Lipman: Women are sending out mixed messages in #Metoo era
FEMALE celebrities are sending out mixed messages in the #Metoo era by dressing like “prostitutes”, Maureen Lipman has said.
The veteran actress also defended Roman Polanski, the director who pleaded guilty to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in the Seventies, saying the world operated to different standards back then.
Lipman, 72, said it is a good thing that abuse victims feel empowered by the #Metoo movement to come forward. But she went on: “All this bondage clothing, dressed a bit like a prostitute would have dressed… Young female pop stars today, for example, are saying, ‘It’s my body and I’m empowered to show it to you.’ But then, ‘Don’t touch it, don’t come near it, don’t flirt with it.’
“And that is a bit of a shame, because flirting is some of the best fun you’ve ever had in your life.
“We’re batting our eyelids and clenching our teeth at the same time. And that is very confusing.” She told Radio Times that the #Metoo movement risks “going too far… we mustn’t wipe out men.
“I know men have brutalised women over centuries, but I don’t think the message we’re giving out with #Metoo is right. It’s too all-inclusive, and it smacks to me of the reaction to Jimmy Savile: ‘We messed up big-time, now let’s get every light entertainer and unfashionable comedian or performer, let’s get ’em for putting a hand on a knee 40 years ago.’”
Lipman worked with Polanski on his 2002 film The Pianist. She said: “We’ve got to stop judging everybody now on the mores of then. [In the Seventies] it
was very plausible for a young girl to be brought to Jack Nicholson’s house and left with Roman Polanski. It wasn’t an unusual thing.”
She also defended Woody Allen, saying: “The only reason not to work with Woody now is that the films are rubbish. Who wouldn’t work with him if he’s going to redo Hannah and Her Sisters?”
The actress, who has been working on stage and screen for 50 years, is joining the cast of Coronation Street.
She has appeared in the show once before, however she will return as a new character, Evelyn Plummer, described by the soap’s producers as “eye-wateringly withering”.
She has turned down an approach to appear on Strictly Come Dancing because “the fact is that the person who’s pretty, whether it’s Joe Mcfadden or Abbey Clancy, is going to win. It ain’t gonna be Ann Widdecombe.
“So if you want to have Craig [Revel Horwood] telling you that your arms are like old windmill sails, it’s fine. But I’m quite sensitive.”