Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan has defended the film’s star, Casey Affleck, over allegations of sexual harassment, in a scathing letter to the editor of a college newspaper.
In an op-ed published in the Wesleyan Argus, the newspaper of Lonergan’s alma mater Wesleyan University, the director condemned as “a tangle of illogic, misinformation and flat-out slander” an earlier piece written by the paper’s assistant opinion editor Connor Aberle that accused the director of being complicit in Affleck’s alleged actions by casting him in the film’s lead role.
“Connor Aberle’s article about myself, Casey Affleck and Wesleyan’s supposed complicity in condoning sexual misconduct – and worse – by [touting] me as a Wesleyan alumn after I won an Oscar last week is such a tangle of illogic, misinformation and flat-out slander that only the author’s presumed youth can possibly excuse his deeply offensive display of ignorance, and warped PC-fueled sense of indignation,” Lonergan wrote.
Affleck, whose performance in Manchester by the Sea won him the Oscar for best actor at the Academy Awards in February, was sued for sexual harassment and verbal abuse in 2010 by two female colleagues working on the set of the mockumentary I’m Still Here, which he wrote and directed. Affleck denied wrongdoing and later settled with the claimants out of court.
However, the story resurfaced last year in the wake of Manchester by the Sea’s success, with publications drawing comparisons between Affleck’s alleged wrongdoings and the case of Nate Parker, whose film The Birth of a Nation struggled at the box office after revelations that he had been accused (and acquitted) of rape while in college. The actor Constance Wu spoke out against Affleck’s nomination, while Brie Larson conspicuously didn’t applaud Affleck when presenting him with the best actor Oscar at the ceremony.
Lonergan, who won the Oscar for best original screenplay for Manchester by the Sea, reiterated in the op-ed that “nothing had been proved or disproved” about the allegations against Affleck, and criticised Aberle for writing as if Affleck “were actually guilty of a crime”.
“It was alleged seven years ago, in a civil lawsuit for breach of contract, that Casey sexually harassed two women formerly in his employ,” Lonergan wrote. “Casey denounced the allegations as being totally fabricated. Like most civil suits, this one was settled out of court by mutual consent on undisclosed terms. In other words nothing was proved or disproved. So how does Mr Aberle dare to write as if he knows who was telling the truth and who was not?”
“Anyone can sue anyone for anything in this country; the unsubstantiated details go in the public record and stay there. Somebody as interested in actual as opposed to merely vocalized social justice as Mr Aberle presumably is, should unwind his tangled, immoral chain of reasoning and start over at the fundamental precept that an allegation is not an indictment. Nor can it be treated as such by any ethical person living in a democratic society supposedly based on the rule of law.”
Affleck himself has remained largely silent about the allegations against him, though he did address them in an interview with the Boston Globe last week. “I believe that any kind of mistreatment of anyone for any reason is unacceptable and abhorrent, and everyone deserves to be treated with respect in the workplace and anywhere else,” he said.
“There’s really nothing I can do about it. Other than live my life the way I know [how to] live it and to speak to what my own values are and how I try to live by them all the time,” he added.
