"'To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself'- Anne Rice"
Fragile Ego Feminist Filmmakers and my email argument with one
Sat, 08/01/2009 - 13:14
Okay, so I love sharing email trails.
I used to work for a group called Movies By Women. I had a falling out with the group leader, Tara veneruso, more than a year ago, and we parted ways fairly harmlessly. I haven't heard from her nor she from me. However, their website hasn't been updated in eons and they had child porn spam all over their forums and MY name is listed as a website tech. This upset me.
I got this email from a person on the site:
From: person who emailed
To: heidi and tara
Subject: Offensive pictures posted on your forum
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:47:31 -0400
Just found your website at http://www.moviesbywomen.com and thought it had potential to be a good resource. However, I was appalled to find numerous pictures of p0rn, including many of underage girls engaged in se×ual acts, posted in your forum which can be seen by anyone, even someone who isn't logged in. Your efforts will never be taken seriously unless you remove that porn and moderate that forum. You should require a login and password, with some ability to read IP addresses and keep out such objectionable posts. If you don't have the ability to moderate your forum, you should shut it down and get rid of it altogether, and perhaps notify law enforcement of the posters' logins. Those disgusting pictures may be of girls who have been trafficked.
A concerned reader
To which I replied:
From: Heidi Martinuzzi
Sent: Fri 7/31/2009 8:58 PM
To: Person who emailed, heidi, Rick Tait; tara
Subject: RE: Offensive pictures posted on your forum
I wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately, I have not been affiliated with Movies By Women for well over a year now. My name/email still being on the site is just one of the many updates that needs to be done to the forum and main site.
If I had any kind of administration access and was still affiliated with MovieByWomen, I would remove the porn. unfortunately, I do not have access and am no longer a part of their group.
However, I would like to have my name removed from a site that allows child pornography to be posted.
Thank you for the concern. I do agree that it is a shame since the organization and the site could be great if it had the manpower to keep up the website/blog/
Then, Tara, the owner of the site, freaks out and sends me this:
RE: Offensive pictures posted on your forum
From: Tara
Sent: Sat 8/01/09 11:43 AM
To: Heidi
Cc: Rick Tait
Heidi,
Fighting for your life is very different than not caring. Judge all you want. be as harsh as you want. wonder why i didn't take the forum down - i really don't care. you could not possibly understand unless you were in my shoes. If you're ever in a situation in your lifetime where trying to stay alive matters more than anything else (and you'd literally have to be between life and death to know what I mean - and I don't mean emotionally distraught - i'm talking purely physically on the precipice) then you'd understand how even writing this email to you is taxing.
BUT I'm writing this to you because I can't stand judgmental people who are holier than thou - You may be good at updating websites but you're awful at meeting people in person when you say you will. And you're phone "dying" schtick is very transparent. (i.e. my phone died so I couldn't call you to let you know I'd never show up). YOU have no idea what I went through or missed out on when you used to schedule a time with me and then not show up - time and time again. I was VERY sick then and it was a VERY big deal that you'd simply bail and pretend your phone had issues. You may not realize it but you did the same schtick to me numerous times which is why it was so obvious. I know this may be shocking but the have phones you put money in at many points about town where you can call and properly cancel with someone.
But then again... you never cared about my time or rather my loss of time.
So while you sit there on Mount High n' Mighty and complain about stuff that you have no need to even reply to (the woman's email) just remember that you are also extremely flawed. You are also not perfect.
And again, if you ever end up becoming very ill with 4 chronic diseases then look me up - I'd love to bridge this divide once you're no longer unjustly judgmental about something that is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
The funny thing is - I did want to continue our friendship - but you were so bent out of shape that 4 people were upset that you did not value our time in any way that you could not face the music and simply apologize. You blamed it on everyone but yourself - when I know that you know you were just being thoughtless about others. It's a shame because I thought you were an awesome person - and you are - except for that vast streak of selfishness (or is it thoughtlessness) that has reared it's ugly head once again.
Unapologetically,
Tara
---
Tara Veneruso
She's out of her mind. Not only have I not even spoken to her for over a year, the last thing I need to do is take time to personally insult a woman I barely know. I was shocked at how fragile and aggressive she seemed.
i replied, of course. Cause that's what i do.
RE: Offensive pictures posted on your forum
From: Heidi
Sent: Sat 8/01/09 12:02 PM
To: tara; Rick Tait; Lucy; Stephanie
Tara, you have some serious issues to respond in such a hostile and unprovoked way to the email that I sent and that was sent to me.
I CC'd Stephanie and Lucy because I think they should be aware that their names are still on a site that features child pornography in the forums as well. They might want to know.
For someone who despises 'judging' and who accuses me of 'judging you', you seem to be pretty good at picking me apart and judging me, despite the fact that you know nothing of me or my life or really ANYTHING about me. Might I add - my email to the reader did not make ANY judgements or personal jabs at you.
