Casting couch

Netnet Camomot

THANKS to “Seven Sundays,” I now know that Dingdong Dantes and Enrique Gil can act.

Harvey Weinstein should watch “Seven Sundays,” too, to teach him some lessons on life’s true essentials. He was fired by The Weinstein Company board last Sunday, and we gotta feeling that gives him the chance to discover Pinoy movies.

It’s called the casting couch. A boss hints on sexual favors to a potential employee or to an employee who’s up for a promotion, with the boss trying to paint delusions of grandeur for the one forced to grant the favor.

In October 2016 at the height of the US presidential campaign season, it was Madonna offering sexual favors to anyone who would vote for her candidate: “If you vote for Hillary Clinton, I will give you a bl**j*b, OK? Swear to god. And I am good. I’m good. I’m not a d*uche and I’m not a tool. I take my time, I, uh, have a lot of eye contact. Yeah? And I do swallow.”

Once upon a time, Madonna admitted she went through the casting couch to kick off her career.

The surname Weinstein may not be familiar to one who simply watches movies without scrutinizing their opening and closing credits. To a pianist, Weinstein is a piano. But in Hollywood, Weinstein is Harvey and his bro Bob.

And Harvey was fired from The Weinstein Company, no thanks to his casting-couch scandal.

The two brothers founded Miramax which they left in September 2005 to form the new firm.

If all these company names still sound alien to you, their movies may finally give you an aha moment. It was “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” that ensured the bros’ success in Hollywood. The movie’s title was simply one of those when it was released in 1989. But now that we know what we know about Harvey, hmmm.

Their other movies include “The Crying Game,” “The English Patient,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Good Will Hunting,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “Gangs of New York,” “Emma,” “The Lord of the Rings” series, “Kill Bill,” the “Scary Movie” and “Scream” series, “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Rambo,” “Apollo 18,” “Inglourious Basterds,” and so on and so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

So, there’s Gwyneth Paltrow revealing that Harvey suggested going to the bedroom at a Beverly Hills Hotel suite for massages after giving her the lead role in “Emma.” She told Brad Pitt, her boyfriend then, about this which of course ended up in a confrontation between Brad and Harvey who then warned her not to further spread the issue.

The revelations go on and on, with one from another Brad Pitt ex, Angelina Jolie: “I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did. This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”

Rosanna Arquette, Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino, other actresses, and even his employees were also victims of his hard-habit-to-break that lasted for 30 years.

Most of their testimonies have one thing in common: Harvey asking for a massage.

At least three women have accused him of rape, to which his spokeswoman responded with, “Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual.” Oh my gas. He must be one of those guys who believe they’re God’s gift to women.

His casting couch was an open secret in Hollywood but revealed to the world only on Tuesday last week when The New York Times published these allegations and the settlements paid to keep them secret.

And this is not exclusive to Hollywood.

In Pinas, I guess it’s called utang na loob. When you’re made to feel beholden to someone and now have to be his minion. He jokes, you laugh. He orders you to jump, you jump. He leaves the party, you leave the party.

If only these utang-na-loob victims can share their testimonies, too, with the madlang pehpohl.

The wise minion learns to kiss the a** of the insecure boss, and there are kowtowing techniques that the minion has to adopt to keep his sanity otherwise he will become a pariah in the eyes of the clueless and uninitiated.

Still, these bosses know that some people will do everything and anything to be accepted, and I hope that’s not the motivation behind Marlou Arizala’s morphing into Xander Ford.

Marlou who? That’s exactly the thought bubble when his photos began to appear on Facebook.

Arci Munoz also morphed into someone else—keen observers say it’s Michael Jackson. If her aim is to keep his memory alive—well, success!

Too much plastic surgery, however, can banish facial expressions to Siberia, with the mouth moving and eyes blinking, but the rest of the face remaining bland. No, not blond—bland. Or should that be blank.

Of course, Pinoy showbiz has its share of casting-couch stories. Let’s see who will make the first reveal, unless we missed the news on this one.