Street artist takes aim at Meryl Streep with 'She Knew' tag around town. pic.twitter.com/UniDauXRlP
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) December 19, 2017
So-called “guerrilla art” has been appearing in LA the past week – you can see an example of the “art” above. The posters are of a blown-up and cropped image of Meryl Streep smiling next to Harvey Weinstein, with the words “She Knew” over Meryl’s eyes. The posters have been papering LA city streets for days, and they started popping up immediately after Rose McGowan tweeted out some insults to Meryl for no real reason other than Meryl has worked with Harvey Weinstein. Many women and men have worked on films produced or distributed by Weinstein (including Rose), and I felt like Rose’s attack on Meryl was really off-side, and I’ve been extremely irritated by this idea that out of everyone in Hollywood who had any kind of professional connection to Weinstein, Meryl is the one who is being so specifically criticized. I also thought that Rose’s attack on Meryl was connected to the She Knew posters. Turns out, not so much.
A rightwing guerrilla artist in Los Angeles has claimed responsibility for posters that depict Meryl Streep as an enabler of Harvey Weinstein, calling them revenge for the actor’s criticism of Donald Trump. Sabo, a former US marine who considers leftism a “disorder”, told the Guardian on Wednesday he created the posters that show Streep with a red stripe across her face and the text “She knew”, a reference to accusations that she had knowledge of Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse of women.
Sabo, 49, said he and two collaborators conceived the campaign as retaliation for Streep using her latest Oscar-tipped film, The Post, to bash Trump. “She’s swiping at us so we’re swiping back.”
About a dozen posters in the style of the conceptual artist Barbara Kruger sprouted across LA on Tuesday, including near Streep’s house, near the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists’ headquarters and near the studio lot of 20th Century Fox, which made The Post. Sabo has been called an “alt-right” version of Banksy. He says Republicans are the new punks, and makes a living selling inflammatory artwork at conservative events and through his website, plus contract work for the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos.
Sabo said he did not know if Streep had in fact enabled Weinstein’s alleged decades of abuse. “I wasn’t sitting in a room with her. I can’t say 100%. But I’d say anyone in the (film) industry had a pretty good idea. I think she knew. Maybe she was providing Weinstein with the fresh meat.”
Yeah, shut it down. A neo-Nazi “artist” decided to disrupt Hollywood by publicly accusing a politically active woman of being culpable in a man’s violent, predatory behavior. Sabo is still a butthurt snowflake because Meryl got up at the Golden Globes last year and read Donald Trump for filth, and Sabo is still a butthurt snowflake over the fact that his petty Nazi dictator got his thin-skinned panties in a bunch over Meryl’s public rebuke. Shut it down. Shut all of it down.
Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News.
Meryl isn’t the victim here. I’m neutral on her I’m not going to rally around her or have an opinion on what she did or didn’t know. I’m more concerned with rooting out the abusive people and giving voice to the women who were affected.
Victimizing a whole another set of women by holding them accountable for the vile actions of men neither roots out abusers nor gives voice to victims.
Streep is absolutely a victim.
She IS a victim in this sense. This is solely because she spoke out about Trump at the Globes and because the far right thinks The Post is an allegory to Trump and “an anti Trump” movie. They do not care about what Weinstein did, only that it made liberal Hollywood look bad.
Also, I’m standing by my statement that it’s pretty ballsy for people to accuse Meryl of knowing Weinstein was raping and abusing women and looked the other way. That’s a heavy accusation to make without proof. I can absolutely believe that maybe she thought he used his position to get women to sleep with him via coercion (aka casting couch), which is wrong and abusive, but I don’t think she turned a blind eye to rape.
Exactly. There are different types and levels of victimization we’re looking at with this whole situation, as both you (Des) and Plaidsheets down at #4 brought out. Meryl isn’t the biggest victim here. But we’re allowed to be concerned about women being attacked for exposing their abusers, women being taken down for men’s abuse of others, and women being accused of sleeping with people (especially predators) for a come-up all at once. All 3 of these problems play into misogynistic, abuser-enabling agendas.
