That joke isn't funny: A short history of the 'casting couch' trope

Time to throw this old couch to the curb.

After two weeks of horrific revelations about predatory producer Harvey Weinstein -- and now his brother Bob -- it's hard to imagine we'll see another "casting couch" joke in movies or TV for some time – if ever.

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But as the industry examines the parts of its system that let Weinstein act unchallenged, we should not ignore the fact that the whole concept behind his behavior has been baked into its product for decades.

SEE ALSO:Harvey Weinstein's harassment was an open secret in Hollywood. He's far from alone.

The casting couch is shorthand for a cartoon image: the lascivious old producer with roaming hands pursuing a young starlet in an uncomfortably close seating situation during a private audition. The more this became a cliche of entertainment, the more it blunted the edges of a harsh reality for untold numbers of women.

The fact that it's a common comedic trope made it easier for Hollywood as a whole to laugh off some serious allegations over the years. "The casting couch was always thought of as a joke," Helen Mirren said in a 1991 documentary called Sex For Jobs in Hollywood.

"But we never found it very funny," she added.

How it began

The origin of the phrase "casting couch" is as murky as the behavior it describes. In all likelihood, it dates back to the beginnings of the studio system in the 1910s, when men like Goldwyn, Mayer and Zanuck began groping their way through nearly every actress in pictures.

The brother of the legendary Joan Crawford alleged that she had been cajoled into making what was then known as a "stag movie" -- a comedic porn flick -- literally called "Casting Couch." It had supposedly been made in her pre-fame days, prior to 1925. He wasn't exactly sympathetic; he was blackmailing her with it. (No stag movie containing Crawford has ever surfaced.)

What we do know is that "casting couch" was used for comedy purposes almost as soon as it was coined. Hollywood trade paper Varietyfirst employed it 80 years ago this year, according to Slate, to mock a Chicago Tribunereport on a local radio station's new rule that only female producers could interview female talent.

The article said the reporter had "bloomered" -- made an embarrassing mistake -- by thinking that "casting couch" could be used to refer to a couch that a four-woman audition board occupied when interviewing female applicants.

In fact, the innuendo in the rest of the Varietyarticle suggests, the male executives' casting couches had been the location of abusive behavior, leading to the necessity of all-women auditions in the first place. Couches had been removed from the offices of all but "the top three execs." Was this to prevent abuse or cut back on costs? Were those top three execs, almost certainly all men in 1937, supposed to be beyond reproach?

The anonymous Varietywriter isn't saying. He (again, almost certainly a he) doesn't seem to care. The aims of the article: to shame the Chicago rube for not being familiar with casting couch tradition; to guffaw at the incongruous idea that four women would do what one man would do on such a couch. Abuse is covered up with a nudge and a wink.

Credit: VARIETY

In an era where censorship of sexual matters ruled the media, no report that suggested male producers tended to prey on actresses was allowed to be direct. It had to be rendered as a knowing joke. The same was true of fictionalized reports of the practice.

To illustrate that best, let's take a look at four of the movies that treat the subject with lightness, with winking worldly knowingness -- exactly the approach that allowed entertainment culture to turn a blind eye to the true horror of the situation.

1. All About Eve (1950)

This biting Bette Davis movie about competitive women in show business -- which still holds the record for the most Oscars won by actresses -- was also a breakout drama for young Norma Jeane Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe.

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Monroe plays Claudia Casswell, an ingenue being groomed by theater critic Addison deWitt. He sends her into the clutches of producer Max Fabian, who could be Harvey Weinstein's 1950s double.

The joke here, such as it was, is that Miss Casswell doesn't know that she isn't supposed to tell polite society what's actually going on behind the scenes.

After an audition with the producer, she emerges with the sable fur she coveted earlier and a world-weary look, "like I just swam the English Channel." She laments that her career is going to be "nothing but auditions" from now on.

In real life, Monroe was well aware of what went down in those auditions. She called filmmakers out for being "vicious and crooked," phonies and failures; she said that they saw Hollywood as "an overcrowded brothel, a merry-go-round with beds for horses."

That's a line worthy of an Oscar-winning script like All About Eve-- except that Monroe would never have been allowed to reveal such unvarnished truth about the casting couch in an actual movie.

2. Scream 3 (2000)

The late, great Carrie Fisher was one of the few who got away with telling the truth about the casting couch, albeit wrapped up in jokes. Here she plays a character who says she could have got the part of Princess Leia if only she'd slept with George Lucas.

The irony being that Lucas was a painfully shy indie director from Northern California who couldn't be further from the power-hungry Hollywood norm; he'd blanch at the very idea of a casting couch.

That's probably why Fisher couldn't resist re-using the joke when she roasted Lucas at his AFI Lifetime Achievement award ceremony. "And in conclusion, your honor," she said to riotous laughter, "I hope I slept with you to get that job -- because if I didn't, who the hell was that guy?"

Thankfully, Carrie was able to address the casting couch problem in a more direct manner off-screen -- by bringing a cow's tongue to the office of an executive who had harassed a friend of hers, complete with a note suggesting that his private parts would be removed next if he did that again.

3. The Producers (1968 and 2005)

As a send-up of the business of show, this Mel Brooks comedy is second to none. Theater producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) wines, dines and fulfills the off-screen whims of elderly ladies -- all so they'll fund his next production. In a sense, this is a neat reversal of the casting couch trope.

But there is one Producerscharacter who seems problematic today: Ulla, Max's secretary -- or as he describes her, his "toy" -- who removes her clothes and dances provocatively at the slightest provocation. "Vee make love?" she says, clad only in a bikini.

In the 1968 version, at least, she was simply an exuberant secretary. In the Broadway version -- filmed in 2005 -- Ulla was an actress looking for a part. She sings "When You've Got It, Flaunt It" to Max (Nathan Lane) and Leo Bloom (Matthew Broderick), literally draping herself all over the casting couch for her role.

In other words, The Producersis the rare example of a reboot that makes a story moreproblematically sexist.

It's a good song. Uma Thurman does a great job of belting it out. And you could argue that this too is a reversal of the usual trope: in a sense, she's the one with the power in this situation.

Still, it's an actress getting a part by flaunting her sexuality on a couch in a producer's office, in multiple producers' faces. This was, in real life, an often abusive location. Brooks, no spring chicken, must have known that. At the end of the day, it's hard not to think that this scene doesn't reinforce in male would-be producer minds what they think the casting couch is all about.

To wit:

4. Casting Couch (2013)

Yes, this was an actual movie. That was made. In 2013. Non-ironically. About six men who pretend to be filmmakers. So they can see more "boobs."

"These Hollywood hotties want a guy with power" is an actual quote from this actual film that actually had $3 million spent on its actual production.

We can at least say this: If the whole casting couch meme is consigned by the events of 2017 to the trash heap of history, this nasty little mess of a movie will be a fitting capstone.

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