It didn't occur to me when I was writing the Ethical Production Standards post that I needed to include "Be sure to not let people get raped on your set," but events have shown me to have been foolishly naïve about that.
So, OK, let's talk about this.
I never hired Deen to work for us, although of course I knew about him. I hadn't heard specific allegations about his behavior (and now feel like I'm the only director who hadn't). I didn't hire him because there was a... tone to the kind of conversations I'd hear about him from female talent.
These would take the form:
- Inexperienced performer: OMG you worked with James Deen? I'd love to work with him!
- Experienced performer: Well, he's... pretty intense!
- Inexperienced performer: I can do intense!
- Experienced performer: Just make sure you are ready for...
Perhaps you had to be there, but the "experienced performer" was clearly walking a line between trying to give a coded warning while not saying something that would get back to people and result in an unpleasant call from an agent.
This happened multiple times.
The number of incidents of bad behavior on my sets have been blessedly rare, but they have happened. Just to name two:
- A male performer pressuring a female performer for an off-camera blow job after wrap (I didn't know this happened until later, so I wasn't able to step in and tell him to knock it off).
- A male performer pressuring a female performer to do a trade-for-content shoot (basically, a shoot where neither one get paid and both can use the content), and getting very weird when she politely said, "Give me your details and we'll talk later." I did have to step in and stop that.
What should directors do?
The number one rule is:
Set the boundaries of the performance beforehand, and enforce them.
Doing intense sex is fine. But set up the rules beforehand. Are you going to slap and hit? If so, how hard and where? What kinds of language are OK to use? If someone is going to get tied up, how are you going to be confident that they stay safe and healthy, and how expert is the rigger doing the tying?
Always have a way for a bottom to stop a scene, and if the bottom signals stop, you cut at once and make sure everyone is OK. This isn't a contest. If a director is somehow complicit in a performer pushing another one harder than they want to be pushed, that's being an accessory to sexual assault, not being a filmmaker.
Check in with your cast. I think I've kind of amusedly-annoyed my cast sometimes by asking how they are doing throughout the shoot, but I'd rather have them say, "I'm fine! What are you on about?" than have them be feeling uncomfortable and not tell me.
Enforcing a performer's limits is the director's responsibility.
One thread I've seen over and over again in the discussion of Deen's behavior is that "the female talent didn't say anything at the time, so how bad can it be?"
That reveals a lack of understanding on how performance and the porn industry works that borders on criminal ignorance.
Performers are encouraged, pushed, cajoled and prodded to "do more" and "stretch your limits" all the fucking time. No one wants to be the one "holding up the shoot." The power balance before, during and after the shoot is heavily against the talent. If you have a director, a crew, and other performers staring at you wondering what the problem is, the pressure to just cave and go with it, no matter what "it" is, is overwhelming.
Because the threat of not getting more work if you are a "problem" is always there.
It's up to the director. The director sets the tone of the set, and has ultimate responsibilty for what happens. If the director says, "This scene has this, this and this in it, and nothing else, and I'll cut if you ever feel that something is going wrong," that sets one tone. "Look, I need to get this shot and I need you to stop complaining" sets another tone.
Yes, the history of cinema is full of directors who were monsters to their cast, and that history includes some famous directors who created great movies. If you honestly think that Hitchcock being horrible to Janet Leigh justifies a female performer being raped on your set in front of cameras, you are a sociopath.
Deen could do what he did because directors let him. It's up to directors to stop this.