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Olivia Munn's ostracization by castmates reveals why 'hysterical' women are still afraid to speak out in the age of #MeToo
WE ALL KNOW a ‘hysterical’ woman.
Javier Rojas / Pi Javier Rojas / Pi / Pi
She’s the one emasculating you at work, causing unnecessary trouble and not being able to ‘take a joke’. She’s rocking the boat and is probably emotionally fragile.
Why can’t she just be rational? Or at least be silent?
I mean, this is the best women have ever had it, so why is she not grateful?
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‘Hysterical’ derives from the word hysteria, which is Greek in origin and means ‘wandering womb’. The Greeks believed that the uterus was able to float around your body, causing women to be raving mad. What these women were often suffering from was normal conditions such as post-partum depression.
Emzey Emzey
In the western world, as surgeons realised that the uterus was stuck fast, ‘hysteria’ became a medical diagnosis for women
The cure for their ‘tendency to cause trouble’ was forcing them into insane asylums or forced hysterectomies.
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This week, actress Olivia Munn has been on the receiving end of how those in power in the 21st century deal with ‘hysterical’ women.
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After revealing to 20th Century Fox that an actor she shared a scene with in her new movie, The Predator, was a registered sex offender, Olivia was shunned by the film’s director and her castmates.
The silent treatment, the undermining and the ostricization of Olivia is why women are still afraid to speak out when they see injustice.
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Online, some dismissed Olivia:
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Some said that Olivia is destroying a man’s career:
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Even the Washington Post went with the angle that Olivia was a snitch for ‘outing’ him:
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Let’s investigate a little bit deeper than the headlines and tweets.
So the actor in question, Steven Wilder Striegel, was jailed for six months in 2010 after pleading guilty to ‘risk of injury to a child and enticing a minor by computer’.
At the time Steven was a 40-year-old man, and the child in question was a 14-year-old girl.
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In mid-August, Olivia informed Fox that she had discovered that Steven was a registered sex offender. Olivia revealed to Variety:
Olivia – being a woman and needing to justify her own personal frustrations at the delay in hearing back from the studio – acknowledges that Fox might have already been working on removing the scene.
The scene was cut.
However, this was only the beginning of trouble for Olivia.
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The studio and everyone involved in the film could have used this incident as an opportunity to improve their standards. Sexual crimes against children and adults should be taken seriously so the studio should have systems in place to inform actors of the criminal backgrounds of those they are working with so that they can make an informed moral choice.
Olivia called up her castmates to tell them that Steven was a registered sex offender and that she’d spoken to The LA Times about the incident. She encouraged her co-stars to also give statements to the Times.
None took her up on the offer.
Shane Black, the director of the film, who has been friends with Steven for 14 years, gave a written statement to The Times.
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Olivia says that Shane has not spoken to her since the scene was cut.
Shane added to The Times that he has long believed that Steven was:
Emm…can that be explained in more detail?
Let’s turn to Steven to shed some light on what a ‘bad situation’ versus ‘lecherous’ could mean in light of pleading guilty to ‘risk of injury to a child and enticing a minor by computer’.
According to Steven, the 14-year-old child was a distant relative of his…
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…who was going through a tough time, and he was merely trying to help her self-esteem.
Steven says he:
What does the ‘etc’ stand for?
The March 2009 arrest warrant affidavit, which identifies the child as ‘Jane Doe’ says that:
Among other email interactions with her, Steven describes in graphic detail what his sexual preferences are, including his preferred intercourse position and intimate grooming practices.
So that is what ‘etc’ means.
After the ‘etc’ had been explained in the media, director Shane released another statement to say that his friend Steven had ‘misled’ him:
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Olivia said that she has not received a personal apology from Shane yet, and that the only castmate who has been supportive of her is 11-year-old actor Jacob Tremblay. Other castmates have cancelled scheduled interviews with her.
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Of the experience, Olivia said to The Hollywood Reporter:
The Us actress expressed her frustration on Twitter also:
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Yesterday, Sterling K Brown, a co-star of Olivia’s, released a statement via Twitter.
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Olivia released her own statement on Twitter, encouraging people to not stay silent in order to make others feel comfortable.
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But with the treatment Olivia has gotten, would you be bothered to use your voice?
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