• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse extends mercy to noted blogger/molester

norm9

Member
That he hasn't written for BMD specifically? I'm struggling to think what they publish without bylines

I want to know if she knew he was still writing for Alamo though

If dude was cc'ed in emails, i'd assume that it'd hit the employees of the website portion of their brand at some point. It'd be weird if BMD didn't know what was going on with their other arms.

That statement is pretty much what I was expecting. It doesn't say they didn't know he was still working for Drafthouse, nor does it say they're unhappy he was. It feels like PR to let BMD escape backlash.

Good point.
 

stupei

Member
That statement is pretty much what I was expecting. It doesn't say they didn't know he was still working for Drafthouse, nor does it say they're unhappy he was. It feels like PR to let BMD escape backlash.

The second Hollywood Reporter article mentions an employee being censured for speaking out against Faraci in the past and that such public statements are grounds for dismissal because this is to be handled "internally."

I have a feeling the staff of BMD doesn't get as much say in their own statement as one might ideally hope.
 

Foggy

Member
Hard to feel great when they only did the right thing when backed into a corner. At least they're moving on.
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
I clicked a Daily Caller article on this without realizing it. It's truly amazing how these people spin news stories. I mean, it's a completely different universe.

Loud and often vitriolic on social media, the male feminist blogger shared his views on such matters as Donald Trump’s “grab her by the pussy” comments to Billy Bush. Faraci tweeted that he was “terrified” of Trump, and described Mike Pence as an “ideological monster” in a series of tweets that went viral.

One of Faraci’s most popular articles was a complaint about geek culture, in which he decried its problem with “entitlement.” He was an often-vocal detractor of the GamerGate movement for ethics in gaming journalism, describing it as a movement of misogynists and zealots.
 

Emarv

Member
BMD is totally fine without him and Meredith seems like a cool EIC. Totally happy with just removing any looming specter of Devin from the site going forward.
 
Things are getting fucky on Twitter. Some critics that are women and some self described feminists are dying on a hill to defend Faraci. It's not about forgiving him or not wanted him to get redemption, it's about not hiring him right back to the company where women work.

Ao7FMjv.png


This was Alisha a few months ago when it was fun to shit on Snyder

22m3ITv.png


BcArmSH.png


pDZvR3r.png


yKc7N1R.png
c

Sasha Stone is, uh, quite a character. Didn't realize she was a Faracipologist.
 
I had a weird (and ultimately go-nowhere) conversation with a listener about this earlier this morning, and I guess my question is why does "forgiveness" and "second chance" = "go right back to work at your old job?"

Considering almost every aspect of Devin's negative behavior was either enabled or boosted by his position as an entertainment writer, why is his forgiveness tied by necessity to his getting to do that work again? Why can't his second chance be... literally anywhere else other than the place he basically shit all over for something like a decade straight?

Why are the only choices for second chances the ones where he gets let back in the club he poisoned for years?
Yeah. He does not deserve a paid job in the same place where the sexual harassment happened. I'm not seeing anything about he's improved his relations with women, only that he's in rehab for substance abuse.
From the Hollywood reporter-


So anonymous source says Faraci was working within the month of stepping down. Hmmm.
Well, then screw him and Tim League. If you're gonna do shady shit, I'm not going to take this forgiveness excuse seriously. Just seems like Devin and Tim are close friends and gave him paid work.
 
Oh great. This twat is coming back to write film articles. It was such a nice break without him and his basura being posted here too

Edit: never mind. Looks like behind the scenes stuff. Pretty slimy move to pay him behind everyone's back like that. They should have severed ties with him. Second chances are fine but they should be at a different environment
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Here are twitter post responses from one of his victims.

let me clarify some things about the devin faraci / tim league situation

since there seems to be a bit of misinformation about how "the victim" feels.

last year tim league called me and told me he was removing Devin from Alamo Drafthouse staff.

I had not asked for this but told him it sounded like a good idea.

cut to two days ago, people are like "have you seen this statement from tim league?"

and it LOOKS like an announcement that Devin was being re-hired when in fact it seems like MAYBE HE NEVER LEFT PAYROLL TO BEGIN WITH

so, I was lied to and brought into what was essentially a PR scheme

since I never asked for devin to be fired to begin with, or demanded an apology or boycott, I'm just EXASPERATED at how sloppy this is

Tim emails me an apology AFTER the statement is released. again. We have some back and forth.

mostly I think Tim really loves and cares about his friend Devin. And it seems like some women in film journalism do too.

i get it. i totally get loving your friend and feeling at a loss that he is freaking out so much that his "career is ruined."

