A few days ago CNN published their "exclusive" report about Morgan Freeman's inappropriate behavior. While victims of assault and harassment do deserve to be heard, aren't we getting to the point where we are taking things too far?
The CNN's report looks like an individual blogger's desperate attempt to get wide coverage with pretty much nothing. But CNN isn't an individual blogger and they have enough coverage, so what's that all about?
Making harmless jokes, being harmlessly funny, maybe sometimes being slightly awkwardly annoying, does it really get to the point of harassment? The #metoo movement is important but this kind of stories only undermine it. If we continue in the same direction, then soon seeing a woman in a bar and making a compliment will be considered harassment. And nobody wants that, do we? And most importantly, if the gestures or comments were made by people we like, that's okay, but people we don't think we like doing that, does that make it harassment? No.
One woman mentioned in the CNN report has also come out and said out loud that CNN misrepresented her comments. WGN-TV's Tyra Martin, while she doesn't change her testimony, said that she does take issue with being named as one of Morgan Freeman's accusers. "That wasn't my experience of Morgan Freeman. The experiences were always fun for me."
In CNN report she's saying "When I stood up, I pulled my skirt part of my dress down and he did say, 'Oh, don't pull it down now.'" Reading that....I was just thinking, that's a joke or comment I could imagine doing myself. And it nowhere near harassment. Let's turn it upside down. If you're a woman, sitting in a cafeteria, and there a nice looking man sitting in the table next to you without a shirt, and he's starting to put the shirt back on. If you said that "Oh, don't put that back on," would anybody ever consider that anything else than a nice/fun comment? No.
Morgan Freeman has issued a statement himself as well, saying that he never sexually assaulted anyone. And the funny thing, nobody is even accusing him of that but CNN created a story about him being a harassing bully anyhow. His statement reads -
The CNN's report looks like an individual blogger's desperate attempt to get wide coverage with pretty much nothing. But CNN isn't an individual blogger and they have enough coverage, so what's that all about?
Making harmless jokes, being harmlessly funny, maybe sometimes being slightly awkwardly annoying, does it really get to the point of harassment? The #metoo movement is important but this kind of stories only undermine it. If we continue in the same direction, then soon seeing a woman in a bar and making a compliment will be considered harassment. And nobody wants that, do we? And most importantly, if the gestures or comments were made by people we like, that's okay, but people we don't think we like doing that, does that make it harassment? No.
One woman mentioned in the CNN report has also come out and said out loud that CNN misrepresented her comments. WGN-TV's Tyra Martin, while she doesn't change her testimony, said that she does take issue with being named as one of Morgan Freeman's accusers. "That wasn't my experience of Morgan Freeman. The experiences were always fun for me."
In CNN report she's saying "When I stood up, I pulled my skirt part of my dress down and he did say, 'Oh, don't pull it down now.'" Reading that....I was just thinking, that's a joke or comment I could imagine doing myself. And it nowhere near harassment. Let's turn it upside down. If you're a woman, sitting in a cafeteria, and there a nice looking man sitting in the table next to you without a shirt, and he's starting to put the shirt back on. If you said that "Oh, don't put that back on," would anybody ever consider that anything else than a nice/fun comment? No.
Morgan Freeman has issued a statement himself as well, saying that he never sexually assaulted anyone. And the funny thing, nobody is even accusing him of that but CNN created a story about him being a harassing bully anyhow. His statement reads -
"
I am devastated that 80 years of my life is at risk of being undermined, in the blink of an eye, by Thursday' media reports. All victims of assault and harassment deserve to be heard. And we need to listen to them. But it is not right to equate horrific incidents of sexual assault with misplaced compliments or humor.|
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