'How some of us got here': Hollywood's all-true honor to the casting couch

Hollywood and Highland is a multi-tiered, shopping and dining entertainment complex along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and only steps away from the Dolby Theatre (home of the annual Oscar ceremonies) and the famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Being an homage to Hollywood, it is a must-see stop for any tourist or sightseer who is visiting Tinseltown.

And at Hollywood and Highland there is an actual tribute to the Hollywood casting couch. It sits on an observation deck with a view of the famed "HOLLYWOOD" sign, and the tiled floor beneath the couch informs visitors: "The Road to Hollywood: how some of us got here." (See the photo at the top of this post!)

As the travel advice site TripSavvy tells its readers:

"This over-sized piece of furniture is the most popular spot for a photograph at Hollywood and Highland. The term 'casting couch' originated with unscrupulous casting agents, whose office furniture could be used for sexual activity between them and aspiring actresses looking to get an advantage."

Uh-huh.

For years already, we at TheMediaReport.com have been informing you of the rampant sex abuse in Hollywood that the mainstream media has blithely ignored or downplayed. But the new revelations surrounding Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein have opened a whole new can of worms.

For the first time, the mainstream media has been forced to admit that while it has been scolding the Church for decades over old claims of abuse, it has wantonly ignored the widespread practice of abuse in the entertainment industry. And the casting couch should put to rest any doubt of how widespread this abuse in Hollywood has really been.

[UPDATE, 10/16/17: The Los Angeles Times reports that Hollywood and Highland has now "censored" the casting couch sculpture – a piece which the Times unbelievably calls "one of the finest works of public art commissioned in Los Angeles in the last quarter-century" – in light of the Weinstein scandal.]

Hollywood elites cheer rapist Roman Polanski (c) at the 2003 Academy Awards

[Editor's note: Mega-kudos to Fr. Robert Sirico, who brought this episode to our attention and to the public's attention through the popular celebrity web site TMZ.]

As Hollywood has fawned over the dishonest Spotlight film by awarding it this year's Best Picture prize at the Oscars, a little perspective may be in order.

Some thirteen years ago, on Sunday night, March 23, 2003 – as the Boston Globe was in its fifteenth straight month of reporting on sex abuse in the Catholic Church – Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded an Oscar for Best Director to Roman Polanski for his work on a film called The Pianist.

In case you forgot, it was Polanski who fled to Europe 11 months after being charged with plying a 13-year-old girl with booze and drugs and then forcibly performing various sex acts on her.

[Click to read the agonizing grand jury testimony from Polanski's young victim.
*Warning : graphic language*]

Of course, Hollywood, the Boston Globe, and the rest of the media never want the public to forget about the abuse committed many decades ago by Catholic priests. However, when it comes to one of their own, Hollywood gives a child rapist its most coveted prize and then a thundering standing ovation. If you are a big shot Hollywood director, it is apparently "forgive and forget."

Enough said.

The dark side of Hollywood: child sex abuse

Thanks to the media, even a mere accusation of sexual abuse committed by a priest long ago will irreparably shatter the livelihood of the priest. No matter how flimsy or how long ago the accusation, a priest is always presumed guilty in the media, and his reputation is destroyed as the accusation is splashed across the front pages and the media floods the story with coverage.

But when it comes to Hollywood stars convicted or accused of abusing children, the convictions or accusations are largely ignored by the media and then quickly forgotten and can sometimes even be a boon for their careers. Consider these Hollywood celebrities and the price they paid for abusing children:

The funny woman of NPR

Paula Poundstone

What audiences may not know is that on June 27, 2001, Poundstone was arrested and charged with three counts of committing a lewd and lascivious act on a girl under the age of 14 and one count of child endangerment.

To avoid jail time, Poundstone pleaded no contest to one count of felony child abuse and a misdemeanor count of "inflicting injury upon a child." (The New York Times cited a Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney who said the misdemeanor charge involved "inappropriate touching.")

The court records were sealed, but naturally there was no outcry by the media over the secret proceedings or demand that the records be made public.

Puff the Magic Pardon?

Peter Yarrow

However, Yarrow only served three months in prison for the molestation. And in the waning days of his administration in 1981, President Carter magnanimously pardoned Yarrow. (That's right. A president pardoned a convicted child molester.)

Yarrow's career continued unabated by his pesky conviction on child molestation charges. (Yarrow even performed publicly between his arrest and his sentencing!) Peter, Paul, and Mary continued to enjoy several years of touring to adoring fans, and Yarrow even pursued solo projects including one ironically of a children's book.

Woody's case in focus

Woody Allen

The precise truth may never be known, but none of the compelling evidence in the case has hindered Allen from continuing to be one of the most heralded directors in Hollywood. Tinseltown continues to shower Allen with awards year after year, and actors fall over each other in hopes to star in one of his films.

Interestingly, one of Allen's most successful films is Manhattan, whose plot revolves around a divorced writer who dates a 17-year-old teenager. And right on cue, Hollywood showered the ironic film with numerous awards.

