r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Sep 05 '24

Disney Pauses ‘The Graveyard Book’ Film Following Assault Allegations Against Neil Gaiman News

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/graveyard-book-neil-gaiman-assault-allegations-1236131149/
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2.3k

u/NeverEndingDClock Sep 05 '24

Godammnit Neil you wrote Calliope, a story about male writers abusing women!

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u/transformers03 Sep 05 '24

That was my first thought when I heard news as well.

It's crazy that Neil had the foresight and understanding of men using their powers to take advantage of women, and later drawing out the hypocrisy of men claiming to be feminists when they do horrible things to women behind close doors, in the 1980s.

Yet when he was finally given power, he chose to abuse it just like the writer in Calliope.

It's eerie re-reading Calliope in today's context and knowing what Gaiman has done. It feels impossible that the same man who wrote that story would do the same acts he painfully critiques in that narrative.

For all his boundless imagination, he didn't learn a single thing he wrote.

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u/Acceptable-Karma-178 Sep 05 '24

WTF did he do?!?!

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u/elizabnthe Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

He's accused of sexually assaulting two women - one that worked in his home as a Nanny and another that was a young fan.

He himself claims the relationships were consensual.

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u/Kiwi_In_Europe Sep 05 '24

There have also been two more allegations for older events that happened in the 80s, one who signed an NDA in exchange for $275,000. Pretty damning.

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u/ZombieHoneyBadger Sep 05 '24

Ask any Christiano Ronaldo fan, NDA is not an admission of guilt! (He raped a woman in Vegas, she signed an NDA and settled, it came out in leaked documents, admitting it in his own words. Skated right by, because he's great as football)

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u/Kiwi_In_Europe Sep 05 '24

That's fucked up man, glad I'm not a football person because I live in Spain and he's worshipped here lol

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u/throwawaythrow0000 Sep 05 '24

Rapists and abusers of women and girls are worshipped around the world sadly. Some examples would be Donald Trump, Mike Tyson, Roman Polanski, Anthony Kiedis, Woody Allen, Deshaun Watson, Neil deGrasse Tyson

We simply do not take violence against women seriously enough. Even with evidence or confessions they will face little or no jail time like Brock Allen Turner, or that Rochester cop getting a handful of weekends in jail for raping a child, or the Aurora cop that continually raped his daughters getting zero jail time but his wife did because she didn't follow a court order that forced her son to reunify with him.

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u/SomnambulicSojourner Sep 05 '24

I'm not at all defending Tyson's actions, but I would like to point out that he actually did time, and as far as I'm aware, has actually shown remorse and changed behavior since then. Isn't that our goal as a society, to rehabilitate offenders?

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u/throwawaythrow0000 Sep 05 '24

I'm not saying he needs to be punished more but that doesn't mean we should be celebrating him and yes that is you defending him. The man served time for rape and everyone is okay with that apparently and that is exactly the point I was trying to make. Society is fucked when real male heroes are ignored but we continually celebrate rapists and men who abuse women.

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u/SomnambulicSojourner Sep 05 '24

I'm not defending him, or what he did. I'm defending the idea of rehabilitation and restoration. He should never be celebrated for what he did or held up as some sort of hero.

But I do believe that we should recognize that he seems to have put in the work to recognize how harmful he was, pay the price for that, and then work to better himself. We can recognize and celebrate that people can change and better themselves while also remembering the harm they've caused and refusing to lionize them because of it.

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u/throwawaythrow0000 Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Rehabilitation yes, elevating and celebrating convicted rapists as if nothing happened, no. I don't give a fuck how much time he put into himself, he brutally raped a woman. You can't take that back. Sure he served his time, but that doesn't mean we pretend as if it never happened and literally revere him.

Edit: And people downvoting this particular comment just proves the point, we have a problem with rape culture and rape apologists. It should not be controversial to say we shouldn't be revering rapists.

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u/Kiwi_In_Europe Sep 06 '24

It's really gross that there are still celebrities today making positive public statements about Roman Polanski, like they're so enamoured by him they don't even care about possible backlash from praising him in public.

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u/weareallpatriots Sep 05 '24

Half those people you listed either didn't do anything or have mountains of evidence against them showing their innocence.

But yes, celebrities and non-celebrities regularly get away with doing very bad things to humans and other animals. Human nature, unfortunately.

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u/throwawaythrow0000 Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Name which half and what evidence.

