Newsweek recently posted a Q&A with Jean-Claude Van Damme conducted by Sarah Ball, a female reporter in her early 20s. I know that women are sexually harassed at work every day. But not all of those women have got a tape-recorder on them...
There's a monologue in the film about being a washed-up action star. Did you improvise that?
I like structure--like driving: go past the school on the street, stay on the right side, no hitting the car, go in right, you'll see a big church, stop and take a left, and you'll have it. By doing this I'm giving a structure of life, a path of light, and showing what happens between me and me, which is something very beautiful.Beautiful? Why?
I really opened myself up in "JCVD." I peeled back the skin of the fruit, cut the pulp and then took that very hard seed. In this film I cut that hard seed, and inside that seed was a kind of liquid cream substance of the man I am, or the woman you are.OK --
It was like being naked--I would love to be naked in front of you.Well, I --
Not being naked being naked. I say such things in Hong Kong and they thought I was being a crazy Frenchman. Being naked of protection.So you've no regrets at all?
Believe me--I've done very good stuff and very crazy stuff, and I don't regret the crazy stuff. So are you in New York?Yes, I am.
And are you 27, or 32?I'm 22.
Oh, f---. That is very young. Will you come to the premiere?I don ' t know. When is it?
I don't know. You will wear all black, a black dress and high heels?Uh --
You can come find me, I will be the one with the very broad shoulders, dark hair and a simple suit. We can have some champagne, you and me.
Props to Newsweek for actually publishing this. Almost every female journalist I know has a story about being harassed while trying to conduct a serious interview with a male source. Van Damme illustrates this phenomenon so perfectly. What a fucking creep.
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when i was a reporter i was interviewing an argentenian guy who owns a local spa/medspa. He told me that the plastic surgeon they hired gave his brother's wife "beautiful breasts" as his eyes panned down to mine. I was horrified and tried to put it in the article but my editor took it out.
Holy Cheesus. That's so bad it almost reads like satire, like it was a Daily Show bit or something.
Uggh.
"Not Being Naked Being Naked" is totally going to be the title of my debut techno-house track.
I'm so glad they published it. Harassment like this doesn't get a lot of attention. Although they probably aren't going to publish a story devoted to this sort of thing any time soon, this is good. It is a step in the right direction. It rips off the censorship band-aid that usually covers up stuff like this.
Wow. You sure this wasn't an Onion piece?
His erratic talking makes me wonder how many lines of coke he did before the interview.
Um, don't forget English isn't his first language.
Not that that excuses sexual harassment, but it could explain the awkwardness of his phrasing.
You're right... I forgot about that. Apologies.
I guess that means he can't blame it on the coke then.
well, i don't know if french is his first language either (i think he's belgian), but he's just as bad when talking in french. like he's taken too many blows to the head or something.
Don't the Belgians speak Flemish?
they speak either flemish or french. my point is, his thought-process isn't much better in french (if french is his first language). he sounds like a bad joke whether he speaks french or english ;)
On "wait, wait, don't tell me" they committed part of their show to discussing JCVD and how once he was found sobbing by himself in his trailer because he had just finished reading a script. A script he had actually written by himself.
What happens "between me and me is something very beautiful" too, Jean Claude.
Actually--that wasn't Jean Claude, that was Seagal. But a great story either way.
Until just now I didn't know they were different people. Whenever somebody talked about one or the other I would always picture the same person in my head. How about that.
*shudders* That's for real? It sounds like a bad scene from one of his movies.
Bad scene from a movie? How about this clip at 6:30? So! It is you! This time! Is it not!
did Newsweek publish it with any kind of critical/ editorial context? By which I mean, was it recognized as heinous sexual harassment or just par for the course?
Hahahahaha. I really can't find this anything other than funny. If somebody told me this was a script for a movie I would tell them to tone it down a bit to make it believable.
This a serious question I would like to pose:
Though JCVD seems very crude it seems to me more like he is just hitting on her in an inappropriate time and manner. Is this really harassment? What is the difference between being hit on in an undesirable way and harassment?
It is not appropriate, ever, to hit on someone who is required to deal with you in a job context. It's his job to do PR, among other things; it's her job to interview him. Transpose this to your workplace and think about how you would feel. It would be flirting or hitting on if they were at the club.
Sure, but they don't really work together in as much as being co-workers. Say if the UPS guy came into my work and hit on me in a crude way. I couldn't really call that harassment I don't think. I would just think of him as unskilled socially.
They may not work together as co-workers, but it is supposed to be a professional setting, a scheduled interview. In this sense it does seem kind of rude to be flirting with the person interviewing you.
