Jamie Lee Curtis, star of the Halloween franchise, said that she thinks her mother, Janet Leigh, would have been upset with elements of the #MeToo movement. Initially founded by activist Tarana Burke in 2006, the #MeToo movement went viral in late 2017 after widespread sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. #MeToo has since exploded into a worldwide movement that empowers sexual assault survivors to speak up about their abuse through mass solidarity that reveals just how many people have survived sexual assault and harassment. The campaign has led several high-profile celebrities to talk publicly about the abuse they suffered, including Gwenyth Paltrow, Jennifer Lawrence, Uma Thurman, and Terry Crews.
Janet Leigh is most famous for her role as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Psycho. Hitchcock has been the subject of sexual assault allegations in the past, notably by actress Tippi Hedren. In 2016, Hedren alleged that on the set of Hitchcock’s The Birds, the director asked her to “touch him,” leading to an event that Hedren described as an “awful, awful moment that I’ll always wish I could erase from my memory.” Hedren went on to say that in an incident in the back of a limo, Hitchcock “grabbed” and “put his hands” on her, describing the event as “ugly and perverse.”
Speaking with the daughter of Tippi Hedren for Interview, Melanie Griffith, Curtis discussed her feelings on how her mother would have understood the #MeToo movement if it had taken place during her time. Curtis relayed that even if abhorrent behavior did occur, she felt her mother would never have acknowledged it. Not going as far as to say she could speak ultimately for her mother, Curtis did emphasize, however, that she may have chosen to focus more on how grateful she was to work in Hollywood:
“I don’t think Janet would have ever acknowledged if there was any bad behavior. She was, it’s a bad term, but kind of Pollyanna-ish about the industry. I think the #MeToo movement would have really upset her. It’s not fair to unpack that, because she’s dead and I’m not going to put words in her mouth, but knowing her, I think she would not say that he misbehaved in any way. I don’t think Janet would ever have acknowledged anything, because from her standpoint, she was just grateful. That was very much her take. I think she would have looked at it as, “That was just the way it was.”
The repercussions that #MeToo has had and continues to have in Hollywood are particularly noticeable. The publication of Harvey Weinstein’s crimes caused the initial explosion of #MeToo online and remains the most famous example of how #MeToo shone a spotlight on the darkest of Hollywood’s secrets. Weinstein was not the only one to be outed, with the crimes of big names including Kevin Spacey and Bill Cosby also coming to light. With the massive role that social media played in growing the #MeToo movement, it is unsurprising that Curtis struggled to identify how her mother would have reacted had #MeToo began in the 1960s rather than 50 years later.
As times change and what is and is not acceptable shifts with each generation, it is difficult to compare the experiences of one generation with a topic as complex and sensitive as sexual assault with another. If #MeToo had emerged in the 1960s, its character and size would likely have been considerably different from the movement born in the 2010s. All that can be known for sure is that #MeToo has enabled thousands of survivors to speak up about their experience, including contemporaries of Leigh such as Tippi Hedren. For this, #MeToo can and should be roundly applauded.
Source: Interview