BUT HERE'S THE THING: HE HURTS PEOPLE

and when you put me, and everyone else, in the position to have to care more about devin's wellbeing than our own or the people he's hurt,

YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE ATMOSPHERE THAT RESULTS IN WOMEN NOT COMING FORWARD ABOUT THESE THINGS

and you can lecture me all you want about compassion or second chances and i will point you to my threads from yesterday

I want to trust what Tim has said to me which is that he is going to start thinking about his community as a whole

I am willing to make that leap but i am also PRETTY PISSED OFF about being lied to.

and again: i do believe in second chances, and recuperation, and nobody is a lost cause to me HOWEVER

why the lying and subterfuge about his employment? people seem to be glossing over this part pretty hard.

when people were saying this would ruin his career i didn't want to be cynical at the time but I HIGHLY DOUBTED AND DOUBT THAT

especially when you have people like Sasha Stone STILL saying that Devin is important for women in the film industry

yes, i'm naming names because i was pretty chill about this the first time around but here we find ourselves in THIS situation.

i don't want to be tweeting about this. tim league left this shitty dead bird on my doorstep two days ago

the film industry won't be "good for women" until y'all make some compassionate boundaries about what kinds of behavior is acceptable

and the idea that devin had been working at alamo all year and that this was an open secret in Austin? Like, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

that's it! i'm pissed but i'm hopeful that this situation has inspired some of you to demand better from your communities.

now i have to lock myself out of my twitter account because i have writing deadlines ahaha.
 
Rumors are he wrote the Silence review on BMD.

Meredith is saying he did not work on BMD, but there is a sister site, the Alamo, that Devin has been working on in secret.

Devin and Meredith have been going to the Alamo drafthouse retreats. She knows Devin was still working in secret. This is just wordplay. He wasn't working for BirthDeathMovies, but he never left the company in full.

Other than Devin, there was only interesting writer on BMD anyway, Evan. The rest are really generic and run of the mill.
 
The man who left Drafthouse & Fantastic Fest over this has released his statement as to why he left. It is... pretty fuckin' damning.

Anyone who has ever suggested that Fantastic Fest and the Drafthouse is just the geek friendly equivalent of the classic Old Boys Club, you have just been proven correct. We have just seen that Club in action. There it is, the Club utterly ignoring the victim while it creates a protective ring around the perpetrator. Telling every woman who has ever been harassed or assaulted that the predatory males around them will be protected if they are a part of the Club. Telling every woman that the Sad Man whose life is a shambles because of his own actions deserves help and support in putting himself back together while she deserves … nothing.

Basically, Tim League now has a whole shitload of work he's gotta do that he never needed to heap onto his desk.

Also, I think Fantastic Fest is going to take a bit of an attendance hit this year. I'm seeing more than a few people who normally are first in line (and even host events there) backing out.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I'll add to it with this line above too.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/alamo-drafthouse-fantastic-fest-todd-brown-statement-1201876409/

While I do not believe there was any malice in the decision to bring Faraci back there was, however, a clear, undeniable and arguably even callous disregard for the impact of this decision on anyone not named Devin Faraci.

Given the fact that questions regarding who was involved in the decision and when the decision was made have been ignored; given that the decision was kept out of both public eye and away from the festival staff; given that Faraci – as verbose as ever on social media – has clearly been coached not to talk about his employment, it is very hard to conclude that anyone involved was unaware of how callous this decision was and what the reaction would be if it were made public. They knew. They've known for months and kept it hidden for months. They just didn't care enough to do any different.
 

Dan-o

Member
Wow... this whole thing is crazy. Like... the Drafthouse brand is dead to some people. Those comments from Todd Brown are incredibly telling, in regard to how Tim League has handled all of this. To twist a quote from Wreck-it Ralph... just because you're a good guy, it doesn't make you a good guy.

Just my dumb thoughts.
 
Devin put a post up on his Medium called "Where I Am", but it was deleted by the time my friend sent me the link. Does anyone have the text from it?
"After eleven months of silence and many people speaking for and about me, I figured it was time to speak for myself."

