|
|
Post by UncleDeadly on Jun 12, 2021 15:01:45 GMT
Sorry but I have to interject here. I think people are letting their dislike of the RTD era cloud their judgement somewhat. Nope, 'fraid not, Burrun. that's irrelevant here. But i do think, to be honest, that you are letting your fondness for Barrowman cloud yours.
No-one did.
|
|
|
|
Post by burrunjor on Jun 12, 2021 15:25:20 GMT
Sorry but I have to interject here. I think people are letting their dislike of the RTD era cloud their judgement somewhat. Nope, 'fraid not, Burrun. that's irrelevant here. But i do think, to be honest, that you are letting your fondness for Barrowman cloud yours.
No-one did.
Not really to be honest. I think he does sound like an annoying arse and if he continued to do that, I wouldn't want to work with him. I honestly fail to see how Barrowman's behaviour is any different from some of the other things that have been done on sets over the years. Again are we going to cancel Colin for that Nicola Bryant joke? |
|
|
|
Post by UncleDeadly on Jun 12, 2021 15:32:14 GMT
Nope, 'fraid not, Burrun. that's irrelevant here. But i do think, to be honest, that you are letting your fondness for Barrowman cloud yours.
No-one did.
Not really to be honest. I think he does sound like an annoying arse and if he continued to do that, I wouldn't want to work with him. I honestly fail to see how Barrowman's behaviour is any different from some of the other things that have been done on sets over the years. Again are we going to cancel Colin for that Nicola Bryant joke? It's not just "annoying", it's indecent exposure and it's the same thing in the eyes of the law, whether you're an actor or a chartered accountant.
Biting someone on the arse once and repeatedly exposing your penis are really two different things...
|
|
|
|
Post by Bernard Marx on Jun 12, 2021 17:58:16 GMT
Sorry but I have to interject here. I think people are letting their dislike of the RTD era cloud their judgement somewhat. To call Barrowman an annoying arse on set is fair. To call him a sexual predator is wrong. With all due respect, I haven't called him a sexual predator, and I have distinguished him from Clarke. He is obviously infinitely worse, and there are actually a few episodes from the era I enjoy (amidst the many lesser episodes elsewhere). But he has indulged in innumerable instances of sexually inappropriate behaviour. Receiving a reputation for exposing yourself doesn't happen out of nowhere. To start with being on set is a totally different type of job than most. You can't compare it too "if I did this at my job." Actors always lark about, pull stupid pranks and do things that would get you fired in any other job. Colin Baker bit Nicola Bryant on the arse as a practical joke when he was standing behind her in one story. Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines picked Deborah Watling up and threw her into a massive pile of foam as a laugh whilst filming a 60s story. Lucy Lawless forces a kiss on Ted Raimi in this out take from Xena here. Now granted I don't think there is anyone who would reject a kiss from Lucy Lawless LOL. Still if you wanted you could say "oh she was assaulting him." "Imagine if a woman from work did this to you." I think that's a false equivalence. Many of these scenarios are isolated incidents. If Colin Baker had got his cock out whilst biting Bryant's arse during that occasion and proceeded to do so multiple times afterwards, you'd definitely have a point. A mere kiss and one or two isolated incidents beforehand is definitely not the same as having your genitals out for the bulk of one's time on set. As for behaviour on set being different to that of any other job, I find it hard to reconcile that it warrants one exposing themselves all the time. The working environment is obviously more flexible, but exposing oneself on such a regular basis is questionable to put it mildly. Pranks don't need to involve your penis on every occasion either, otherwise it can border on a sex offence. Point is that actors do shit like this all the time to wind each other up in long hours and have fun. Obvs if someone is uncomfortable and really upset by this joking about, then it has to stop right away. In John Barrowman's case however nobody told him they felt uncomfortable. That last point isn't exactly accurate. Take this account right here: www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/may/07/noel-clarke-accused-of-sexual-harassment-on-doctor-who-set“Sometimes he’d call me into his dressing room, and I would knock on the door and he’d say, ‘Oh, look at this’, and he’d just have his willy out, standing in the doorway,” she said. “It was kind of accepted that it was his thing,” she said. "Although she did not appreciate his behaviour, or find it particularly funny, Monica stressed she did not feel unsafe. “It just felt really uncomfortable,” she said." I don't ascertain that he was a sexual abuser by any stretch, but ultimately, this sort of behaviour isn't exactly conscientious, and I wouldn't exactly feel comfortable around the guy either if I happened to be in his presence. You'd also be pressured into not feeling comfortable in telling him what you thought courtesy of pressure on set, as was presumably the case with the woman in the article. As the video itself and Liz Sladen's biography show, they all thought it was hilarious and encouraged him to keep doing it for a laugh. Given the account I outlined above, I don't think encouraging it was a particularly wise decision. What is remotely funny about it? Maybe this is just me, but if someone got their cock out and placed it on my shoulder, or casually flipped it out in the middle of conversation, I'd feel extremely tempted to either kick them in the bollocks or leave altogether. It's beyond weird. Making the odd suggestive remark or gesture is fine given the context, but constantly having your knob out is something else. The first time he was told that it wasn't funny or appropriate? He stopped right away. He also never did it on Desperate Housewives, or I'm A Celeb or on Panto or anything like that, and he never had any convictions in his private life, so he is not exactly a serial flasher either. I dunno. The "Barrowman's utter depravity" threads that have existed on this version of the Hive and others seem to suggest otherwise. This is bloody weird, for starters. www.entertainmentdaily.co.uk/tv/john-barrowman-ball-sack-celebrity-juice/He's not been convicted and he's far from an abuser, but he seems to do this on an alarming basis. Noel Clarke however if we are to believed outright came onto people, got angry when they rejected his advances and tried to use his position of power to either force them to be with him, or wreck their careers. He also actively did bully people, blacklist them etc. He is a genuine canute, but one guy being a dick on set doesn't mean RTD was responsible. There were assholes on the set of all genre classics, like the Welsh guy in Survivors who was supposed to have been a lunatic misogynist. Yep, Clarke is undoubtedly worse. A total arsehole in every sense of the word. But I think ameliorating Barrowman's dodgy behaviour just because Clarke's was worse isn't something I'd ever consider doing. I don't think RTD is necessarily solely responsible, as I said at the end of my post, but as documented in the article above, he seems to have a propensity for encouraging this shite and there was certainly a cliquey atmosphere on set, as you said yourself elsewhere. We get on, and I respect your stance, but I'm afraid I'll have to agree to disagree with you on this score. I just don't understand how this sort of behaviour is worth encouraging or acceptable in any way, given that none of these are isolated incidents. Hope you can see where I'm coming from here, anyway. |
|
|
|
Post by burrunjor on Jun 12, 2021 19:17:37 GMT
Well I hadn't read that article on that extra feeling uncomfortable so fair enough. I'm pretty sure someone called Barrowman a sexual predator in this or another thread. I'll look through it later. I know you like some of the RTD era. With that post, I was more just addressing the entire thread and Hive in general. As for your other points I'll say this.
