Controversy might derail Oscar chances
Days after scoring major victories at the Golden Globes, two members of the creative team behind “Green Book” find themselves dealing with controversies over their past behavior.
Director and co-screenwriter Peter Farrelly has had to apologize for flashing his penis on the set of his 1990s films, and producer and co-screenwriter Nick Vallelonga deleted his Twitter account after a 2015 tweet supporting Donald Trump’s claim that Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks was shared.
Farrelly and Vallelonga might have been quick to go into damage-control mode, but was it enough to keep their film on track for Oscars consideration?
Following the successful Golden Globes haul for “Green Book,” the Cut revived old stories of Farrelly exposing himself by quoting 1998 articles from Newsweek and the Observer.
“In these stories,” according to the Cut, “it’s notable how Farrelly’s behavior is treated like a cute running prank instead of egregious sexual misconduct, illustrating just how much things have changed in the past two decades — indeed, much of it in the past year.”
Cameron Diaz, who starred in Farrelly’s 1998 hit “There’s Something About Mary,” and film executive Tom Rothman, who is now the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chair, were among those that Farrelly flashed, according to the old articles.
The Observer articles quote Farrelly as saying that he had done it “easily 500 times.” Farrelly admitted to his past actions and responded with an apology. “True. I was an idiot,” he said through a representative. “I did this decades ago and I thought I was being funny and the truth is I’m embarrassed and it makes me cringe now. I’m deeply sorry.”
Vallelonga, on the other hand, has yet to address his since-deleted tweet, according to IndieWire. In 2015, he corroborated Trump’s claim that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey, cheered after airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center. “@realDonaldTrump 100% correct. Muslims in Jersey City cheering when towers went down. I saw it, as you did, possibly on local CBS news.”