I simply was replying to a person who informed me that there was child porn on your site. My name is still on your site, which is why they emailed me and why I responded. I am no longer able to update your site, so I cannot take my name off. Having child porn on your site is a serious legal issue that you should be concerned about and take pains to remove immediately for your own legal safety. I would gladly do it for you, to protect you and your site and myself since my name is on it, but do not have access.
I forgot a long time ago about any disagreements we have had and have moved on. For the sake of Movies By Women, which I have always thought was a great idea, please grow up, and please do move on from whatever horrible fight you think we had. I am sorry you are sick. You could always get rid of the forums, especially since they seem to be something you don't have the ability to take care of because of your illness.
If you reread the email I sent below, I merely said if you had the necessary manpower you could make Movies By Women a really great web resource. What about that is offensive? Did I say that you 'didn't care'? Please go look and see that I did not.
I will assume that you have been through a lot of stress lately because of your illness, and I hope you get well soon. I have always loved Movies By Women and I am proud of the time I spent there. Unfortunately, you and I could not get along and we parted, which was for the best. I wish you the best of luck. Please try to look out for illegal things on your site posted by spammers. And please do try to reply to the nice people who email you letting you know it is there, like the person I replied to. If you no longer want me to respond to these people who email me, you can always have my name removed from the site. I would have assumed you would have removed it a long time ago.
And also, do not waste my time by sending me rude and unecessary emails accusing me of things I have not done and wouldn't stoop to doing.
Heidi
So, she has her ex boyfriend email me back.
Re: Offensive pictures posted on your forum
From: rick tait
Sent: Sat 8/01/09 12:27 PM
To: Heidi; Person who emailed originally; Rick Tait; Tara
{NOTICE the two women who are also affiliated were removed from the email chain, - hm}
Heidi,
Please don’t try and be the high-and-mighty above-the-fray person here. You started it. The porn on the forum is not in question. What is in question is why you chose to frame it the way you did, in such a personally offensive way as to infer that Tara/MBW was condoning the porn.
Your choice of words here (“a site that allows ...”) was obviously deliberate. As someone who has been online as long as you have and has known Tara as long as you have, it would not require a huge amount of your thought power to come to a fairly likely (and not uncommon) scenario of the MBW forum being clearly “pwned” by the CAPTCHA software which allowed scripted bots to post the porn. I didn’t know about it until I read your email. I don’t frequent the site. Tara has been too sick, and I guess noone else has let us know.
And yet you chose to use the word “allows”. As if Tara or I KNEW about it, and just let it keep on propagating. You were, in a snide and disgusting way insinuating that we were profiting from it.
Underhanded. Petty. And very wrong.
The forum is now down for maintenance. Thank you for letting us know in your own special way.
Please rest assured that every mention of your name will be removed from all areas of all MBW sites as soon as is practicable.
Rick.
Just want to say I don't know Tara very well, have no idea what her sickness is/was, and haven't spoken to her for well over a year due to an argument we had in which my volunteer, unpaid work was 'no longer needed' by her. Okay, just wanted everyone to be clear that I was a volunteer helping her with her org because I loved what it stood for.
I replied with much surprise and shock,
RE: Offensive pictures posted on your forum
From: Heidi
Sent: Sat 8/01/09 12:44 PM
To: Rick Tait; Person who emailed originally; Tara
Again, Rick - please stop insinuating I am 'out to get you'. As you plainly ignored in my email, I stated very clearly that I would gladly have removed it myself if I had been able for ALL of our benefit and my concern for the legality if it.
If you NEED to believe there was a 'hidden' meaning in anything I said, go ahead. It will give you both somethingh to gossip about. Good luck with the website and the porn, and Tara, I hope you recover and maybe become a happier person.
I just have this to say: chick's whacko. And I'm really sorry she's sick, but.. other than replying to a person who emailed me off of their site about the Child Porn, I don't believe I did anything wrong. Isn't it their fault for allowing spammers to put that crap up there? No. Apparently in Taraland its my fault.
The biggest shame is that Movies By Women COULD be an amazing resource, but Tara has never been able to give it the proper attention it needs, and she can't seem to get along with people, like myself, who were willing to pay attention to the website and make it a real resource for filmmakers and journalists,
Its a shame. I do hope she recovers from her illness, though by her constant twitter tweets she seems just fine.
odd!
Sat, 08/01/2009 - 14:28
#2
Sat, 08/01/2009 - 16:24
#3
Sat, 08/01/2009 - 22:48
#4
I miss your e-mail posts, boss! This was fantastic reading.
The tone of your initial message and that of her response are so wildly different. Issues, issues, issues.
Meanwhile, I remember MBW and agree with you. Add it to the stack of great ideas ruined by slack-ass people with no heart to follow through.
Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:02
#5
Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:34
#6
What I find super funny is that in her emails she says things like this about her health, like
If you're ever in a situation in your lifetime where trying to stay alive matters more than anything else (and you'd literally have to be between life and death to know what I mean - and I don't mean emotionally distraught - i'm talking purely physically on the precipice) then you'd understand how even writing this email to you is taxing.
but her latest 'twitter' post is:
Just saw muppets101 collection of muppet history/rare film,etc. There's a reprise of commercials and such Aug. 9th #silent movie thtr/LA
2:15 AM Aug 1st from txt
and this one is awesome:
Missed out on Twiistup Boohoo! BUT looking for new peeps in Los Angeles to do these with me: Walk Runyon Canyon, Writer Group, Adventures
2:46 AM Jul 31st from web
Hiking! in an iron lung? or just after some serious surgery, or pneumonia? or Cancer? she seems so upbeat for a sick person!
So, like... Did she make a massive recovery in two days from her deathly illness so she could go see the Midnight Screening of the Muppet Movie at the Silent Movie Theater? Cause that's a freakin' miracle!
LOL. Thanks for letting me vent this stuff on here. much healthier than responding further or having anything else to do with her. 
Sun, 08/02/2009 - 18:49
#7
No idea about these people's mental capacity but that's not the important issue, the real issue is your name may be associated with a website that promotes or allows child pornography, and you want your name taken off that website because you are no longer affliated with them. Pretty sure you can make a case for some type of legal action. Obviously, they know leaving your name there bothers you so until you get tough with them, they're gonna give you the run around. But guess who's gonna get dragged through the mud with them if the FBI actually find evidence of child porn on the site? My advice is get your name off that site ASAP. Stop exchanging mudslinging personal emails and just stick to business, you want your name taken off the website before you contact a lawyer. This is the only thing you should be saying to anyone there right now.
Just my one and half cents.
Sun, 08/02/2009 - 22:34
#8
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 07:57
#9
Waiting for that too, but there's no argument here. I could less about that woman's personal problems. Regardless if there's child porn on the website or not, Heidi doesn't want to be associated with that group anymore and she's asked that her name be taken off the website, so they need to take her name off, end of story.
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 10:23
#10
My advice is get your name off that site ASAP. Stop exchanging mudslinging personal emails and just stick to business, you want your name taken off the website before you contact a lawyer. This is the only thing you should be saying to anyone there right now.
Just my one and half cents.
That's good advice... I do get riled up, but the real issue here is the child porn, and I don't want to be associated if they don't have the manpower to take it down. I'm going to be monitering their site for my name and give them maybe a week to take care of it before I contact them again if it isn't down or my name taken off.
Thanks guys, again, for letting me vent! And thanks Hellion for the mature advice.
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 11:14
#11
Just my two cents here. But personally I wouldn't stop at just getting my name taken down. Child porn is a very serious offense and if these guys aren't smart enough to deal with this issue someone's bound to make a legal issue of this. While I know you don't have the power to take anything down on this website anymore I worry that someone might loop you into the business because you never reported them. Not sure how the law works in various countries but I know in some cases, having knowledge of an offense and doing nothing falls under abetting. I don't know if that is what applies here but I'd hate to see anyone get into trouble for something they're not involved with. I would report it to the ISP at the very least. They've been notified and if they don't deal with it right away then they're liable.
But I could just be wrong about everything and anything. It happens sometime.
Regards,
Min
Tue, 08/11/2009 - 10:23
#12
Dude! Dude! I just got this:
I am the person who sent the original complaint about the porn on your message board. Let me just state that the first response I received, which was from Ms. Martinuzzi, made it very clear that your site simply suffered from not being able to keep up with the messages it was receiving. In no way did it even remotely sound as if she was implying the porn was condoned by anyone running the site. It was obvious to me that the message board had been ignored for a very long time. If I didn't recognize that whoever put the site together originally had good intentions, I would have just reported it to the FBI. Yet, I can certainly understand Ms. Martinuzzi's frustration in seeing her name still affiliated with a site that had been "allowed" through neglect to devolve to such a terrible state.
HOWEVER, what irks me to no end is the fact that you three people, whom I do not know, are CC'ing me in your email bickering. Why the hell would you even think that I would have any interest in these petty fights? Do you think I want to find such stupidity in my Inbox? Look, I don't give a shit who gets along with whom, which one of you is sick, who's moved on to other things, or whatever else you folks are doing. All I cared about was making sure those kiddie porn images were off the internet. I hope you tried to get some law enforcement agency involved in trying to find the children in the photos before you took them down, ! but I am DONE with this issue, so DO NOT EMAIL ME AGAIN.
Dude, I didn't even think about this chick. LOL!!!!! She rocks, and she's totally right - I can imagine how annoying this muct have been for her.
Tue, 08/11/2009 - 10:49
#13
That's insane. People love to blame their issues on illnesses.
I remember when an epress that I can no longer remember the name of- Eternal Press, maybe?-- did something similar.The owner suddenly came down with a bunch of different cancers and 'died' yet her 'best friends' started posting all over the internet, friends who all wrote EXACTLY like the supposed dead woman.