The way I see it is that if you could potentially fall out of favor at your job by telling the person off, it's harassment. I mean, Ball could have easily said "uh you're gross fuck you" but then Van Damme could just as easily end the interview and screw her out of a piece. It's not guaranteed to work that way, but there are higher stakes. I also feel like his comments were more explicit in nature than would be a lame pick-up line from a socially awkward dude.
One key thing to remember is that in these work-related situations, the requirements of their work means that the harassed party is not free to leave the situation, unlike in a club. The reporter was required to conduct the full interview, and you would be required to sign for any packages the UPS guy was delivering. The harasser is taking advantage of their captive audience and the power they have in holding them captive (JCVD in not allowing the interview to continue until his sexual advance was completed, or the UPS guy, for example, not giving you your packages until he'd invited you out in a similar manner).
In this specific case, I think the problem is he is creepy and persistent. While I wouldn't endorse a blanket ban on flirting in work or work related situations, it does require a great deal more tact and sensitivity. She is clearly uncomfortable here, which means not only should you stop, but you've already gone too far.
On a completely different note, I find it amusing when famous people are revealed to be socially or romantically inept. I am reminded of a story I seem to recall a couple years ago when Mick Jagger tried to hit on Milla Jovavich. She was horrified, and he was clearly unaccustomed to rejection, quickly devolving into sullen pleading.
GREAT point about captivity. Van Damme was not allowing her to do her job; he was manipulating the situation (she has to stick around to *try* doing her job) by coming on to her in a really inappropriate way instead of answering the questions (HIS job, in this scenario).
Men like him use women's captivity to get their creep on all the time.
As part of my job, I exibit at trade shows. That means I'm stuck behind a table at a booth for 8 hours. I work in an extremely male-dominated industry. It's really disgusting what some men will do/say when they know you can't cuss them out or storm off.
They just love telling their unfunny jokes, calling you "honey," lingering to stare, ordering you to "smile" etc. etc. By the end of the first day of conferences, I'm usually fuming inside.
Every company I have ever worked for has been very clear that they do not tolerate sexual harassment either by or to employees and vendors or customers.
So yes,
\"hitting" on the reporter in this context is harrassment
It's one thing to flirt: flirting is friendly, unaggressive and usually flattering and pleasant, even when it's not from someone you're into. What he did was talk to her in a completely lewd and condescending way. He was ignoring the fact that she was trying to ask him real questions, constantly steering the conversation towards sex. And furthermore, this is clearly a PHONE interview. Proving that he would probably talk this way to any female and presumably would act more respectfully towards a male interviewer. She is clearly uninterested & disturbed in his line of discussion, yet he continues. When such conversation is obviously unwanted by the other person, it begins to become harassment.
"You will wear all black, a black dress and high heels?"--
Am I the only one grossed out by him telling her what to wear? I mean, the whole thing is just awkward. You can tell by her responses she isn't really sure what to say. Guys use to use my captivity when I worked as a cashier when I was younger and say some inappropriate things. Now I wish I had complained about it, but we were NEVER supposed to be rude, so I couldn't tell any of them to just fuck off. Her responses remind me a lot of MY responses in those situations.
Did they publish any context with it? Or did they just leave it in the whole interview and say nothing about it?
^I just wanted to add that I quit that job not long after they added a questionaire to the debit machine that asked if your cashier was friendly and getting one too many guys say something along the lines of "Be very nice or I'll hit no"-- and the bosses doing nothing when a few female employees complained.
The same thing happened to me when I was a cashier too! Mostly I never said anything to creepers because most were old and kind of senile, so I let it slide even though I know I shouldn't have. Augh, don't men understand we're there for the seven dollars an hour, not to get hit on??
The first thing that went through my mind was: "Van Damme is still alive?"
Wow, this is really an eye-opener. I'm thinking of going into Journalism, and don't get me wrong, I'm not discouraged; it's just that this is an eye-opener.
My cynical side may be showing, but I really doubt they would have published this article as is if the celebrity was someone more famous and not just some B-list actor that hasn't made a movie that's actually been shown in theaters since the early 90s.
Yea, I'm not 100% on this being sexual harassment, but it's really inappropriate to hit on the reporter and even more so to tell her what to wear. I would try to write it off to his being Belgian, but I don't think that really covers it sufficiently. And, by sufficiently, I mean at all.
How can you not be 100% on it being sexual harrassment? I mean, come on.
This is why sexual harrassment is still seen as "no big deal" quite a lot of the time.
