Over the course of the last few months, it seems that everybody and their dog has developed an opinion on the Hollywood sex abuse scandal. This is pretty much to be expected, though, seeing as it's been on every front page of every newspaper and website since we first found out about Harvey Weinstein's actions back in October. The vast majority of these opinions have been in support of the victims, as was evident from the '#metoo' hashtag on Twitter, the outpouring of warmth and affirmation from other people in similar situations, and Time's decision to give their Person of the Year title to 'The Silence Breakers'. However, there is a significant amount of people who believe that some of the allegations are false, or that the victims are at least partly to blame for what happened to them. Matt Damon has already come under fire for making comments of this nature, and now it appears that Sir Ian McKellen, too, has taken a similar stance. The 78-year-old actor, famed for his roles in Lord of the Rings and X Men, came forward in a public speech at the Oxford Union to imply that women pretty much asked to be assaulted in the film and TV industry. "People must be called out and it's sometimes very difficult for victims to do that. I hope we're going through a period that will help to eradicate it altogether," he said, which is fair enough. However, he then went on to say: "But from my own experience, when I was starting acting in the early sixties, the director of the theatre I was working at showed me some photographs he got from women who were wanting jobs ... some of them had at the bottom of their photograph 'DRR' — directors' rights respected. In other words, if you give me a job, you can have sex with me. "That was commonplace from people who proposed that they should be a victim. Madness. People have taken advantage of that and encouraged it and it absolutely will not do." In other words, because it used to be expected that male directors would take advantage of their employees as a sort of perk of the job, that same expectation still applies today - but now those being taken advantage of are "proposing" that they are victims. However, McKellen - who describes himself as an "actor and activist" - fails to note that the 1960s were a time of rampant misogyny, and women conformed to these male-enforced regulations because they really had no other choice. Sleeping one's way to the top was never the first choice when it came to making progress in a challenging industry but, unfortunately, a lot of women learned that allowing themselves to be used in such a way would give them a job that they'd otherwise worked incredibly hard for. Even back then, it was still assault. Though women may have "respected" the "director's rights", it should have never have been within the director's rights to sleep with an employee anyway. That's like saying that corporal punishment isn't child abuse in some places because it's permitted by law. McKellen also mentioned the allegations against Kevin Spacey, noting that his choice to come out as gay instead of fully address the complaints against him was a poor one. "The circumstances in which he chose to [reveal his sexuality] are reprehensible because it linked alleged underage sex with a declaration of sexuality." In doing so, Sir Ian, who came out as gay in 1988, seem to paint himself as more of a victim than the hundreds (if not thousands) of women who were sexually assaulted against their will in order to keep their jobs. This problem still exists in Hollywood, and indeed in many other industries around the globe. While McKellen might not have realized the full implications of his statements, he should really consider the impact that assault cases have on women, and that nobody would ever choose to be a victim.

Ever since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke towards the end of last year, Hollywood has been doing its best to reshape its image. The Time's Up movement has seen hundreds of celebrities voice their support for gender equality both in and out of the film industry, and the #MeToo campaign saw hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people worldwide sharing their experiences with sexual assault or harassment.

However, in light of this, several prominent Hollywood figures have found themselves under fire for their own inappropriate or aggressive behaviour.

Kevin Spacey was infamously outed as an alleged sexual predator, and the likes of Ed Westwick and James Franco were forced to face up to similar allegations. Most recently, Morgan Freeman has also come under fire for supposedly behaving in a lewd way on several occasions - and yet he still has many people in his corner defending him.

While it may seem sudden, though, Hollywood has had suspicions of abuse within its ranks for a long time. Just take a look at Woody Allen: people have been accusing him of assault for more than 25 years.

Despite the criminal allegations levelled against him, though, Allen seems to believe that he is a "poster boy" of good behaviour in the film industry.

In an interview with Argentinian news program Periodismo Para Todos, which came out on Monday, he is reported to have said:

"I’m a big advocate of the #MeToo movement. I feel when they find people who harass innocent women and men, it’s a good thing that they’re exposing them.