That's all I know, though. It's from the thumbnail.
 

hollomat

Banned
That statement is pretty much what I was expecting. It doesn't say they didn't know he was still working for Drafthouse, nor does it say they're unhappy he was. It feels like PR to let BMD escape backlash.

This. She clearly goes out of her way to discuss whether or not she knew he was still working for Alamo since she obviously did.
 

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
So everyone on some level was still lying for Devin. I get wanting to protect your friends and especially ones with addictions, but at some point there is a penalty that needs to be paid and he may have had to step down, but lying about what that entailed should hurt the company because most of the people in charge were implicit in the lie. Whether they knew from the get-go or knew over time, but said/did nothing doesn't change they still lied to the victim and the public at large.

hate to say it, but im washing my hands of them. there are other venues that need my money more to stay alive.
 

Mifune

Mehmber
Devin put a post up on his Medium called "Where I Am", but it was deleted by the time my friend sent me the link. Does anyone have the text from it?


That's all I know, though. It's from the thumbnail.

The rest:
After eleven months of silence and many people speaking for and about me, I figured it was time to speak for myself.

In October of last year a woman (it's not my place to name her) came forward to accuse me of groping her in 2003. I don't remember the incident, but I know that I have been a blackout drinker. Faced with this serious accusation I had only one choice: believe the woman making the claim and accept personal responsibility. I felt that the morally correct action was to remove myself from my position and my world and to be quiet.

Over the course of my life I have hurt people. While this experience was not the first time I had people telling me how awful I was (I had made a career of it), it was the first time I truly faced how much I needed to change. I am not the man I was in 2003, and I am not the man I was in October. I take personal responsibility for all my actions and decisions, positive and negative, and I have begun the work of understanding the conditions that led me to take those actions, and to untie the knots of pain and fear that made me, frankly, an asshole.

Recovery and therapy introduced me to mindfulness meditation and a new spirituality (that I won't get into here because it's just going to read as phony and hokey) that has allowed me to start the hard work of making myself a better person. As I continue that work I look forward to making amends—at the proper time as dictated by a 12 step program—to those I've hurt. I'm not there yet, but it's coming.

I have spent the last eleven months lying low and focusing on my recovery and spirituality. A few months into my recovery I was given the chance to do low-level copywriting as a way to keep my rent paid as I continued the journey. Now circumstances have arisen that leave me unemployed and back in the news.

EDIT: Complete thumbnails in post above.
 
This is tough because "Believe women. Especially when they're talking about you." is actually a really powerful line. That's the kind of thing that really echoed in my mind as I read it. It's the kind of self-reflective proclamation that has clear intention and subtextual meaning that could, in the right context, be the kind of thing that garners you some good will.

But this whole process has been a disaster. Devin and his peers sound self-indulgent and skirt the idea of martyrdom at every turn. It seems all the consideration was put into how Devin feels instead of how his victims feel.

I absolutely believe there is a route to forgiveness for almost anything. I don't know what the right path is for this, but I know this isn't it. I think recusing himself from his business and believing the claims of his victim was the right thing. I think seeking rehabilitation for his substance abuse was the right thing. I think staying out of the public eye was the right thing.

But all of this, somehow, feels like the right thing attempted in the worst way possible.

And in a way, this sums up my longtime relationship with Devin Faraci: he's a scummy guy with a big ego that I don't like, but he sometimes says things that really resonate with me.

He was right to delete his post.
 

nomis

Member
talking about his newfound spirituality isn’t the only thing that would have sounded phoney and hokey. every word he’s said on the matter has read like one of his articles because he knows what words to say to have a veneer of sincerity. he’s been doing it his whole career to deflect from his own inclinations.
 

Foggy

Member
Only acknowledging the 2003 incident and deflections onto being blackout drunk certainly doesn't make it sound like he's taking responsibility for it. He's such an odious man.
 

Vectorman

Banned
Well reading about this whole fiasco has been a hell of a thing. Honestly Tim should either take a long sabbatical or step down and Faraci should never be close to anything Alamo/FF/BND forever. Actions have consequences and when you are trying to cover for your friend and attempting to silence his victims because you're buddies, perhaps you should rethink what century you are currently living in and think about yours and your other employees' livelihoods (which some of your employees might have also been complacent with your actions to keep Faraci on because I honestly doubt that Tim only knew about this).
 
