The past few years have been a watershed moment for women, prompted by the New York Times’ investigation of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, seeing over 70 women coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment and abuse.
The multiple reports of not only harassing female employees, but also paying off his accusers for decades, are said to date back 30 years, with the revelations leading to Weinstein getting fired from his own company and a third of its all-male board resigning – not to mention, prompting the global #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.
Two years later and the waves created by #MeToo are still in motion, with the Harvey Weinstein name now regarded synonymous with the mistreatment of women.
This is something that one comedienne couldn’t help but address at a recent New York charity comedy night, after spotting the disgraced movie mogul sitting in a green velvet booth in the crowd.
‘I’m a comic,’ 27-year-old Kelly Bachman announced to the audience. ‘It’s our job to name the elephant in the room. Does anybody know what that is?’
She continued: ‘It’s a Freddy Krueger in the room, if you will. I didn’t know we had to bring our own mace and rape whistle to Actor's Hour'.
When told by one man to shut up, she responded: 'Oh, this kills in group therapy for rape survivors.'
Going on to tell her own story, she continued: 'I have been raped, surprisingly by no one in this room, but I have never got to confront those guys, so this is just a general fuck you to whoever may be here'.
Speaking to Variety after her show, Kelly explained, 'I hope it becomes normal and not news to call out evil when you see it. I hope it becomes the norm to not be complicit and to want a room to be safe for everyone in it. I think it’s pretty surprising to me that it is news. I understand why it is, but I thought we were all in agreement that this guy is bad, so I’m just like, yeah, this is something we can all agree on.'
