Posted in: Movies | Tagged: ain't it cool news, alamo drafthouse, Devin Faraci, fantastic fest, harry knowles, HRL, lloyd kaufman, tim league, troma

Troma Co-Founder Lloyd Kaufman Decries "Internet Lynch Mob" And "SJW Shaming" Of Harry Knowles

As Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles steps back from the website in the wake of multiple sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations, who will step up to defend him? The Toxic Avenger will! No, wait, sorry, it's Lloyd Kaufman!

The Troma co-founder and director of films such as The Toxic Avenger and Tromeo and Juliet has taken to Twitter to take journalists and Twitter users to task for "shaming a fat nerd who MIGHT have touched a girls but 20 years ago." In a series of tweets, Kaufman compared the backlash against Knowles to the McCarthy hearings.

Allegations against Knowles have come out as part of a larger scandal involving Fantastic Fest, the Austin genre film festival Knowles co-founded along with Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League. Things started to go south for the festival a few weeks before it began this year when it was revealed that Devin Faraci, the former Birth.Movies.Death. editor who parted ways with Alamo in 2016 after a sexual assault allegation was made public, was apparently quietly rehired by League soon after. When it was revealed that Faraci was still working for Alamo quietly under a different division, Todd Brown resigned as director of international programming, and the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri pulled out of the festival.

Knowles didn't attend Fantastic Fest this year, and Ain't It Cool News dropped out as a sponsor, amid allegations that Knowles sexually assaulted a woman on several occasions at Alamo Drafthouse events. Additionally, the report from IndieWire journalist Kate Erbland claims that the woman, a longtime friend of Tim and Karrie League, informed the pair about the incidents and were told to just try to avoid Knowles. League co-founded Fantastic Fest with Knowles a few years afterward, in 2005. On Tuesday, another former Alamo Drafthouse employee came forward with reports of sexual harassment at at Alamo Drafthouse events, including one involving Knowles.

Several AICN contributors have quit the website in the wake of the allegations. Knowles has "categorically" denied them, but announced he's taking a break from AICN to focus on "therapy, detox, and getting to a better place." League issued a statement apologizing to "the women that we let down," and also didn't attend the festival.

Featured image credit:
Comiquero.com via Wikimedia Commons

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