Except it’s not people making the accusations it’s the actual rape victim making the accusation but people love Meryl so much they aren’t open to the fact that there maybe more to the story that we may never know. Again I don’t see her as a victim. I don’t condone this ‘artist’ in any way but I’m not going to rally around Meryl.
This!!!! The people who are pointing to Meryl are people who historically haven’t been able to publicly say all that they know. I think there’s a reason why her name keeps coming back up, but people love her so they are all rushing to call her a victim.
Just because a public figure was a victim of a violent crime doesn’t mean that moving forward everything they have to say about others should be automatically viewed as accurate and above criticism. Rose can be wrong about some things but still be a victim, worthy of support. If we were to go back through the archives of this site alone we’d find several celebrities who have both experienced some type of violence or violation AND have made judgments about others that are inaccurate, hypocritical, unreasonable, or awful.
This creep wants us to turn on one another. He wants to divert the narrative. He wants to deploy a scorched earth campaign against anti-Trump liberals by hijacking and weaponizing an issue he doesn’t care about in the least. Streep is being punished for being a woman who publicly denounced his commandant. Screw him. Screw this. Don’t let him win by losing focus.
Shades of Mao Tse Tung’s “cultural revolution” to demonize speaking out, education and logic.
This.
Yes!
So well said!
“hijacking and weaponizing an issue he doesn’t care about in the least”
This point can not be overstated.
This is extremely important. They have been attempting this and all over blogs, and the bots are busy. I don’t believe he was a lone wolf. I absolutely think this is a part of the Roger Stone operation to pull apart the left and plant discord. Like I said they did it with Franken, the proof is there, but we should let this be a lesson.
It is our movement, and we won’t be thwarted. We won’t back down.
We are better and smarter, and we have decency and justice on our side.
Exactly.
They always do anything to undermine women speaking out: threaten, ridicule, lie, slander, gaslight, insult, demean, violate, murder…
The list of verbs goes on.
And I feel less and less affected by what men might think of me by the day.
Yeah but Meryl’s victimhood or lack thereof isn’t the point. The point was to use her to make liberals fight and lose focus. Looks like it’s working to me.
And this too.
Yes. Say this every single time. Point it out. Refuse to allow them to use our movement and our beliefs as weapons.
This HW (and other sexual predators in the entertainment industry) debacle is giving scary wings to the alt-right. Not just these Meryl Streep posters, but anywhere you see a celebrity commenting on any political issue or criticising Trump or something the current government does, or two weeks ago speaking against Moore, there were alt-righters having their “you knew and did nothing” campaign in the comments. It’s spreading. 🙁
This whole smear campaign seems like a way of blaming a woman for the acts of a repulsive man
Yup. This makes zero sense. It is about assaults not Meryl vs Rose or any other woman… way to turn the tables. Thank you jerks for not giving women, majority of this planet, the right to speak up.
I can say I blame susan sarondon partly for the hiring of trumptler, but I don’t put hate posters of her around her neighborhood.
While looking for people to blame – why isn’t anyone searching out the assistants, producers and directors who physically took women to Weinstein’s hotel room, knowing full well what was in store for them.
This story is about the alt-right smear campaign. It has nothing to do with what you are talking about.
@magnolia
Whilst I do not necessarily agree with @ nancitos point. this story is also about blaming others for HW actions and those who some people feel were complicit now is the alt right hijacking this sure but even if you may not agree with nancitos she has every right to make that point there
If anyone has the time, please read the rest of his statements. Sabo is truly disgusting. He had similar “art” with other actresses— “She blew” is written across their eyes instead of “she knew”.
The alt right is also very sexist; just like the nazis were (woman=babymachine).
I also had to laugh when they said he is the right-wing version of Banksy. Bitch please!! Banksy is an worldwide acclaimed street art artist. This guy is a crappy hack.
The high-tech tool of social media melding with the blunt, ancient instrument of lying for political gain is causing so many problems. Divisive campaigns like this one are so convincing–they are made to look like progressive, social-justice oriented messages. At heart, however, it’s still just the same old authoritarian whisperings of double-speak, aiming to make us tear each other apart in the streets.
What a dumbass this Sabo is. If he had’ve kept his mouth shut this campaign would’ve been more effective. But his ego demanded he get the credit and now his grubby campaign is exposed for what it is: a right-wing attempt to divide progressives. Suffice to say people will be more wary and less inclined to fall for this sort of crap in the future.
