If you pay attention to the regular pop culture news cycle, two names you're definitely going to see are Jordan Peele and Harvey Weinstein. Peele's in the news because his 2017 smash hit satirical horror film Get Out is the talk of AWARDS SZN. Weinstein? Because he's a disgusting pig who's used his power to sexually harass and abusean astounding list of women. It was only a matter of time before their names joined in one news piece, and thanks to The Hollywood Reporter's latest Writer's Roundtable, we now have Peele keeping it 100 1,000 on Weinstein.
The roundtable, which paired Peele with creatives like Darren Aronofsky, Aaron Sorkin, and Fatih Akin (among others), ran through a litany of topics, and at one point the discussion shifted to how these filmmakers may have been "abused" by producers and the system. Anthony McCarten mentioned having an "anti-shout clause" in his deal specifically for Harvey Weinstein, who is known to be a loudmouthed producer who wielded that power to get a lot of shit done on films he worked on. When it was Peele's turn to speak, he held nothing back regarding his feelings toward Weinstein. He even hit 'em with a "first of all" (although that might not have been intentional).
"To the Harvey [matter], first of all, fuck him," Peele began. "He's an asshole. But that goes to this greater question of this systemic problem, as well. The industry is just part of the system, and its shortcomings [are those of] the larger system. There is this systemic issue that holds many of us back and many of us behind. I've never met Harvey Weinstein. But I know that there are many other people who are similar out there."
THR noted that this Roundtable went down on Oct. 10, so the initial Weinstein scandal was already public knowledge (after being whispered about in Hollywood for decades, it seems), so Peele could have definitely been speaking on Weinstein's sexual harassment and abuse allegations. You also get the feeling that he's speaking on Weinstein in a more general sense when it comes to how the Hollywood machine operates, and can hold creatives down.
Either way, props to Peele for being unafraid to keep it a buck on actual pieces of human garbage like Harvey Weinstein.
