Dear TCL Readers: I got my first dose last Friday at the racetrack. I don’t gamble and even if I did I wouldn’t bet on horses and so I’d never visited the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens before. (Here’s why I was eligible, by the way.) So this pandemic anniversary already feels different, and not “oh, it’s March again.” I see the end, differentially distributed and still horrifically unequal. I suspect more of you have received first doses, maybe even second doses, and that will only increase over the next month.
I am a survivor of severe on set sexual harassment in my twenties, by a legit production company with name actors. I was chased around a remote 200' mesa in Northern New Mexico in 1987 for refusing to do a sex scene that wasn't in the script. I did manage to escape but not with my career intact, and was threatened so much I had to leave the state.
I describe myself as the canary in the coal mine, the one that got away, because I have a very clear sense of how the grooming culture of Hollywood really works going back to the earliest days when Von Stroheim would lock talent on a set and force a drunken orgy on unsuspecting actresses, to Fatty Arbuckle and the broken bottle rape, to Chaplin with underage girls, to the MGM coverup of the rape of Patricia Douglas and on and on up to Harvey Weinstein et al.
I started Safe Sets™ in 2019 to shine a spotlight on the fact that this is not some recent aberration but business as usual. A friend gave me a copy of your brilliant and tragic book The Real Lolita about Sally Horner and it really woke up a lot of things for me. Your level of research and compassion for these tragic, untold stories is extraordinary.
I am going to be one of several subjects in a new documentary called Brainwashed by Nina Menkes, produced by Abigal Disney and Maria Giese. https://www.brainwashedmovie.com/
I would love to talk about the institutionalization of Rape Culture in Hollywood with a female journalist that might actually dig in deep and make the case that rape has been the intent and foundation of the film industry since its inception.
A journalist of your caliber and determination would be such a gift to the #metoo movement and help enormously to bolster the argument so many brave actresses are making which is that this is not the exception but the rule. Understanding that you have a lot on your plate, I would still love to talk to you even if you don't have time for another project, and can be reached on my website: https://www.safe-sets.com/ or on my cell: 505-261-4485.
Dear Sarah -
I am a survivor of severe on set sexual harassment in my twenties, by a legit production company with name actors. I was chased around a remote 200' mesa in Northern New Mexico in 1987 for refusing to do a sex scene that wasn't in the script. I did manage to escape but not with my career intact, and was threatened so much I had to leave the state.
I describe myself as the canary in the coal mine, the one that got away, because I have a very clear sense of how the grooming culture of Hollywood really works going back to the earliest days when Von Stroheim would lock talent on a set and force a drunken orgy on unsuspecting actresses, to Fatty Arbuckle and the broken bottle rape, to Chaplin with underage girls, to the MGM coverup of the rape of Patricia Douglas and on and on up to Harvey Weinstein et al.
I started Safe Sets™ in 2019 to shine a spotlight on the fact that this is not some recent aberration but business as usual. A friend gave me a copy of your brilliant and tragic book The Real Lolita about Sally Horner and it really woke up a lot of things for me. Your level of research and compassion for these tragic, untold stories is extraordinary.
I am going to be one of several subjects in a new documentary called Brainwashed by Nina Menkes, produced by Abigal Disney and Maria Giese. https://www.brainwashedmovie.com/
I would love to talk about the institutionalization of Rape Culture in Hollywood with a female journalist that might actually dig in deep and make the case that rape has been the intent and foundation of the film industry since its inception.
A journalist of your caliber and determination would be such a gift to the #metoo movement and help enormously to bolster the argument so many brave actresses are making which is that this is not the exception but the rule. Understanding that you have a lot on your plate, I would still love to talk to you even if you don't have time for another project, and can be reached on my website: https://www.safe-sets.com/ or on my cell: 505-261-4485.
Best - Lara Dale
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4081494/