Granting coveted awards in Hollywood to accused child molesters in nothing new. In a previous post, we noted that Kevin Clash, the actor behind the popular Sesame Street character Elmo, won three Emmy awards even though at the time he had been accused by four different individuals of abusing them.

Then there are the well-known cases of Michael Jackson and Roman Polanski, whose careers were wildly successful following child sex abuse charges against them.

Meanwhile, it has been nearly three years since popular 1980s actor Corey Feldman boldly declared:

"I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry … It's the big secret."

Yet the mainstream media continues to remain deafeningly silent about sex abuse in Hollywood today, busy as they are with issues of abuse in the Catholic Church many decades ago in the 1960s and 1970s.

Trying to shine light on the darkness in Hollywood: Corey Feldman

According to an eye-opening audio tape exclusively obtained by RadarOnline.com, Hollywood star Corey Feldman told police in 1993 the names of two industry insiders who sexually abused him as a teen in the 1980s, at the height of his film stardom.

And what did police do with this stunning information? They did absolutely nothing.

And now the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office, which took Feldman's statement years ago during an investigation into abuse by Michael Jackson, is declining to answer questions about why it did not follow up or examine the star's criminal claims, according to RadarOnline.com.

Unbelievable.

Listen to Corey Feldman reveal his abuse to police in 1993 (**RadarOnline.com exclusive**):

The eye-opening tape comes on the heels of the release of Feldman's new autobiography in which he recounts being repeatedly sodomized and molested during the height of his teen success.

Hollywood: Today's playground for pedophiles

Meanwhile, a stunning new report claims that because of the explosion of media outlets, television companies, and the Internet, predators are today sexually exploiting children in Hollywood at their highest levels ever.

"In Hollywood, there are parents who will practically prostitute their kids in the hope they can make money and get ahead," claims Hollywood veteran Allison Arngrim. "It's more common than you think."

Arngrim also adds, "Predators are typically very careful when choosing … They look for kids whose parents are maybe going through a divorce, are very naïve, suffering with addiction problems, or are simply crazy stage parents who will look the other way."

Not Catholic priests

Yet despite the eye-opening nature of all of these stories, several major media outlets – most notably the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times – have not reported a single syllable about any of this.

(The L.A. Times' omission is especially egregious in light of the fact that Hollywood is right in the backyard of the paper.)

Meanwhile, these papers have never flinched in not reporting each and every claim of abuse against a Catholic priest, no matter low long ago or how flimsy.

The double standard is not just glaring. It's blinding.

Kevin Clash (with Elmo) joins the Hollywood abuse club with Michael Jackson and Roman Polanski

How do the cultural elites in Hollywood deal with a successful actor after he has been accused by at least four different men of child sex abuse? Not screaming headlines, of course. Instead, it rewards him with three Emmy Awards.

Kevin Clash struck it big in Hollywood by developing the personality and voice of the popular Sesame Street character Elmo. Yet after a number of men came forward late last November to accuse him of abusing them as boys, he resigned from the hit children's show, thus joining a growing list of Hollywood celebrities accused of sex abuse with scant media disapprobation.

Roman Polanski: 'It wasn't rape-rape'

Clash is not the first Hollywood star to be celebrated by media elites even after being accused of child sex crimes.

In March of 1977, Los Angeles law enforcement arrested famed director Roman Polanski for the savage rape of a 13-year-old girl that happened at the home of his famous friend, Jack Nicholson. Court records indicate that after Polanski plied the underage girl with alcohol and drugs, he then forcibly performed oral sex, intercourse, and sodomy.

Polanski never denied the crimes. In fact, he told an interviewer a short time later, in 1979, "If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!"

Yet through it all, Polanski, the admitted child rapist, continued to have a successful and celebrated filmmaking career, with Hollywood ultimately bestowing its highest honor, an Oscar award, for Best Director for his work on The Pianist (2002).

It seems that child sex abuse can be good for one's career in Hollywood.

And, shockingly, several high-profile media figures have actually jumped to Polanski's defense. Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Debra Winger were reportedly among the list of over 100 Hollywood figures who demanded Polanski's release. On a CNN interview, Tom O'Neill, senior editor of the celebrity magazine In Touch Weekly, cried, "It's mind boggling why they're still pursuing this … It just seems that the prosecutors in Los Angeles won't let go these many years later."

On the nationally syndicated television show The View, co-host Whoopi Goldberg downplayed Polanski's rape of a 13-year-old girl. "It wasn't rape-rape," she claimed. "We're (the United States) a different kind of society. We see things differently. The world sees 13 year olds and 14 year olds – in the rest of Europe, they are seen, often times [as adults]."

And Tom Shales, television critic for the Washington Post, opined, "[I]t may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."

The 'King of Pop' vs. a Catholic bishop

NOT the "King of Pop":
The late Bishop Juan Arzube

In a 2003 television interview, Jackson even openly admitted that he slept with underage boys and actually defended his practice. "It's what the whole world should do," claimed Jackson.

Yet when Jackson died a few years later, and newspapers mourned the loss of the musical legend, the Los Angeles Times, for one, blared a humongous, fawning headline that the "King of Pop" had passed, with his criminal troubles merely meriting secondary attention.

