Golden Globes 2018: Gary Oldman's win once more sees an Oscar frontrunner with a problematic past

In 2001, Oldman's then-wife Donya Fiorentino alleged that he assaulted her in front of his children

The Time’s Up movement became the very centre of this year’s Golden Globes – a collective roar from Hollywood that declared that no longer will sexual harassment or abuse be tolerated in the industry, or in any industry.

However, some viewers found a level of discomfort in this year’s ceremony, which promised a world changed and yet pushed the awards race into the same position as it was last year. As in Casey Affleck’s win in 2017, Gary Oldman’s Best Actor win at the Golden Globes for Darkest Hour brings with it his controversial past, as pointed out in a piece by The Daily Beast.

In 2001, Oldman’s then-wife Donya Fiorentino alleged in papers filed to the Los Angeles Superior Court as part of divorce proceedings that he assaulted her in front of his children. According to the New York Daily News, Fiorentino said: “As I picked up the phone to call the police, Gary put his hand on my neck and squeezed. I backed away, with the phone receiver in my hand. I tried to dial 911.”

“Gary grabbed the phone receiver from my hand, and hit me in the face with the telephone receiver three or four times. Both of the children were crying.”

The actor vehemently denied the accusations as “replete with lies, innuendoes and half-truths”, and a judge awarded Oldman sole custody of their two children. The actor’s manager and producing partner, Douglas Urbanski, said in a statement to The Washington Post the “assault never happened and charges were never filed”.

In 2014, Oldman faced heavy criticism for a Playboy interview in which he defended Mel Gibson’s infamous anti-Semitic rant, which occurred while he was being arrested in 2006, during which he claimed that “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”

“Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews, and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him – and doesn’t need to feed him anymore because he’s got enough dough,” Oldman said. “He’s like an outcast, a leper, you know?”

“I don’t know about Mel. He got drunk and said a few things, but we’ve all said those things,” he continued. “We’re all f****** hypocrites. That’s what I think about it. The policeman who arrested him has never used the word n***** or that f****** Jew? I’m being brutally honest here. It’s the hypocrisy of it that drives me crazy.”

In 2011, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour charge of battering his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Recorded tapes allegedly captured Gibson threatening Griogorieva by telling her, “You look like a f****** pig in heat. If you get raped by a pack of n******, it will be your fault.”

Gary Oldman later issued an apology for his comments, writing an open letter to the Anti-Defamation League which read: “I am deeply remorseful that comments I recently made in the Playboy Interview were offensive to many Jewish people. Upon reading my comments in print — I see how insensitive they may be, and how they may indeed contribute to the furtherance of a false stereotype.”

If Hollywood is truly determined to set a future where victims are protected and where sexual abuse and harassment are given a zero-tolerance approach, Oldman’s history must be confronted and reckoned with if his adulation on the awards circuit is to continue to grow.

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