There are many of those.
There were men pretending to be feminists saying Father’s Day should be cancelled, for instance.
Which shows you that feminists are not neary as bad as they try to make us out. If we were, there would be no need for those kind of made-up smear campaigns.
This piece of s*** just wants attention by getting back at the people who took a swipe at their “leader” who he worships. He is a sad pathetic person and I won’t be surprised he has no 💰 when his leader took all of his money.
They don’t get it… Their “leader” don’t care about them.
This alt-right creep abuses free speech. Wish he could be charged with libel.
Er, abuses free speech? He abuses women, abuses minorities, and abuses good sense, but free speech is there for everyone. We won’t run out of it unless we start limiting it.
Look up some of the other art this idiot put up. He is the one sending these pictures to papers and hyping himself by calling himself the Alt Right Banksy. His big fans are dbags like Ben Shapiro, Milo, Paul Joseph Watson, Mike Cernovich, Jack Posebic, and the James Woods and Sean Hannitys of the world.
As I said yesterday, this is all to get back at Meryl for her Globes speech and for The Post being seen as an allegory about the Trump administration. He had no idea if Meryl knew or not, and doesn’t care. This had nothing to do with Rose’s tweets. These people don’t care about the victims. Most of them think the victims were whores who wanted to get ahead. They just love it because it makes “liberal Hollywood” look bad and because Weinstein was a liberal donor with connections to Obama and Clinton. Don’t get this twisted, they do not care about women.
Love this so much!!
Yes. Like my Russian cousin EA says “Love this so much!!”
Yeah, sorry guys but I fall pretty firmly in the “she knew” camp. Streep holds a lot of power and respect in Hollywood. To say she got there while remaining ignorant, is not only laughable but vaguely insulting. And while I get that we should believe women when they speak, there’s a huge difference between a victim speaking out against a powerful person in their industry and someone distancing themselves from a disgraced abuser.
All that being said, I have no desire to put any energy in to getting mad at her (granted, I had already cancelled her due to the Polanski thing). My anger is reserved for the abusers, my support to the victims.
This isn’t about that.
This is about a deranged lunatic standing up for his Dear Leader.
United we stand! Do not let this douche bag draw focus. He’s hurt about comments made about baby fists, swipe back MO is to blame a woman for a powerful man serially abusing women. HW choices are not her fault.
To be honest, I feel Meryl is only targeted due to her success. If she’s being called out, so should every other actress that has ever worked with HW.
+1
Ah it figures this “movement” came from a right wing nut. Shut it all down indeed
Of course the right are going to try and divide and conquer the Democrats, all the more reason why the Democrat candidate in 2020 has to be someone we can all get behind, which isn’t going to easy because young progressives are much further to the left than your traditional establishment Democrats.
This self proclaimed alt right Banksy is no street artist. He’s a hack. His “art” is derivative at best; wholly and willfully misogynistic at worst.
How about instead of derailing the conversation, and muddying the waters by blaming women who had nothing to do with Weinstein’s actions, he call out the REAL rapist? How about posters of Weinstein with the word “Predator” plastered across his face?
Oh yeah, because he’s just a shitty “artist” who steals the work of women artists, to perpetuate the narrative that women are only successful in any industry because they are complicit in (and not victims of) men’s crimes..
Also: “But her emails…”
A lot of you are missing the point. A right wing nut did this to her because she spoke out against trump
Wow, I wanted to believe Meryl, but I read a Blind Gossip story that has to be her. It said she more than knew – she personally conned young wannabe actresses into ‘meeting’ him. If true, I am disgusted.
Why are fans of the “blind items” so ready and willing to believe that anything and everything they read about women on those forums is coming from accurate, honest, ethical, trustworthy, progressive, all-knowing sources? (And the most ironic part is, they’ll portray everybody who’s skeptical of what they read as some variant of ‘stupid sheeple’). Sorry, but that rumor has right-wing smear campaign written all over it.
Some Trump supporter doesn’t like Meryl’s democratic ideas and perhaps is focusing on her instead of the real doers of bad deeds for revenge.