The man is grown. He should fucking no better. I don't care where he is from.
That just seems really offensive towards Belgians. Are you suggesting that they are a grossly sexual and obnoxious people?
So you don't really think it's sexual harassment, you just think it's someone saying really sexually inappropriate things in a job setting? That's what sexual harassment IS!!
sexual harassment
Dictionary:
sexual harassment
Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary
n.
The making of unwanted and offensive sexual advances or of sexually offensive remarks or acts, especially by one in a superior or supervisory position or when acquiescence to such behavior is a condition of continued employment, promotion, or satisfactory evaluation.
so then, how is this not sexual harassment? and even aside from this being sexual harassment by definition - it's also terribly disrespectful to the journalist. there is little i find more disrespectful when i'm working than being seen as an opportunity to hook up, rather than being seen as the job i am performing.
Yup. Judging from the conversations here about street harassment I'm guessing that a lot of people are secretly or not so secretly thinking that she should be flattered.
I guess professional decorum has little meaning for some.
As far as the cultural and language barrier, please. Has he been living under a rock or something? C'mon, the guy is pretty international. He also has the money to hire consultants and other people to help him avoid these kinds of gaffes.
It is a not so uncommon tactic to purposefully uses that little "I'm a foreigner" schtick as an excuse to cross the line. It's actually a pretty clever way test the other person and if they don't respond positively you can blame it on the language or the culture. And of course a lot of us would want to give the person the benefit of the doubt...
sigh
I'm reminded of Borat here.
It's obviously sexual harassment, it's just not actionable sexual harassment, as he's not a co-worker or boss of hers.
Whether he was sincere or coked and/or ethered up, he is definitely abiding by Oscar Wilde's first rule of publicizing a new movie: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
As for these so-called cultural differences or language barriers, he delivered the greatest speech of all time in flawless English in Street Fighter, if by flawless English you mean pronouncing "troopers" as "truppers" (1:15).
Norbiz, I know where you're coming from, but that's actually not true.
An outsider to the employment relationship can be a sexual harasser, and the employer can be held liable if they (1) knew that a sufficiently "severe" incident was likely before they put their employee in contact with the outsider (e.g., sending a reporter in person to interview someone who had groped another reporter), or (2) they knew of ongoing harassment, and did nothing to stop it. There has to be some connection to some job, but outsiders can harass. /soapbox (Sexual harassment training is mandated by law in my job, and we're a bunch of lawyers . . . so . . .)
Sorry, I meant actionable against JCVD, unless we're talking about intentional infliction of emotional distress. Plus he's probably judgment-proof what with that monster coke habit.
I think people do inappropriate things all the time, and that JCVD was just ... well ... embarrassingly dorky. There are jerks everywhere - not everyone will be appropriate or polite, and not all men and women will lose their extreme machismo or femininity.
It may have been awkward for the reporter (having been one, I can imagine her situation), but he didn't threaten to not give her the interview, and while the black dress and heels remark was a little "I dress you up like blow up doll, yes?" the conversations was hardly sinisiter.
Worthy of a read and a laugh at his behavior, yes - he should feel like an idiot. But worth getting excited over?
Eh.
This is why sexual harrassment is still thought of as "no big deal." Because people like you say it's "no big deal."
"not everyone will be appropriate or polite, and not all men and women will lose their extreme machismo or femininity."
And sure, this may be true, but that doesn't mean it's not sexual harassment.
This is why it's so prevalent in his culture, and in our culture: Because people think it's normal and okay and not a big deal.
Until people say it's NOT normal and NOT okay and IS a big deal, things won't change.
So fuck your stance.
Well, he nearly refused the interview, since he clearly wouldn't answer any other questions that were not revolved around the two of them having sex. Meaning she had to put up with his crap in order to do her job. Which means that she was in a forced submissive position and he was the one in power.
Seriously.
Clearly everyone saying it is not sexual harrassment have not have the "pleasure" of being sexually harrassed. IT IS NOT FUN, no matter how "innocent" it may seem.
Who are you people? No, really.
Kjt, care to shed light on why you don't consider this to be "sinister?"--or why indeed sinister is now the dispositive element of "sexual harassment"? Care to explain your "eh..."?
I want to know your life experiences and how they could have shielded you so expertly from knowledge of the wider world and what's hurtful and what is not hurtful.
I'll be up front with you: I am a woman and ethnic minority who's experience with harassment is, thankfully, limited to the streets. Yet, I still have the critical thinking skills and empathy to perceive that, yes, a well-known interviewee telling the captive audience of a junior,underling reporter "I would love to be naked in front of you" and hounding her to meet with him privately is, indeed, harassment of the sexual kind.
