Angeles county superior court by James Franco’s attorneys (via Variety) in an attempt to throw the lawsuit out, the actor claims (via his attorneys) that the accusations are false and his accusers are simply jumping on the MeToo “bandwagon” with the “obvious goal of grabbing as much publicity as possible for attention-hungry plaintiffs.”
The demurrer also describes James Franco as “an ardent believer in the righteousness of the MeToo and Times Up movements” and argues that while many “reprehensible individuals” have been brought down by these movements, they’ve “ensnared an innocent man.”
For those who need a refresher on what this James Franco/MeToo saga is, two of his former acting students, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, filed a lawsuit alleging that his school was just an opportunity for the actor to sexually exploit young women. Prior to the lawsuit, five women (including Tither-Kaplan) came forward in January 2018 with more misconduct accusations against Franco in a Los Angeles Times story.
There’s lots to dissect here. Harassment and misconduct accusations are serious, especially since the dawning of the MeToo movement, and it’s understandable that James Franco wants to defend himself.
But he (and his attorneys) should’ve just stuck to the stock standard “these accusations are false” statement instead of attacking his accusers and slamming them for jumping on the MeToo bandwagon for attention because that’s not going to help anyone, least of all himself.
Hell, the filed demurrer attacks his accusers before heel-face-turning to how James Franco is a supporter of MeToo. How are we supposed to take his support seriously when he’s attacking women after getting called out? It’s just not a good look, not that any look is good in this saga.
It remains to be seen how this all shakes out but for what it’s worth, James Franco’s attorneys state that he “is doing what is best for him: forcefully denying the scurrilous and false accusations but supporting his accusers right to their day in court. In the end, Franco is confident that he will be vindicated.”
Not predicting or insinuating here but that all sounds pretty similar to what Harvey Weinstein said and we all know how that story ended. Just saying.
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