Whilst Colin and Lucy Lawless' moments are one offs as far as we know, (who knows what other pranks there were like that on set.) That's the point that even those one off incidents are not what you'd get in a normal work place. Imagine if you bit your workers bum once, or if some girl you knew forced a kiss on you. The fact that those happened even once shows that in that environment where actors spend so long with each other and end up getting too comfortable in each others presence, boundries end up being pushed in a way that's more like being among friends than usual work colleagues.
Among other examples include Sarah Michelle Gellar tugging on James Marsters cock and balls. When they had to do all those awful Buffy/Spike sex scenes, James would have to wear a cod piece and she'd regularly pull it off in front of the crew to torment and annoy him for jokes! Similarly Oliver Reed regularly used to expose himself on set with his friends too and would run around doing mad things.
Point is this type of behaviour is annoying and stupid and directors, producers should always encourage a professional atmosphere, BUT I think to isolate John Barrowman and ban him from everything ever associated with DW as people are doing is a step too far, as is lumping him in with Clarke.
I am not defending Barrowman's behaviour BTW. I would never EVER allow anything like that on a set.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bernard Marx on Jun 13, 2021 14:58:04 GMT
Whilst Colin and Lucy Lawless' moments are one offs as far as we know, (who knows what other pranks there were like that on set.) That's the point that even those one off incidents are not what you'd get in a normal work place. Imagine if you bit your workers bum once, or if some girl you knew forced a kiss on you. The fact that those happened even once shows that in that environment where actors spend so long with each other and end up getting too comfortable in each others presence, boundries end up being pushed in a way that's more like being among friends than usual work colleagues. Among other examples include Sarah Michelle Gellar tugging on James Marsters cock and balls. When they had to do all those awful Buffy/Spike sex scenes, James would have to wear a cod piece and she'd regularly pull it off in front of the crew to torment and annoy him for jokes! Similarly Oliver Reed regularly used to expose himself on set with his friends too and would run around doing mad things. Point is this type of behaviour is annoying and stupid and directors, producers should always encourage a professional atmosphere, BUT I think to isolate John Barrowman and ban him from everything ever associated with DW as people are doing is a step too far, as is lumping him in with Clarke. I am not defending Barrowman's behaviour BTW. I would never EVER allow anything like that on a set. Just came back to reply to the rest of this. Hmm. That'd be all well and good, assuming that said "boundaries crossed" equated to normal behaviour with friends. As you say yourself, you wouldn't allow Barrowman's behaviour on set primarily, so does it therefore equate to behaviour "among friends"? I wouldn't behave that way amongst my respective friends, male or female. It'd be utterly fokking creepy. It would look uncomfortable even in an environment as lax or wild as a party to turn to a woman out of the blue and say "Look at my cock", as the woman in the article attests Barrowman did. As for your broader points beforehand concerning actors on sets encouraging this stuff (which I forgot to acknowledge before)- actors tend to have fairly strong influence across the hierarchy of a production process as opposed to merely the director or showrunner. As evidenced by that woman's own story (herself only an extra rather than anyone with an iota of power), the power imbalance is clearly positioned against those lower down the pecking order, which means that those who felt uncomfortable amongst the lower rungs of the staff would have little agency when it came to calling out or stopping this behaviour. Eccleston left the programme for precisely these reasons, as he has himself said on multiple occasions. The power imbalance amongst the production team and the neglect of staff members lower down the pecking order influenced his decision to leave, and there's a good argument to be made that Barrowman's behaviour may have played a part in that. I don't want to make any unsubstantiated claims, but it does seem interesting that Barrowman was syphoned off to his own series mere episodes after he was introduced in series 1. The argument I'm making doesn't involve anything to do with cancel culture, or anything related to Barrowman being blacklisted or taken away from the series. Banning him out of the blue, especially now after his actions were also known to others for several years, is just a disingenuous gesture and not exactly a move of principle given that this went unabated for so long, and Clarke is ultimately a far bigger wanker. We can absolutely agree on that. But this kind of behaviour doesn't deserve excusing either, especially considering how hard it'd be to call someone like that up on it given the hierarchies at play. Hope you understand my position a little more now, anyway. |
|