That big exposé about Faraci is, ironically, written by a hardcore Gamergater and borderline white supremacist.

Obviously doesn't change Faraci's shitty behavior, but it's clearly written by someone wicked with a bad agenda.
 
That big exposé about Faraci is, ironically, written by a hardcore Gamergater and borderline white supremacist.

Obviously doesn't change Faraci's shitty behavior, but it's clearly written by someone wicked with a bad agenda.

That's one of the sad and kind of embarrassing repercussions of seeing writers and institutions who fancy themselves as progressives and femenists fall on their sword to defend Devin Faraci of all people.

I mean, Devin was initially called out when victims couldn't handle the hypocrisy of attacking Trump from the Billy Bush tape... the same behavior Devin is guilty of. Now his colleagues are acting like Billy Bush and others who enabled Trump to act that way. It's ridiculous how they're throwing away their integrity to make an exception for Devin. It's gross behavior, full stop.
 

Vectorman

Banned
New piece came out with new info and an interview with the Fantastic Fest employee Todd Brown who departed: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...estorm-as-devin-faraci-breaks-silence-1039241

Here's the main thing to read from it though:

On Wednesday evening, League, who has hired a crisis-management firm to deal with the backlash, issued a second statement in which he said Faraci had "offered his resignation" and that he had accepted it. League also announced "a series of small group discussions" for the company to process what happened.

The exact timing of Faraci's reinstatement remains unclear, but one former Drafthouse employee, a longtime programmer who quit last March, told The Hollywood Reporter that Faraci's name was appearing on internal emails as soon as one month after the controversy. 

THR has also learned that Faraci was photographed at a Drafthouse event that took place in February 2017, just four months after the sex-assault allegations surfaced. In them, Faraci is shown sporting an "all-access" credential available only to high-level Drafthouse employees.

Devin already had an Drafthouse all access badge back in Feb 2017 as shown by the photo. And now Tim has to hire crisis management. Like lol @ Tim. What the fuck was he thinking?
 

Random Human

They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
If he's hired a crisis management firm, I'm now extra skeptical of statements coming Drafthouse and BMD, as well as that DF post.
 

Mifune

Mehmber
Thank god Todd Brown did what he did or this would have likely blown over already and business would be back to mostly normal. Now it can't be ignored.
 
Of all the hills to die on, the one named FARACI?

Drafthouse goes from a cinema mecca for film fanatics to... what. A fussy chain theater? Boutique vinyl retailer and warehouse for overpriced art prints?

For FARACI?

Of all the fucking people?

None of this had to go down in anything remotely resembling this fashion.
 

SeanC

Member
If he's hired a crisis management firm, I'm now extra skeptical of statements coming Drafthouse and BMD, as well as that DF post.

BMD is pretty removed from Drafthouse goings on, Meredith Borders made that really, really clear and I know some freelancers that work for her and feel no presence of Devin's involvement.

That being said everything is still under suspect with Tim and hiring of this firm even with the site. I mean, he really created this chaos and it's going to impact how people view Drafthouse and its subsidiary brands from this point on. When Devin was booted from the site/magazine, people still came for other writers, but now I dunno. Some of those writers might be sick of the drama and outright leave BMD for other gigs, or readers looking elsewhere with less of a cloud hanging around it.
 

norm9

Member
In hindisght, it was very idiotic for League to make that statement this week with his Fest happening. What was he thinking? Either he must have known something was coming down the pipeline OR he's just that blinded by friendship to see that people perceive DF as a social/professional leper. He guessed wrong that DF would be treated like the prodigal son or some shit.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
In theory, I have no problem with League's actions. Yeah, if someone demonstrates contrition and a way to make amends, give them a chance to prove themselves. The idea of "well can't he do something else" is pretty laughable. If what he did is bad, not sure how not writing makes it "better", and telling a middle-aged person "just learn another way to feed yourself" is ridiculous.

However, even before we get to the wonky timeline, it reads a lot more like "he's my friend so I'm willing to forgive him" rather than any real practice of the depths of forgiveness. So he deserves the side-eye he's getting.
 
With everything that's been coming out I think I'll wallk back my previous 'don't know how to feel about this'. It's just pretty shitty all around, and that twitter thread from the victim in question really drives home how underhanded League has been about the whole thing.

Disappointing to see an organisation that prides itself on progressive values abandon them when it truly counts.
 
Top Bottom