The move comes three months after the the DGA announced that it had launched disciplinary proceedings to expel Harvey Weinstein as a member, two weeks after the extensive revelations of alleged sexual abuse leveled against the disgraced mogul. The DGA has a long-standing practice of not commenting on internal union matters, but decided to make an exception in this case. Weinstein resigned a month later.
The DGA said Thursday that the recent public focus on sexual harassment is long overdue.
5 comments:
It is about time that the Directors Guild of America steps up to the plate and speak out against sexual harassment. One would hope that it would be instinctual for a union to “condemn sexual harassment” but with the news of more and more people being the subject of sexual harassment and assault at the hands of a director, it was obviously something that needed to be explicitly stated. I think it is definitely a step in the right direction for the Directors Guild to finally speak out against Weinstein and create a no tolerance environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment. Now it will be interesting to see how true they are to their word and how they are progress from the stigma that surrounds male directors and the advantage they over their colleagues and counterparts. It is definitely long overdue, but it is a step in the right direction and I only hope they follow through.
It is encouraging to see that the Director's Guild of America is formally and publicly making a statement and attempted progress to the issue of sexual harassment. Clearly this is something that will set the standard for many other groups of professionals in the entertainment industry. As the DGA said in their email, directors are respected roles in the room and often set the precedent for how people act and conduct interactions. Although a situation many not directly affect a director, being the sort of "captain of their ship", all issues should still be on their radar. Although it does seem like the DGA is making serious changes to change behaviors, some of there initiatives may end up being less than helpful. For example, the sexual harassment training that they plan on requiring could cause reactance, which is a psychological phenomenon where by being told what you can and can't do causes people to react in the opposite way of proposed resolution. Additionally, many companies use trainings such as these for lawsuit prevention rather than education. While I don't believe that is the DGA's intention, it's always good to keep in mind that this institution of a "training course" is something that is commonplace and often not very effective.
I commented on an article last week about a similar protocol from the producers guild and I commented on an article last week about a similar protocol from the producers guild and I am really glad to see that this is continuing as a trend in this industry. I have witnessed directors not pay attention either on purpose or bot, to the feelings of those in the rehearsal room, and I think this is a great step towards making people feel heard and safe in the rehearsal room. I think also the high profile nature of these guidelines, similar to those in the producers guild, will really bring awareness to these issues and pave the way for smaller oragnizations or the industry as a whole to follow. I think that with every new set of guidelines or protocols the will always be kinks and things that will need to be improved, but I do hope that this sort of thing continues, and that people listen and keep up with it.
I agree with the DGA’s statement in that the actions needed to be taken in preventing sexual harassment in the workplace is long overdue, but it was surprising to me the wording in the article about how they “made an exception” in dealing with internal matters after the Harvey Weinstein allegations. To me, these sort of internal matters are of the utmost importance to the DGA. I do think online training in sexual harassment will help at least somewhat, yet it's frustrating that working adults in professional careers need the same training as 18 year-olds about to enter college on things like consent and respectfulness. However, I also think it was critical towards the end of the letter how it stated the way title IV works and the laws present for dealing with harassment in each state. Often times victims of sexual harassment won’t take allegations to an employer or someone higher because they aren’t clear of the actions that will be taken afterwards to help them.
This is a crucial step towards improving workplace safety for women and gender non-conforming persons. One of the major reasons why these cases went unreported for so long was because there was not a system in place for individuals to report cases of sexual harassment. As a result of the previous system where there wasn’t a clear chain of command and procedure for reporting such incident incidents, the result was a snowball effect. People were afraid to report on harassment for fear of retaliation, and well-intentioned people weren’t sure who the appropriate thought he was to report it to. The Directors Guild his take a crucial and important step in combating sexual assault in the film industry. Hopefully other unions and companies will come out with similar policies that streamline the procedure and process for reporting sexual harassment in the workplace. An additional benefit often overlooked is that by having a streamlined and standardized process in place this will also reduce the risk of false accusations being levied against people, because the process will allow for the appropriate investigation to take place in to insure that accurate claims are treated seriously and false claims are treated as such.
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