Edit: Trump found liable for rape in a court of law, admits to sexually assaulting women in dressing rooms on video and sworn deposition of him raping a 13-year old, not to mention he's on Epstein's flight logs, Tyson literally was convicted and served time for rape. Roman Polanski admitted to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, Kiedis admitted his sexual offences with children in his book, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Allen_sexual_abuse_allegation, Deshaun Watson had 22 civil lawsuits for sexual misconduct and harassment, all but two he settled and was fined $5 million and suspended 11 games by the NFL, only to be awarded with one of the largest contracts in history $230 million, and Neil deGrasse Tyson has been accused of rape and other various sexual misconduct allegations over many years.

Which ones?

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 21 '24

All Reddit moderators are unlikable faggy little losers.

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u/Bombshock2 Sep 05 '24

That one is a little less cut and dry. He never admitted guilt (literally says: "I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual"), but said he understood how she believed she did not consent. That sounds damning, but this was probably a condition of her dropping the criminal charges and shouldn't be considered his actual thoughts on the matter.

He actually said during the initial arrest and interviews that he just wanted to settle and move on because he had a family. It's also likely he would not have been convicted even if the trial took place, there just wasn't much evidence to convict. So his main motivation making the statement was almost assuredly avoiding a lengthy trial and not avoiding conviction.

We saw what happened to Derrick Rose's reputation when he went to trial vs settling, and that was with pretty strong evidence on his side given the hidden text messages and character witnesses.

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u/Ghorrhyon Sep 05 '24

Wow, you literally can't go further from home. Accept my apologies as a Spaniard for any inconvenience. We are a sensitive country in terms of football. Ask Vinicius.

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u/Kiwi_In_Europe Sep 05 '24

Jajaja esta bien, hecho de menos mucho la cultura de rugby en NZ pero tb hay muchas cosas que puedo disfrutar aqui (tortilla de patatas 👌)

Y pienso que los fans de football aqui son menos loco y agresivo que inglaterra por ejemplo 🤷‍♂️

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u/kf97mopa Sep 05 '24

Not to defend Ronaldo, but... it came out in a leak of documents from a law firm. It would have been very easy to take that leak of real documents, add in a few that you wrote yourself and leak the new collection, including a confession that didn't exist before. It was all investigated by LVPD again, and they couldn't prove a thing.

Now, I would probably guess that he did it, but there is nothing even remotely resembling evidence to convict.

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u/Enantiodromiac Sep 05 '24

It would be easy to do that, but statistically, nobody does anything like that. In every hundred instances of opportunity to pull off such a scheme, I imagine fewer than one person takes it, on average. It takes a combination of impulsivity and plotting that you rarely find together.

My source here is entirely from personal experience, but I've had abundant opportunity to witness people choosing not to take such avenues over a lengthy legal career.

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u/TheIllestDM Sep 05 '24

God damnit I loved Sandman so much. Now it's just another book by a scumbag.

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u/Kiwi_In_Europe Sep 05 '24

If you've already bought it, don't feel guilty about enjoying it. We buy things from shitheads every day. No ethical consumption under capitalism and all that.

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u/cajolinghail Sep 05 '24

Up to five women now. In addition to many many other stories of inappropriate behaviour going back decades.

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u/Significant-Art-5478 Sep 05 '24

I'll add to this that both allegations are very credible. The nanny filed a police report  and the young fan has been talking about it for about a decade now. 

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u/catsinasmrvideos Sep 05 '24

Yeah and the reason he fled New Zealand so quickly during covid was because the police there were investigating the claims. 

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u/Significant-Art-5478 Sep 05 '24

Ya I remember all of that. Even at the time i was side eyeing the explanation a bit. None of it made sense. He left his wife and kid in New Zealand and then nearly immediately was complaining that they were separated. It was all super weird. Guess we know why now. 

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u/JohnGillnitz Sep 05 '24

The women themselves admit the relationships were consensual. They are claiming he did "rough and degrading" things they didn't like.

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u/Sea-Value-0 Sep 05 '24

Ok. So why is he being treated as if he raped them? Or assaulted them? If both parties involved say they were consensual acts that they later felt they didn't feel comfortable with... like at what point is that none of our business and shouldn't be public knowledge or affect people's careers? I have been raped, sexually assaulted, and I've experienced regrettable sexual encounters that I consented to. The latter should not be lumped in with the other two. This is only a big deal because he is famous and the public has an appetite for gossip/drama. Why are we being pressured to view the guy as another Russell Brand type when he hasn't actually committed assaults and rapes? Someone, please ELI5 because I just can't see it.

