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Tag: Shoshana Roberts

  • Shoshana Roberts Files $500,000 Lawsuit Against Producers Of Viral Cat-Calling Video

    Shoshana Roberts, star of 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman, says she was paid $200 to be filmed walking through the streets of Manhattan for 10 hours.

    The video caused her to be catcalled more than 100 times and she encountered multiple rape threats directed at her.

    The surreptitiously filmed YouTube video was posted last October and has since been viewed over 40 million times.

    Speaking about the filming process, Roberts told The Post, “I felt like crying and I have occurrences in my past of sexual assault, so I wasn’t even aware necessarily of all the times people were saying things to me.”

    “I was just going over in my head and reliving, unfortunately, these memories while I was walking. I wanted to break down in tears.”

    Roberts, 24, filed suit Tuesday requesting $500,000 for her exclusive performance in the viral video. The lawsuit also named Google, YouTube and T.G.I Fridays as co-defendants for making parodies of the video.

    The majority of men featured in the two-minute clip are black and Latino.

    Rob Bliss, a defendant included in the lawsuit, was the mastermind and director of the video. He admitted in a question-and-answer with Reddit that a lot of white men were taken out of the video.

    Bliss statement was: “Honestly we did have a lot of white dudes in this video, but for whatever reason it worked out that they would be the ones to say something just in passing, or from a distance off camera. This made their screen time fairly short by comparison, but the numbers were relatively similar.”

    He continues, “As the video says at the end, it was upwards of 100+ harassments, so obviously not everything was shown, otherwise we’d have a video that’s too long for internet attention spans.”

    “But really it was across the board, just about everyone said/did something while we filmed,” Bliss ended.

    Hollaback!, an anti-street harassment organization, collaborated with Bliss to promote the video. The organization’s executive director, Emily May, told The Washington Post: “We’ve had a number of rape threats and violent threats against Shoshana and we’re pulling those down as quickly as possible, but they exist.”

  • Shoshana Roberts Sues Those Behind Viral “Catcall” Video

    Shoshana Roberts Sues Those Behind Viral “Catcall” Video

    Shoshana Roberts, the female star of the viral video showing how many instances of verbal harassment a girl can experience on the street in one day, is suing the direct of the film, Rob Bliss.

    He also happens to have been Shoshana Roberts’ boyfriend at the time.

    Shoshana Roberts and her filmmaker boyfriend concocted the idea for the short film after Roberts became fed up with the way she was harassed everyday walking down the street.

    In the film, Shoshana Roberts walks through numerous areas of New York City and endures catcalls. They range from “Have a good day.” and “Bless you.” to “Hey Baby!” and “Da*n!”.

    One guy even chastises Shoshana Roberts for not appreciating the attention, saying, “Someone’s acknowledging you for being beautiful, you should say thank you.”

    #CNN #viral #shoshanabroberts #catcallgirl #clawsareout

    A photo posted by shoshanabroberts (@shoshanabroberts) on

    It seems the filmmaking duo has some bad blood now. Shoshana Roberts is suing Rob Bliss and Hollaback!, which is the anti-street harassment group responsible for the video, for $500,000.

    She is suing them for using her likeness to promote their agenda.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlFYJ0LCvGk

    Shoshana Roberts included co-defendants Google, YouTube and TGI Friday’s in the suit and claims they failed to get her signed permission to broadcast the video before it was used to sell advertising.

    The court documents state that the defendants used Shoshana Roberts’ “creative content, performance, image, likeness and persona for the purposes of advertising or trade without her prior written consent.”

    For his part, Rob Bliss seems to have had good intentions going forward.

    He said he wanted to show men “what street harassment looks like in plain broad daylight, how it makes people feel and leave it out there.”

    He added, “For women, I wanted to empower them a bit and talk about their own personal experiences, a lot of the time street harassment is something they can’t remove themselves from.”

    What do you think of Shoshana Roberts’ lawsuit against her boyfriend, Rob Bliss?

  • Shoshana Roberts, YouTube ‘Catcall’ Viral Video Actress, Deals With Negativity Her Way

    Shoshana Roberts, the actress who became an overnight sensation on YouTube with her ‘Catcall’ video, has decided to deal with the negative backlash her way.

    The video shows the actress walking around New York City for 10 hours, receiving a multitude of catcalls from men. The response was phenomenal, and while most of it was positive, some of the reaction to the video that had the intention of bringing awareness to what women face has been surprisingly negative, including threats of rape.

    “There are lots of mean people in this world and there are threats,” Roberts told Access Hollywood Live‘s Billy Bush and Kit Hoover on Monday.

    Roberts said she decided to let others deal with the backlash, so she doesn’t have to take things personally.

    “I have had my people going through all of the e-mails and the social media. Fortunately, I haven’t had to read most of them first hand. It’s friends and family telling me the important things that I need to be aware of for my safety,” she said.

    The video produced by Hollaback! and director Rob Bliss has received more than 31 million views.

    “It’s the majority of people that support me and are proud of me and are behind me and want to share their stories. I encourage everyone to share their stories ’cause again, my story is not unique,” she said.

    Roberts said she recreated her daily routine as she walked the streets of New York, taking her familiar routes she took to work. She said her experiences of receiving catcalls from men are not “unique” to her, but happen to millions of women every day.

    “This is my story that I’m telling, but my story isn’t unique,” Roberts said. “So many people all over the world are dealing with this.”