Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Disclosure, 1994 film about sexual harrassment



DISCLOSURE - 1994 film starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.

The film plot centers around a sexual harassment case in which Michael Douglas' character Tom Sanders charges Demi Moore's character Meredith Johnson with sexual harassment and sexual assault.

What makes this particular film interesting is the whole role reversal of how sexual harassment cases normally go (the male harassing the female) - in combination with office politics, double standards between men and women - and how NO MEANS NO even when it is the man saying no.

In the YouTube clip above Tom Sanders says NO 34 times.

I totally recommend you watch this film. It is simply really awesome.

On a personal note I was sexually harassed during university.

A young woman and myself were in the same student association and one day we had office hours together and she told me that we were destined to be together (she said something about the stars and heavenly bodies aligning) and basically asked me to take her (sexually) on the desk in the office.

I made up an excuse about being double-booked and fled the room. (My girlfriend at the time was none too pleased to hear that another woman had been hitting on me.)

Hasn't happened since then, but she did creep me out to the point that I stopped going to association meetings. In retrospect I probably should have filed a complaint against her with the university - although that would have been a Disclosure esque idea and perhaps drawn unwanted attention.

SPOILER ALERT!

Don't read past this point if you intend to actually watch the movie Disclosure.

In the resulting court case justice wins in the end... and when that fails it turns out that Meredith Johnson's primary goal was to make Tom Sanders look incompetent - both in terms of trying to make it look like he sexually harassed her, except he filed a counter suit and later discovered an audio recording of the sexual assault which gave him an ironclad case against her.

Furthermore, due to further corporate backstabbing, Meredith also tried to make him look incompetent by rigging the factories to make faulty CD-ROM drives - all so she could further herself in the company for an important promotion they were both seeking to get.

But again Tom managed (barely) to outsmart her there by digging up old memos and even video of her, proving that she had deliberately made changes to the manufacturing process in an effort to make him look incompetent.