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Jason Momoa

An old clip of Game of Thrones' Jason Momoa joking about raping 'beautiful women' has resurfaced today

A reminder of what has been going on in Hollywood all along.

Suicide Squad European Premiere - London PA Archive / PA Images PA Archive / PA Images / PA Images

EVERY DAY, WE are hearing more accounts of the horror that has been going on behind closed doors in Hollywood.

New stories about Harvey Weinstein are emerging daily. Yesterday Léa Seydoux and Cara Delevingne were the latest to share their experiences with the producer, who appears to have felt that no actress or model in Hollywood was off limits to him.

Harvey Weinstein allegations Neil Munns Neil Munns

This morning the world learned that Rose McGowan’s Twitter account was suspended after she called out Ben Affleck’s statement on Weinstein, believing it to be insincere.

McGowan shared a screenshot on her Instagram of the message she received from Twitter notifying her that her account was being temporarily shut down. She wrote “THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE MY VOICE [...] #whywomendontreport”

The notification told her that she could not resume her usage of Twitter until she deleted her tweets about Ben Affleck.

The abuse and toxic culture surrounding sexual harassment in Hollywood does not only exist at the level of producers and executives.

There are many examples, from the news that emerged about Ben Affleck groping Hilarie Burton yesterday, to a disturbing joke made by Jason Momoa in 2011, which resurfaced today.

What’s even more repugnant about Momoa’s comment is the fact that not one member of the Game of Thrones cast on the panel called him out on it, and it was met with immediate laughter from the audience at Comic Con 2011.

THOT PATROL / YouTube

During the interview, Momoa said:

As far as sci-fi/fantasy… I love that genre, there’s so many things that you can’t do [in other genres, but can do in sci-fi/fantasy] like rip someone’s tongue out of their throat and get away with it. And rape beautiful women!

Jokes like these (if you could even call this a joke – he’s literally saying that he loves this genre for giving him the opportunity to rape ‘beautiful women’ on screen), do nothing to help attitudes in society or these industries change.

As we’ve witnessed from Terry Crews and James Van Der Beek bravely discussing their experiences over the last day or two, societal attitudes to rape and sexual assault are as detrimental to men as they are to women.

This clip of Jason is six years old now, but it serves to illustrate the kind of stuff that has been going on all along, helping rape culture to thrive. Treating rape and sexual assault as anything other than gross acts of violence does not only dilute how seriously society perceives sexual violence to be, but also helps abusers to try and validate their actions.

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice European Premiere - London Ferdaus Shamim Ferdaus Shamim

On Tuesday TMZ announced that Harvey Weinstein decided to admit himself to a rehab centre in Europe to address his ‘sex addiction‘.

Weinstein’s settlement with Rose McGowan was in 1997. That means that this kind of behaviour has been going on for at least twenty years. It’s not sex addiction and it’s insulting on many levels to attempt to call it that.

Harvey Weinstein allegations Anthony Devlin Anthony Devlin

As The Atlantic wrote, it’s twenty years of ”abusive and coercive behaviour” that he used to inflict a great deal of pain on at least thirty women.

The ability to even attempt to sell this narrative is a luxury disproportionately afforded to powerful men – the ones who are not thugs or violent criminals, but simply can’t help themselves.

It is an astounding sense of entitlement that Weinstein has, not sex addiction. In this disturbing audio clip recorded by model Ambra Gutierrez in 2015, this entitlement can be heard. He tells Gutierrez he’s a “famous guy” when she insists that she’s very uncomfortable and does not want to enter his hotel room.

She complains that yesterday he touched her breast and he responds “Oh, jeez. I’m used to that.”

A warning in advance: this content of this recording will upset some listeners.

This huge scandal is the culmination of decades and decades of culture that can trivialise and shrug sexual violence off as a joke, blames victims and normalises this kind of behaviour. And it does not only happen in Hollywood.

If you or someone you know has been affected by the issues above, you can talk to the Rape Crisis Centre by calling 1800-77-88-88 from Ireland or +3531 661 4911 if you are abroad. 

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