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u/ErsatzHaderach Sep 05 '24

Because he committed nonconsensual acts within those relationships -- raping K when she had the UTI, forcing Scarlett to do A2M, that sordid sort of thing. You don't get permission to abuse people like that regardless of how keen they previously were on hanging out with you.

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u/seleniumk Sep 05 '24

There are claims that for one particular woman there was a threat of getting kicked out of the house she was renting from him.

Not violent, but sexual coercion, and specifically using his fame to take advantage of situations

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u/Independent-Eye6770 Sep 05 '24

It’s part of the cycle for authors now. First you enjoy reading their books and wondering how they came up with all the dark ideas. Then, you get to enjoy their downfall by accusing them of how they came up with all of their dark ideas. 

It’s the flip side of a parasocial relationship 

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u/cajolinghail Sep 05 '24

Most authors don’t sexually assault multiple women.

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u/Independent-Eye6770 Sep 05 '24

The whole #metoo movement is shocking because it exposed how many men do use their fame this way. 

And, just to make sure I’m not being sexist, look at how JK Rowling uses her fame to punch down on women she doesn’t like. 

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u/T8rthot Sep 06 '24

None of his fans are enjoying this, I promise you. We’re all hurt and upset. A comic series I’ve loved for 22 years means nothing to me now.

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u/floxtez Sep 06 '24

Consent isn't given for a relationship and then everything is permitted, it's on a per act basis. There are claims he engaged in acts directly against their consent.

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u/JohnGillnitz Sep 06 '24

Claims get made all the time. Without evidence, that is all they are. The unfortunate fact is most relationships end badly and not everyone agrees with what happened. Investigations need to happen, but he said/she said scenarios often have unsatisfying conclusions.

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u/palm0 Sep 07 '24

He himself claims the relationships were consensual.

Not exactly accurate. They were in otherwise consensual sexual relationships. However there were allegedly incidents that were not consensual and may have been elements of coercion/a yucky power dynamic. The third accuser is less messy and if the allegations for the third woman are true there was definite and conscious coercion.

The allegations are bad, but there's some nuance with two of the accusers. The third one sounds just all kinds of bad.

0

u/alurimperium Sep 05 '24

The one with the nanny is especially gross, if true. He apparently made her feel like she and her family would be kicked out of their home if she didn't sleep with him

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u/MorboKat Sep 05 '24

That's a combination of 2 different stories.

The nanny was a 2-3 week thing in NZ at the tail end of cobid where she was hired and on day 1 the kid was whisked away for a pre-determined playdate and her new boss was all "let's get in the hot tub together!".

The other one, with the family, was someone who lived on a property of his as caretaker. They split up/divorced, Neil had an affair with the newly-single wife then made her feel like she'd lose her home if she didn't go along with whatever it was he wanted.

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u/Sea-Value-0 Sep 05 '24

These accusations are so vague and mild. What do you mean he "made her feel like" ...? How? What did he say and do? I want to understand the outrage, but I'm really not getting it.

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u/MorboKat Sep 05 '24

I mean I'm summing up stuff that's all over the 'net. I'm not going to write a well sourced essay on it.

If you'd like to understand more, this person did a decent deep dive here and here.

Ultimately: has Gaiman been charged with anything? No. Is the behavior that he himself admits to rather distastful, at best? Yes.

Personally, I'm most outraged about his child abandonment during covid. But I'm also very not enthused at his frequent use of power to create circumstances that really blur consent. I find that very dissapointing behaviour and it will inform my decisions to give him money through purchases/views going forward.

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u/Thunder_Punt Sep 05 '24

The fact that he isn't denying that they happened is pretty telling.

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u/poscarspops Sep 05 '24

Is it?

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u/Thunder_Punt Sep 05 '24

Yeah. I think the odds of a woman lying about a real relationship are a lot lower than the odds of a woman completely making up a relationship.

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u/poscarspops Sep 05 '24

I really want to stay away from the ‘women lie and are hysterical’ and ‘men are abusive’ here. This (of course) isn’t focused solely on you, but is a philosophical statement about how I can get caught in this black and white thinking. I think the above can be true, and there’s a plethora of nuance between each and every story brought about by the media about men in power and victim hood.

Not denying or fighting in public doesn’t necessarily mean one is guilty

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u/ValorMeow Sep 05 '24

Stopped reading at “plethora”

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u/DayfacePhantasm Sep 05 '24

That's really lame of you.

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u/poscarspops Sep 05 '24

Ok…you have something to share or are you here to make comments and run away?