Contrast the treatment by the Los Angeles Times to the death of Jackson with the death of a popular L.A. cleric, Bishop Juan Arzube, who passed away less than a year before Jackson. Arzube was the target of a single accusation during 2003, the year that California lifted the statute of limitations in order for accusers to file money-seeking lawsuits against the Catholic Church.

Arzube vehemently denied the decades-old allegation, but that did not stop the Times from devoting nearly 30 percent of his obituary to the stale accusation against him and stamping the word "ACCUSED" below the photograph accompanying it. (See for yourself and read about this episode.)

Meanwhile, unlike Bishop Arzube, charges of abuse against Jackson continue to this day, even after his death.

'The number one problem in Hollywood' you will almost never read about

In August 2011, Hollywood child star Corey Feldman flatly declared during an interview on ABC:

"I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry … It's the big secret."

The mainstream media's reaction to Feldman's remark, however, was almost undetectable. In fact, the Los Angeles Times, a newspaper right in the backyard of Hollywood, never even reported on Feldman's remark. Instead, the paper buried it in a little-noticed blog item a few months later.

Yet mainstream media outlets like the Los Angeles Times continue to hyperventilate over abuse committed decades ago by Catholic priests. In fact, just yesterday, the Times published a splashy, front-page, 2,100-word piece about a priest who was arrested for abuse some 32 years ago.

And surely you would never find a famous media figure defending a Catholic priest accused of sex abuse with defenses like "A 13-year-old is not really a 13-year-old" or "It wasn't rape-rape."

And so the double standard continues.

Yet when it comes to decades-old allegations against long-deceased Catholic clerics overseas, the paper is all over it.

Consider the recent news:

• Los Angeles law enforcement arrested Jason James Murphy, 35, on Friday (12/9/11) on suspicion of violating sex offender registry laws. Murphy worked for years helping to cast children in Hollywood movies even though he was a convicted child molester. In 1996, he was sentenced in Washington state for kidnapping and molesting an 8-year-old.
• On December 1, Police arrested Martin Weiss, a longtime Hollywood manager of child actors, with sexually abusing a former client. Weiss reportedly told a 12-year-old victim "what they were doing was common practice in the entertainment industry." He now faces eight felonies.
• Fernando Rivas, 59, an award-winning composer for "Sesame Street," appeared in court November 21 after the FBI searched his home in April and "found photographs of a four-year-old girl naked and ‘restrained in handcuffs and other bondage-type devices.'"

These events come on the heels of Corey Feldman's eye-opening remarks in August to ABC's "Primetime Nightline" that "the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry … It's the big secret."

Alison Arngrim, the veteran Hollywood actress best known for her role decades ago as Nellie on "Little House on the Prairie," has said, "This (the abuse of children) has been going on for a very long time.

"If a child actor is being sexually abused by someone on the show, is the family, agents or managers – the people who are getting money out of this – going to say, 'OK, let's press charges'? No, because it's going to bring the whole show to a grinding halt, and stop all the checks," says Arngrim. "So, the pressure is there is not to say anything."

Cover-up? Absolutely.

Yet the New York Times has not reported any of these stories.

One story the Times has reported, however, is the unconfirmed claim that a Catholic archbishop in Ireland, who died in 1973, was accused of child abuse after he died. The Times placed the story on page A6 on Friday (12/9/11).

Indeed, we must demand justice and compassion for victims of clergy abuse. The harm to innocent youth has been immeasurable.

But let us demand equity, fairness, and perspective in the reporting of the Catholic Church abuse narrative. The New York Times is not delivering this at all.

Where are you, Maureen Dowd?

"I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry … It's the big secret."

It was not Feldman's only stomach-turning assertion. He also claimed that the "casting couch," the sick Hollywood legend by which roles are given in exchange for sex, even applies to children.

In addition to saying that he himself had been molested as a boy by "vultures" in show business, Feldman went on to claim that the demise of the late actor Corey Haim was precipitated by "a Hollywood mogul" abusing him as a boy. Feldman added:

"There was a circle of older men who surrounded themselves with this group of kids. And they all had either their own power or connections to great power in the entertainment industry …

"[T]here's a lot of good people in this industry, but there's also a lot of really, really sick, corrupt people. And there are people in this industry who have gotten away with it for so long that they feel they're above the law, and that's got to change. That's got to stop."

So here is a claim of massive abuse and cover-ups happening in Hollywood. Where is the major media on this?

Nearly a week after the episode aired, the response to Feldman's alarming claims has been almost non-existent in the major media. While the Boston Globe and the New York Times have hyperventilated over decades-old allegations of abuse by Catholic priests (many of which were all-too-true), neither paper dedicated even a drop of ink to Feldman's shocker.

Could it be that major media folks do not wish to dig too deep into this story and upset one of their largest sources of income?

The Catholic League uncovered exactly one newspaper in the entire United States that reported Feldman's claims: The International Business Times.

When it comes to the awful abuse of children, it sure seems like the media doesn't get too worked up unless the word Cardinal, bishop, or priest is in someone's job title.