Minister: Use Cannes to liberate women’s voices
loNdoN: The movie industry must use this week’s Cannes Film Festival to “liberate and listen to women’s voices” if it is to stamp out sexual harassment, the French minister for gender equality said.
From a hotline to report harassers at the event to flyers urging participants to behave properly, Marlene Schiappa hoped to use the glitz and glamour of Cannes to ramp up the pressure.
The movie industry “has to be part of the solution”, Schiappa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an e-mail ahead of this year’s festival, which she said should be the “basis for liberating and listening to women’s voices”.
“The fact that the festival’s presidents decided to fight with us against sexual harassment for not just actresses, but also workers and spectators at the festival ... is unprecedented and a great step forward.”
The 71st Cannes Film Festival will run from today till May 19 and follows allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein that sparked last year’s #MeToo campaign, in which both women and men shared their experiences of harassment.
Once one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures, Weinstein has been accused by more than 70 women of sexual misconduct, including rape.
He has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone.
In April, Schiappa launched a campaign with the festival organisers to tackle sexual harassment.
Initiatives include a hotline and flyers reading “Correct behaviour required” and “Don’t ruin the party, stop harassment!” with the hashtag #nerienlaisserpasser (“Don’t let anything pass”).
Celebrities have used previous film awards this year, including the British Academy Film Awards in London and the Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles, to wear black outfits
in a gesture of protest and badges name-checking the Time’s Up campaign against sexual harassment.
Australian movie star Cate Blanchett, who also took part in Time’s Up, will chair this year’s event, becoming the 11th woman to do so in the Cannes festival’s history.
Rachel Krys, co-director of End Violence Against Women Coalition, welcomed the Cannes hotline.
However, she pointed out that “the system which supports and protects powerful men, rather than helping victims, also has to be dismantled”.
The movie industry should also “call time on films which fetishise violence against women and promote a toxic version of masculinity, and instead create art which challenges gender stereotypes and shifts social norms”, Krys said by e-mail. — Reuters