In October of 2017, the Los Angeles Times reported that indie director James Toback had been accused of sexual assault or harassment by 38 women, including several well-known actresses. This was the same month the Weinstein article dropped at the New York Times, and like Weinstein, the depth and scope of Toback’s crimes were startling, but the overall sentiment was not. Toback had long cultivated a reputation as a womanizer. He even made a film about it, 1987’s The Pick-Up Artist, starring a young Robert Downey, Jr, as a more handsome, charming version of himself.
The allegations suggested a line between womanizing and harassment that was blurry enough for a predator to get away with sexual violence for years. Most of the women claimed Toback had met them in public, flashed his Director’s Guild card at them, and suggested they get together to discuss an upcoming project, often at a late hour and in a secluded location.
For decades, this was known and tolerated as “the casting couch,” but by 2017, the world had wised up a little. After the article ran, close to 400 women contacted the paper claiming to have been assaulted by Toback. The director responded that he couldn’t have been guilty because during the time of the allegations he was on medication that made it “biologically impossible” for him to have sex. Yeah.
It’s almost the exact same line that Blake Allen, once again played by Downey, uses on Carla (Heather Graham) and Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner) in Two Girls and a Guy, when they confront him in his apartment after discovering he has been secretly dating them both for months.
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