The director Terry Gilliam has invited renewed backlash after repeating his claim that he is a “black lesbian in transition”, assailing the #MeToo movement as a “witch-hunt” and asserting that some of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged victims are “adults who made choices”.
The website PinkNews offered swift condemnation, calling the 79-year-old’s comments “a feeble attempt to prove that white men are the real victims”.
The Time Bandits director and Monty Python cast member, who first described himself as a black lesbian in interviews last year, made his latest comments to the Independent while promoting his film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, released later this month.
Gilliam said he was “tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world”.
On the #MeToo movement, he said: “I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’”
He continued: “#MeToo is a witch-hunt. I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered. That’s wrong. I don’t like mob mentality.”
The director saved his most inflammatory comments for Weinstein, the former movie producer who faces trial on criminal sexual assault charges in New York next week.
Weinstein, 67, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he sexually assaulted two women, one in 2006 and one in 2013. More than 80 women have made allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.
Gilliam reasoned: “When you have power, you don’t take responsibility for abusing others. You enjoy the power. That’s the way it works in reality.”
Of Weinstein’s alleged victims, he said: “These were ambitious adults … There are many victims in Harvey’s life, and I feel sympathy for them, but then, Hollywood is full of very ambitious people who are adults and they make choices.”
Gilliam was essentially repeating comments he made in 2018, at a film festival in the Czech Republic. Then, he said: “I no longer want to be a white male, I don’t want to be blamed for everything wrong in the world: I tell the world now I’m a black lesbian … My name is Loretta and I’m a BLT, a black lesbian in transition.”
Speaking to the Independent, he said: “You can hate what I just said. That’s fine! No problem. I mean, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but fundamentalism always ends up being, ‘You have to attack other people who are not like you,’ and that’s what makes me crazy.”