"But you know, I should be the poster boy for the #MeToo movement. Because I have worked in movies for 50 years. I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses and not a single one — big ones, famous ones, ones starting out — have ever ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all. I’ve always had a wonderful record with them."

He then went on to allude to the negative criticisms he has faced over his career.

"I think in any situation where anyone is accused of something unjustly, this is a sad thing," he said. "I think everybody would agree with that… Everyone wants justice to be done. If there is something like the #MeToo movement now, you root for them, you want them to bring to justice these terrible harassers, these people who do all these terrible things. And I think that’s a good thing."

He continued:

"What bothers me is that I get linked in with them. People who have been accused by 20 women, 50 women, 100 women of abuse and abuse and abuse– and I, who was only accused by one woman in a child custody case which was looked at and proven to be untrue, I get lumped in with these people."

This prompted the interviewer to ask him if there was any truth to the case against him, in which he was famously accused by his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, of sexual abuse. She was just seven years old at the time.

"Of course not, I mean this is just so crazy," Allen said. "This is something that has been thoroughly looked at 25 years ago by all the authorities and everybody came to the conclusion that it was untrue. And that was the end and I’ve gone on with my life. For it to come back now, it’s a terrible thing to accuse a person of. I’m a man with a family and my own children. So, of course, it’s upsetting."

Last month, Allen's son, Moses Farrow, defended his father in a blog post. He described his sister's story as "a discredited allegation", and accused his mother - Mia Farrow - of "brainwashing" her child.

Moses has made similar statements before and, when he published the same sentiments in a book in 2017, Mia said:  "Moses has cut off his entire family including his ex-wife, who was pregnant when he left. It’s heartbreaking and bewildering that he would make this up, perhaps to please Woody. We all miss and love him very much."

Dylan Farrow continues to maintain that her account is true.

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/941840799506898944]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/941840946420789250]] "We are not outraged because someone grabbed our asses in a picture. We are outraged because we were made to feel this was normal. We are outraged because we have been gaslighted. We are outraged because we were silenced for so long." [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/941841081200607232]]

Woody Allen has compared the molestation allegations that have been made against him to people eating kale.

The veteran director, who has denied molesting his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow for years, said that people's decision to denounce him is "like everybody suddenly eating kale."

Some of those who have now distanced themselves from the 84-year-old because of the allegations include Mira Sorvino, Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth, and Rebecca Hall.

Allen's wife defended him against the allegations made by Dylan: 

[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/qJsIZjjo-Q0L14jDU.mp4||qJsIZjjo]]

Allen was first accused of abuse after it emerged in 1992 that he was having an affair with his long term partner Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who was 21 at the time. He was 57.

Farrow then went on to allege that he had sexually assaulted her then-seven-year-old daughter Dylan.

In an interview with the Guardian this week about the allegations, Allen said: "I assume that for the rest of my life a large number of people will think I was a predator."

[[imagecaption|| Credit: PA Images]]

Allen said of the people who have since said they regret working with him: "It's silly. The actors have no idea of the facts and they latch on to some self-serving, public, safe position. Who in the world is not against child molestation?

"That's how actors and actresses are, and (denouncing me) became the fashionable thing to do, like everybody suddenly eating kale."

He added: "You can give them the facts over and over. But the facts don't matter. For some reason, emotionally, it's important for them to buy into the story."

In 2018, after the #MeToo movement dramatically changed how people think about sexual abuse, Dylan said that she felt like her allegations against her adoptive father hadn't been taken seriously.

She told CBS show This Morning: "All I can do is speak my truth and hope… that someone will believe me instead of just hearing."

In a recent interview with the Mail on Sunday, Allen, who is promoting his latest movie A Rainy Day in New York, said that he didn't care that he'd been shut out of the Hollywood establishment over the allegations.

