When Courtney Love speaks as the voice of reason, the conversation (or perhaps in the case of Harvey Weinstein, the lack of one) tends to resemble competing nuthouse monologues.
“If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a party at the Four Seasons, don’t go,” the Hole lead singer quipped after a red-carpet reporter asked her in 2005 for advice for young actresses. Love, normally at the time displaying an abnormal, over-the-top, in-your-face persona, uncharacteristically paused, appeared reticent, and audibly questioned the wisdom of saying what she ultimately said before blurting it into a microphone outside a Comedy Central roast of Pamela Anderson.
Weinstein receiving a GLAAD Excellence in Media Award here, an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire there, shows that the scuttlebutt predating Ms. Love’s remarks did not hurt the reputation of Mr. Lust, at least until earlier this month when a few actresses (now numbering more than three dozen) went public with specific stories involving Weinstein that ranged from the creepy to the criminal.
Love maintains she paid a price.
“Although I wasn’t one of his victims,” Love tweeted, “I was eternally banned by CAA for speaking out against #Harvey Weinstein #rape.”
CAA, short for the Creative Artists Agency, represents George Clooney, Jennifer Lawrence, Tom Hanks, and other celluloid heroes. Though praised for her work in The People vs. Larry Flynt, Love remained away from the silver screen for over a decade following her decision to play Shakespeare’s “wise fool” in packaging serious advice in the form of a joke.
In Hollywood, where they make the dead and the dinosaurs roam the earth again, they can also kill vibrant film careers for ridiculing a rapist and turn the inhumane into humanitarians.