Dispatches . Russel brand .

[fabmaccawhackythumbsaloft]

I actually like Russel brand . And I don't think he's ever hidden what he used to be in his heyday. He's always been very open about his drug use, and promiscuity.

I read his first book . I watch his videos on fb , and while I don't always agree with him, he seems to have totally overhauled his lifestyle, attitudes, is into yoga, self care, seems to be a decent husband and father .

Is this newsworthy ? Young famous comedian in heyday slept with lots and lots of women , consensually he says ?

Hes never hidden it.

On drug misuse I alWays had time for his views that it should be dealt with as a medical issue not a criminal one

What's the news story ?
I always feel like there is much glee and salivating before the media try and knock someone down.
I don't think this is a huw edwards where people would be shocked at him trying to pick up young women behind his wife's back

It seems that brand has settled down , lives a fairly mundane lifestyle and is happy with his choices .

Or am I completely missing something?

My 17 yo asked who Russell Brand was. I said a comedian, and she asked me what sort of jokes or comedy he did.
I said I couldn't really remember because of the few times I had watched him I didn't find him at all funny.
Watching the programme yesterday I was reminded why I didn't find him funny but also struck by how he was enabled to do this on mainstream TV and radio.

The Andrew Sachs incident was headline news but before that so many incidences - repeated live on air sexual comment and innuendo about the news reporter even after she had complained. Offering her naked to JS on a radio interview, TV snippets where he acted inappropriately with women. I refuse to believe these were not complained about at the time. (By viewers or listeners as well as people involved)

And yet he kept getting gigs presumably because he was "edgy" or "pushed the boundaries" and the only concession was not allowing one-on-one contact with young female runners/production staff....so it was known that he was a risk but thought to be worth it, and presumably the newsreader and the other women who did complain were collateral damage.

Russell Brand did that shit.
And no Pick Me can tell me different or tell me about any fucking court of law.
This is the website where mothers have overwhelmingly said that they wouldn't report their son for rape, where mothers encouraged a distressed father to betray his marriage by not disclosing that he had discovered that his son was stealing and wearing his mother's knickers because " it would break the trust of your son" AGP violation be damned.
Where a mother and father discovering their son wearing his sister's knickers was laughed off and minimised, the violated daughter disappearing from the narrative.
Where posters saw fit to go into a thread about a Polish man killing his wife, children and himself, in order to NAMALT and offer explanations as to why this man could have done that..and this was in the Feminism and Gender section...the Radical Feminist section.
And this is the site where too many women shame women who don't want to suck cock , but shame women who are dissatisfied that their male partner doesn't want to lick pussy.
Mumsnet is FULL of sad sack woman and girl hating female PickMes. They'd do anything for a biscuit.
All the goodwill to the women and the negligible amount of men who prevent this site from becoming a MRA Wank Portal in goo goo gaga drag .
But, fuck me; I'd hate to even brush past many of misogynistic, male identified female shithouses on this site .
And yes, the quality of discourse and female solidarity has gone downhill on Mumsnet.
Good thing I only run my own home. If I didn't , a smooth seventy percent of people would be entitled to only five hours daily WiFi.

I never reported for various reasons. However, if i was approached by an investigative journalist that was doing an expose(big name in our little town) I'd probably be willing to add my story to those of others. It happens. Get over it.

I am reminded about what Germaine Greer once said about him. She said the reason he was promiscuous is because he’s no good at sex and that women therefore didn’t go back for more.

in the light of this documentary I now feel that there may be other reasons they never went back for more - a lot of women who consented to sleep with him probably got more than they bargained for in terms of being treated like shit.

Also, Do you remember that photo he took of Katy Perry asleep with no makeup and posted on social media? He made out he thought she looked amazing but it felt to me such a cruel prank to play on someone you love - especially someone who is in the public eye and for whom image is an important aspect of their business. She was livid.

Why do you keep saying change starts with the legal channels? It doesn't. Change is happening thanks to the media as posters have outlined. The police are keeping things the same - victims silenced, ignored and powerless. And you apparently would like to keep it that way.

Do you really lack the imagination to envisage a situation where your career has been threatened and in a society where it’s well known victims of sexual abuse and rape are unlikely to get anywhere near a court room never mind a conviction?

In that situation if you have contact with a journalist with sound credentials building a report alongside women telling very similar stories to your own then you wouldn’t take that opportunity?

What do you think is going on?? Some sort of fucked up episode of love island?

Your unshakable faith in the legal system, here or the US, is not shared by the thousands of women who have experienced it.

That doesn't damage their credibility at all. They were afraid to speak up against a powerful man alone. Investigating journalists offered them a voice, support and the proof of other victims who had been through the same or similar. This made them feel able to tell their story too.

Exactly. His supporters probably also like this.
He is an absolute creep. I hope his defenders on here would be content to leave their daughters with him. And if not, why not?