He said: "You don't make a movie to win an award. Mozart never composed a symphony thinking about a trophy."

[[imagecaption|| Credit: PA Images]]

However, despite the severity of the allegations made against Allen, he continues to have his supporters, and Larry David, Diane Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, and Scarlett Johansson are among the people who have refused to denounce him.

Then, in his memoir, Apropos Of Nothing, Allen went claimed that Timothee Chalamet only distanced himself from him to improve his chances of winning an Oscar.

Allen wrote of Timothee and his co-stars Elle Fanning and Selena Gomez: "All three leads in Rainy Day were excellent and a pleasure to work with."

He went on: "Timothee afterward publicly stated he regretted working with me and was giving the money to charity, but he swore to my sister he needed to do that as he was up for an Oscar for Call Me By Your Name, and he and his agent felt he had a better chance of winning if he denounced me, so he did."

A week before Oscar nominations were released, per the Metro, Chalamet released a statement on Instagram on 16 January 2018, stating that he did not want to profit from his work on A Rainy Day in New York.

He has not publically commented on the claims made by Allen.

Ever since The New York Times published a list of allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein back in October last year, the media has been hot on the topic of sexual harassment. Actresses such as Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd stepped forward to usher in the #MeToo campaign, Time magazine made the Silence Breakers their 'Person of the Year', and the Time's Up initiative has been set up in order to end sexual harassment culture and inequality in the workplace. While all of this has been going on, various celebrities have been outed as perpetrators of sexual abuse. Kevin Spacey, Louis CK, and Aziz Ansari, for example, have all been exposed as having harassed or behaved inappropriately towards vulnerable people. Other public figures have also had their names brought up during the scandal - though not for any new allegations. Woody Allen has been mentioned due to old accusations of sexual harassment and child abuse, and Roman Polanski is frequently brought up in debates about how abusers are treated in Hollywood (spoiler: they often get away with it). Another person whose name has resurfaced during these discussions is Johnny Depp. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd0GNS8lnd7/?tagged=johnnydepp]] The 54-year-old actor infamously made headlines after he was accused of assaulting his then-wife, Amber Heard. Though the abuse has been disputed - mainly because Heard settled in court - the actress originally filed for divorce because, according to her: "during the entirety of [their] relationship, Johnny has been verbally and physically abusive to [her]". Heard's claims were later backed up by friends, and, even in the joint statement at their divorce settlement, the couple admitted that their "relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm." Understandably, then, people are upset that the actor is still being given major film roles. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/POTTEREINA/status/938806480614064128]] Most recently, Depp was announced as one of the stars of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the latest installment in the Harry Potter franchise. Despite the outcry on Twitter, the producers refused to re-cast the role, and even JK Rowling spoke up to voice her support for the decision: "Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies." But now, Harry Potter himself has stepped up to address the issue of hiring someone who has known violent tendencies. "I can see why people are frustrated with the response that they were given from that," said Daniel Radcliffe, referencing Rowling's dismissal of claims that Depp should not be included in the film. He went on: "I’m not saying anything that anybody hasn’t already said—and this is a weird analogy to draw — but in the NFL, there are lots of players arrested for smoking weed and there is other people’s behavior that goes way beyond that and it’s tolerated because they’re very famous players. I suppose the thing I was struck by was, we did have a guy who was reprimanded for weed on the original 'Potter' film, essentially, so obviously what Johnny has been accused of is much greater than that." [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd5-qoonF5y/?hl=en&taken-by=daniel9340]] The alleged violence toward Heard was not the run-in with the law that Depp has had, either. In 1989, he assaulted a security guard after getting a noise complaint about a party he was hosting, and in 1999 he was involved in a physical brawl with paparazzi. If someone can miss out on a job opportunity because of "weed", as Radcliffe said, then it seems hugely hypocritical to then allow a violent abuser that same job. This just goes to show that the Time's Up initiative still has a lot of work to do, but at least people like Daniel Radcliffe are speaking up about what they believe is right.