By Sandy Cohen, Entertainment Writer
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) --The organizers of Time's Up say the movement to eradicate discrimination in the workplace will have a presence at Sunday's Oscar show, but there are no plans for a red-carpet dress code.
Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, actresses Laura Dern and Tessa Thompson, producer Katie McGrath and attorney Nina Shaw talked about the movement's progress and next steps with news reporters Thursday.
They stressed that while Time's Up made a splashy appearance at the Golden Globes earlier this year, with most women wearing black and several actresses walking the red carpet with activists, the movement is bigger and broader than awards shows.
"We're trying to build something that's sustainable, lasting and serious," DuVernay said Thursday at the meeting at the Sunshine Sachs publicity firm's offices in West Hollywood, California.
Time's Up was "launched on the red carpet, but was never intended to live there," Rhimes said.
Besides the black dresses at the Globes, Time's Up supporters wore white roses at the Grammy Awards. No such uniformity is planned for the Oscars.
Formed after the Harvey Weinstein scandal revealed widespread sexual harassment in Hollywood, Time's Up has grown into an international, multifaceted and multipronged approach to fighting workplace discrimination, organizers said. They outlined the various avenues of the effort at Thursday's news conference.
A key element is the legal defense fund, which has amassed $21 million and scores of attorneys to date. In partnership with the National Women's Law Center, the fund connects victims of harassment or discrimination with attorneys, who are either volunteering their services or having their fees underwritten by donations.
Since Time's Up was founded about two months ago, it has received some 1,700 requests for legal assistance, said attorney Tina Tchen, a lawyer and former director of the White House Council on Women and Girls. More than 1,200 of those cases have already been referred to attorneys, she said.
The movement may have started in Hollywood, but it's become global, Rhimes said, with participation in Kenya, South Korea, Pakistan and Kuwait. From the tech sector to farm workers, women are coming together to demand fair treatment, she said.
"The intention really is that a large portion of our leadership will come from other industries," Rhimes said.
Representatives for farm, domestic and restaurant workers have been actively involved in the expanding movement, she said.
On Friday, Time's Up is announcing its new StoryCorps initiative. StoryCorps is a storytelling collective that invites ordinary people to share tales from their lives, which are eventually uploaded into a Library of Congress collection aimed at fostering greater human understanding. The Time's Up partnership invites women and men to share stories about their lives at work.
It's not just about sexual harassment, organizers said, but about illuminating what it takes to create fair and equitable workplaces where people of all races, genders and ethnicities are recognized and valued. It's about seizing on the momentum generated by the outrage over Weinstein and those like him and channeling it toward change.
Branches of the Time's Up movement have been meeting regularly since the beginning of the year. Various sectors of the initiative are dealing with men, people of color and people overseas, organizers said.
Hollywood men have held their own Time's Up meetings, organizers said, and international outreach continues to grow.
No invitation is needed to participate, either, they said. Like all grass-roots movements, it grows with personal interest.
"There's actual work being done," DuVernay said. "It's not just a press opportunity… It's not just an awards-show protest movement."
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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