So revealing there are so many little misogynistic women on Mumsnet. Pick Me indeed.

As far as I'm concerned the courts have decided. Brand tried to prevent the reports being published and failed.

How do you know they are women?

So in your mind the weight of one woman’s evidence is equal to the weight of multiple women’s evidence?

The strength of journalistic reporting is that he said/she said turns into he said/she said, so did she, and her oh and her over there.

The inescapable issue is that rape and other sexual crimes often leave little to no hard evidence. Particularly if there has been an existing consensual relationship. However, we know that these things happen inside of otherwise consensual relationships so we have to have a way to determine who is telling the truth. Building a wider picture is often the only way to do this but also inadmissible in a court room. The media can do this in a way that the police and courts simply don’t.

Depp presented character references from previous girlfriends in court for a reason.

As an aside I’m interested to know your position on Savile? After all, there’s no court cases or hard evidence to refer to.

@placemats - don't tell me they are all men. Many will also be women in my experience.

I've said this before, but one of the reasons I didn't go into a media career was because of the culture at the time.

When asked in a uni lecture whether you'd sleep with someone to advance your career 27 out of the 30 people in the room said they would.

At this point I knew it wasn't for me as I'd be competing against this.

This wasn't the 70s. This was 1998.

So in terms of this idea of women eventually giving in to persistent requests for a date by the star of the show, you also need to ask the question about whether they felt saying no would damage their career. And then if they were abused felt if they said anything would it damage their career. The ability to have boundaries no longer exists because of undue pressure - therefore any consent given may be invalid anyway.

This is why imbalances of power matter and need to be identified and safeguarded. Because otherwise it can led to exploitative behaviour in which women feel they've said yes, because they have to say yes and there is no accountability to the contrary.

In this sense, this is why I am totally not surprised by the revelations. It was the culture and the expectation. It was the norm where boundaries were not the same as the rest of the world.

It’s becoming quite a recurring theme that you can’t be ‘told’ anything aka this doesn’t fit with my world view and therefore is uncomfortable for me so I’d really like you all to stop saying things that make me uncomfortable.

*Sorry @bombastix I attributed what you’d said to you instead of @placemats. point still stands though I think.

Because she’s willing accept new information and change her mind?

This thread is awful.

Can we not just discuss this without personal attacks on one another?

No, because she’s completely missed the point of why her OP was problematic.

I think it’s good that she’s changed her mind but it doesn’t remove the fact that her initial reaction was anything but biased. Which she thinks it wasn’t.

I'm actually watching the Dispatches show as I write this (just started), so I can't really comment on the reports at the moment. My comments are based on the unfortunate hurdles that both sides have with regards to rape. Women have to prove a real event happened, and men have to prove a false event hasn't.

So I'm actually agreeing with you! Truth be told, an allegations are more likely to be true as it takes a lot of effort to make them, but with male celebrities, false allegations for fame and money, or just revenge, are also likely to occur.

As it's taken me a while to type this (as I'm watching at the same time), it's looking worse and worse for him... All I'm saying is public trials are dangerous. The flip side is that you could just as easily have a few well-choreographed liars and an innocent man... his life is destroyed regardless.

Savile is a sickening case that was covered up. He was a monster.

@Cornettoninja - it's a pattern. It's exactly the same for domestic violence and child abuse.

Lots of fine words on the idea of helping victims and justice. When it actually happens, actual life gets crunchy and there needs to be accountability, watch men and women disappear into saying it's all about procedures.

I have worked on inquiries in sexual abuse, domestic violence and rape. There are a great number of people who effectively pay lip service to justice. They make up juries who decide.

These problems, like Brand and his permitted excesses are OUR problem. Our society doesn't care about the most vulnerable, because if it did, justice would look very different. This story makes us uncomfortable because it is a mirror to a misogynist society.

People like Katherine Ryan are the exception. She is brave. So too the people who will try and hold abusers to account. They are a minority.

And that's fine if it's what you wanted, but the fact you didn't go through the proper legal channels and went to the press would make me think you wanted to get a pay check and you would loose credibility in my eyes. And no, I'm not getting "over it".

She’s conceded she was wrong. Whether or not you think she’s grovelled enough for your liking is another matter. You (and others) are becoming personally abusive towards her and it undermines the point you’re trying to make

No answer from you on how useless the legal channels are in bringing rapists to justice then and at effecting any kind of actual change. You think women should only go to the police, ignoring the trauma rape victims frequently suffer when they do this and ignoring the shockingly low rate of prosecution and conviction. By saying they should only go to the police, what you're saying is that women should be silenced.

In the Ch4 app it says "no episodes available to watch on demand" -- even though there's a huge banner for the RB Dispatches show on the home screen?

Anyone know why?

This isn't true though. Depp is an abuser, there are texts, video evidence etc that prove he is. He lost a defamation case in the UK, the judge said claims that he was a wife beater were substantially true.