Now, who are you? What in your background immunized you to empathy and reason?
That was a response to kjt's dismissal of this as "not sexual harassment."
I agree with not using the cultural note as a full-credited excuse, but I feel like I need to to add in there that it's almost like he's been double-socialized to be okay with this.
Belgium actually has a huge problem with street harassment. The violent crime rate is negligible, but street harassment was certainly an at least weekly occurrence (and that's only when I understood it!), and I felt that guys there didn't feel inclined to yell from cars--they were in my personal space much more than American guys. So he starts in a culture that lets that happen frequently. And then he becomes a psuedo-celebrity, where people aren't used to hearing no; the Mick Jagger example before shows us that pretty clearly.
So what do we do? As a society, start putting people into their place earlier and earlier.
I feel terrible though for this report--she's only 22, and I feel like having an interview with someone whose name people actually know is impressive at this point in her career. Too bad it had to be in this context...
A pretty stunning example of this is an interviewer on the BBC in London telling Gwyneth Paltrow he "would fuck her". Even worse, it was a prerecorded show on the national broadcaster, and they left it in the final show!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/21/russell-brand-jonathan-ross
Forgot to say that this is obviously an example of it going the other way - the interviewer harrassing the interviewee - but it's pretty horrific all the same.
This reminds me of one of my favorite Teri Gross moments. She was interviewing Gene Simmons, and he told her she should open her legs (I forget the exact quote). Gross then said, "You know, you're really obnoxious."
I was a journalist for a couple of years and planned to say that if anyone was ever skeevy to me. Luckily, the day never came.
Everyone saying, "Eh, it's not really sexual harrassment" really need to get a reality check.
Isn't there some kind of guide for women that says "If you feel as if you've been sexually harassed, then you probably have"?
Clearly this woman was offended. Who are we to tell her she shouldn't be?
Plus, text is hard to interpret, even when intent is really obvious. Maybe his tone of voice was even more disturbing than we realize!
I heard that interview, and wow, Gene Simmons was an ass. He said something along the lines of "...welcome me with open arms and open legs." I forget the first half of the sentence.
Half of Belgium speaks Flemish, which is very close to Dutch (not sure whether I should call it a dialect or a separate language). The other half speaks French. Jan-Claude van Damme is from Brussels which is now divided in language about 50/50, though it's located in the Flemish speaking part of the country.
I know his English is terrible, and his French often sounds a bit stuttery too. I have never heard him speak Dutch, but then, I never paid too much attention to him, besides "hey, it's what's his face from Belgium".
Nah. Feeling like you've been sexually harassed does not equal being sexually harassed. That means that if someone calls you 'sweetie' when delivering your mail, you could call it sexual harassment. Not so.
Mr. Van Damme didn't do anything other than flirt in a way that the reporter didn't like. She didn't regard HIS behavior as professional - obviously he didn't read the contract when he agreed to do the interview.
This kind of labeling 'sexual harassment' anything that doesn't match your own typical lifestyle banter is just silliness. Miss Prude, much? Ever been outside the States?
Here's the problem with his behavior, which turned out not to be a problem in this instance but which is often a problem in other contexts. Female reporter tries to get him to talk about his film, which is her assignment. Instead he talks nonsense and blatantly comes on to her. She tries to get him to address the film, which is her assignment from her editor. He won't.
She goes back with what she has and is told, "Why didn't you get the interview? We told you to get the interview! If we had sent a man he would have gotten the interview." And the editor is more likely to send a man next time he has a similar assignment. And so she is professionally penalized because celebrity B refuses to let her do her job.
Obviously that didn't happen in this case, which is brilliant. The editor was not in a position to have to protect Van Damme because he is not an important or powerful celebrity, so rather than hang his writer out to dry he let the celebrity look like an ass. Believe me though, in many other contexts this would be the last assignment the female reporter received from that editor through absolutely no fault of her own. Because there is some kind of contract that mostly prevents magazine editors from letting celebrities look like the dicks they often are.
I see this as the solution. Print the damned interviews and let the celebrities hang themselves. And maybe next time they'll think to themselves, "Hmmm. Maybe I should talk about my film rather than the idiotic pearly white substance I want to share with this stranger." Maybe.
Those of you who don't see this as harassment, or at least not as the kind of harassment that poses a problem for the interviewer, are naive. She could lose jobs because of people who act like this. Many female journalists do.