A Time’s Up Meeting of Hollywood Men Has Already Happened, According to William H. Macy
It appears that the men of Hollywood are finally trying to join the Time’s Up movement in a meaningful way.
There have been concerns raised since the birth of the movement at the beginning of the year that the men who’ve publicly appeared to participate by wearing Time’s Up pins and vaguely commenting on it haven't been doing the same amount of work as the women leading the movement — despite this being a problem that can only be solved with their active participation.
According to a new report from Variety though, it seems like some men are trying to help. While attending the 2018 SAG Awards on January 22, SAG Award winner William H. Macy went so far as to say that a group of men in Hollywood have gotten together already to have a meeting about helping with Time’s Up. In the post-acceptance interviews backstage, William told the publication “that he participated in a meeting of Hollywood men related to the Time’s Up movement.” William then commented on his perception about what it’s like to be a man right now, saying, “It’s hard to be a man these days. I think a lot of us feel like we’re under attack and that we need to apologize, and perhaps we do. We had a meeting. A bunch of guys got together under the auspices of Time’s Up. That’s good for men. Men don’t talk enough. And we talked.”
Unfortunately, William kept it super vague about what exactly these men discussed. Did they talk about ways to meaningfully change their behavior? Did they call each other out for being problematic?
That said, at least there appears to have been some progress, especially since the past few weeks have proven that there’s still a lot of work to be done. James Franco was all but called out by name by Scarlett Johansson at the Los Angeles Women’s March on January 20 for sporting a Time’s Up pin despite facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Alexander Skarsgård has been winning numerous awards for his Big Little Lies performance as an abusive husband who gets his comeuppance, and yet has repeatedly failed to voice support for victims of domestic violence or talk about the meaningfulness of bringing such a powerful storyline to the forefront. It should be noted his costar, Nicole Kidman, has been similarly sweeping for her Big Little Lies performance and has been making those connections in her speeches. And perhaps the saddest exhibit of potentially superficial allyship happened at the Golden Globes, where Stranger Things star David Harbour wore a Time’s Up pin but appeared to completely blank on why he was wearing it to begin with.
So while the men of Hollywood still obviously have a long way to go, it’s still a decent start to not only organize a meeting but to also publicly comment on what’s happening in our culture right now. Keep the momentum going, guys. We’re looking forward to hearing what you talked about in that meeting.
Related:Women Keep Having to Answer for Male Sexual Misconduct and It Needs to Stop
