Can We Kick Casey Affleck To The Curb Already?

Casey Affleck is having a good year. Hot off an Oscar win for Manchester by the Sea, Ben‘s younger brother recently completed a victory tour for said awards-buzz, and will next star in A24 drama A Ghost Story opposite frequent co-star Rooney Mara. While it’s been a tumultuous road for Affleck, it seems like his career stars are finally aligning, and he’s got a slew of high-profile projects in the works. That’s all fine and good for Affleck, but we deserve better. We deserve much better than an artist who has been at the center of a sexual harassment and verbal abuse accusations for several years now.

While he had a ton of big film credits under his belt, audiences didn’t start taking Affleck seriously until his powerful turns in films like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which earned him an Oscar nomination) and Gone Baby Gone. His career probably would have continued its top-notch trajectory had it not been for his bizarre artistic endeavors, but back in 2010, Affleck drew ire for the series of stunts pulled with then brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix. All this confusing behavior became a largely-panned experimental mockumentary called I’m Still Here, and even Affleck’s big brother admitted the film was “at the expense of his acting career.” This may have seemed true at the time, but it didn’t take long for him to bounce back with flicks like Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Interstellar, and then came Manchester by the Sea.

Things were going swimmingly – who doesn’t love an underdog? – until a series of sexual harassment allegations against Affleck began to surface. Most media outlets – including large publications like Variety – tacked on these reports like an afterthought. When Affleck was asked to comment on the accusations in the aforementioned Variety cover story, he played it off as though they were just silly rumors: “People say whatever they want. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you respond… I guess people think if you’re well-known, it’s perfectly fine to say anything you want. I don’t know why that is. But it shouldn’t be, because everybody has families and lives.”

“Whatever they want” seems to be a large dismissal of the severe allegations lodged against Affleck, which start with Amanda White. White, who had worked with Affleck for 10+ years, boarded I’m Still Here as a producer back in 2008. What she assumed would be a professional working environment seemingly became a nightmare. In her complaint, she alleged that Affleck harassed her on multiple occasions; he once ordered a crew member to take off his pants and show White his penis (even after White strongly objected), Affleck apparently referred to women as “cows” and frequently referred to his sexual conquests loudly and openly, and among a series of other disturbing allegations, White also claimed that Affleck once tried to manipulate her into sharing a hotel room and grabbed her threateningly when she resisted, proceeding to send her abusive, profane text messages afterwards. White’s job also entailed negotiating an agreement with I’m Still Here‘s director of photography Magdalena Gorka, who left the project after Affleck subjected her to treatment that she described as “the most traumatizing of her career”.

Gorka’s complaint features just as many unsettling details as White’s does. She claims that Affleck and his crew began making gross comments as soon as they started production, referencing engaging in sexual activity with Gorka, and jokingly egging her on to have sex with a camera assistant. Things came to a head when the crew spent the night at Affleck and Phoenix’s apartment and in the middle of the night, Gorka awoke to find Affleck in bed next to her, “curled up next to her in the bed wearing only his underwear and a T-shirt. He had his arm around her, was caressing her back, his face was within inches of hers and his breath reeked of alcohol.” When she confronted him, he apparently left and “slammed the door in anger”, and Gorka’s next steps entailed flying back to New York City, quitting the project, and informing her agent of Affleck’s unwanted sexual advances. Later, she rejoined the project at the request of White, but things only got worse. Gorka again resigned, and Affleck refused to honor her contract, even omitting her Director of Photography credit on the film. The lawsuits filed by both White and Gorka were eventually settled out of court, and while no details have been released to the public, the women will apparently both receive credit for their work on I’m Still Here.

Like many victims of abuse, these women were forced to seek financial retribution rather than pursuing legal action against Affleck. The silence of Affleck’s peers has been deafening; at awards shows all season, he was greeted with cheerful faces and congratulations. The closest any A-lister came to calling out Affleck came when Brie Larson kept her distance and refused to clap for him and at both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards when presenting Affleck with his awards, the latter an action she later said “spoke for itself”. The unsettling lack of response and continued employment of Affleck is demonstrative of the toxic, cyclical nature of Hollywood’s nasty habit of forgiveness, and we’d be better off if Affleck was kicked to the curb. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about him, and by perpetuating a culture that repeatedly lets alleged abusers off scot-free, we make the entertainment industry a more dangerous place.

Just like Johnny Depp, it seems as though audiences continue to stand by actors no matter how severe their transgressions may appear to be. The truth about guys like Depp and Casey Affleck, however, is that they’re just not worth fighting for, no matter how large their fanbases or awards cabinets may be. There are plenty of other brooding, talented actors who can fill roles like the one that won Affleck an Oscar in Manchester by the Sea. Actors who haven’t had multiple sexual harassment (or domestic violence) complaints filed against them.