Caroline Colvin discusses the social implications of sexual assault allegations against famed Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault

From the #MeToo’s solemnly lining your Facebook feed to investigations launched by Scotland Yard, it seems once again the issues of sexual assault and gender-based violence are at the forefront.

Journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey blew Hollywood open last month by revealing how Harvey Weinstein, a renowned Hollywood television and film producer, has been paying off those who accuse him of sexual assault. This doesn’t just concern a one-off incident: this has been taking place since the early 1990s, in the U.S. and U.K., over and over and over again.

Most notably, Weinstein reached a settlement with actress Rose McGowan in 1997 and model Ambra Battilana-Gutierrez after a 2015 incident. But those encounters are just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the people Weinstein sexually harassed and assaulted did not even get to the point where they could take legal action. And herein lies the problem: a culture of complicitness and a strictly enforced “code of silence.”

In 1997, Asia Argento also experienced unwanted sexual advances from Weinstein. So did Ashley Judd. So did Mira Sorvino a few years before. So did Emma de Caunes in 2010, Jessica Barth in 2011 and Lupita Nyong’o, too, when she was still a student at Yale University. So did Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. So did Lea Seydoux.

Every survivor’s story follows a similar pattern. As a bright, young actress looking for a breakthrough, they leap at the the chance to meet with a powerful Hollywood producer like Weinstein. He invites them to his hotel under the guise of talking roles, and suddenly they find themselves alone at dinner or alone in his hotel room. He switches the script from business to personal, exposing himself to the person in question and pestering them to give him a massage.

Sometimes, after a tense exchange, they’ll leave unscathed. But many survivors will be forced to endure more from Weinstein, much to his almost unbothered delight.

There are some variations. In her Weinstein encounter, Cara Delevingne was subjected to both invasive questioning about her sex life with female partners and derision for her sexuality.

Of course, the way they “suddenly” find themselves alone isn’t so sudden. Many executives at Weinstein Company, particularly women, were enlisted by Weinstein to be a trap for his targets. They would sit in on the first half of meetings to help put actresses at ease. It’s clear that Weinstein had this process of ensnarement and coercion down to a science.

The Weinstein story and its details all point to a bigger truth: that gender hierarchy is still alive and well today, and permeates every aspect of our lives. Elevated to a god-like status by his peers, Weinstein felt he could get away with whatever he wanted. With an immense amount of social, political and financial power at his disposal, he could.

We live in a world where no matter how talented a woman is in her field, her body is considered first. Sure, there is a certain aspect of physicality crucial to some arts, acting among them. But the way Weinstein objectified these women is uncalled for. He abused the fact he held their futures in his grubby hands. These sexual assault allegations speak to the sense of entitlement men in positions of power feel toward women’s bodies.

Weinstein is addicted to abusing women, to humiliating women, to violating women. Weinstein is addicted to power and his ability to abuse it

— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) October 11, 2017

Don't allow the dialogue around Weinstein to perpetrate the harmful belief that sexual assault is about sex. It never is.

— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) October 11, 2017

Over the past two decades, business associates of Weinstein’s have aided and abetted sexual assault – if not directly, then by maintaining the “open secret” of Weinstein’s behaviour; and if not by covering for the acts themselves, by creating a culture of fear where no one at the company or in Hollywood felt as if they could speak out.

Some of the ways rape culture is perpetuated in the arts community aren’t so subtle. According to reports from McGowan, Ben Affleck knew about Weinstein’s behavior and did nothing. Quentin Tarantino knew and did nothing. Lindsay Lohan has come out to defend Weinstein. Fashion designer Donna Karan has asked if the survivors coming forward were asking for it. Woody Allen, who has been accused of child sexual abuse, likened pursuit of Weinstein allegations to a “witch hunt.”

Weinstein’s legal team is known to be ruthless and relentless. It’s no surprise Argento, Sorvino, de Caunes, Barth, Nyong’o, Judd and many others all reported feeling as if they couldn’t say a word against Weinstein’s reputation. Retaliation in the form of blacklisting was surely in store. As young actors looking to break into that tight-knit, cut-throat circle called Hollywood, that was a risk they could not afford.

Many of these actors did go on to find great success, but at what cost? As cinephiles, we claim to value these artists. But from the pervasiveness of Weinstein’s mistreatment of women, it’s clear we do not value these actors as people. It doesn’t matter how talented or beloved these women are. As a woman, your personal excellence will not erase the gender-based violence you will come up against. The concept of shattering a “glass ceiling” is a myth. If anything, that ceiling is lined with polycarbonate to catch bullets: it’s impenetrable, if not completely shatterproof.

Deep-seated issues like this one don’t go away overnight. The main way we can start stripping away the layers of misogyny and violence hanging over our communities is by holding people accountable. This means legal action as well as social action.

The burden of defending a workplace from sexual predation cannot be carried alone by women and our whisper network.

— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 6, 2017

It seems the film industry has already started to stand up in small ways. Judi Dench, as well as Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Mark Ruffalo and Judd Apatow, have publicly condemned Weinstein. BAFTA revoked his membership. Shortly after, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts did the same and the Television Academy are looking for proper punishment to fit allegations against him.

First and foremost, as lovers of the arts, we must also stop supporting abusers and their enablers moving forward. In Weinstein’s case, this doesn’t mean forget that you ever loved “Arthur and the Invisibles” and “The Great Debaters” as a kid. This doesn’t mean that now “Project Runway” or “Inglorious Basterds” or “A Single Man” or “Django Unchained” or “The Butler” or “The Imitation Game” or “Peaky Blinders” can’t make your heart sing as an adult. But it does mean we have to think critically about what we put our love toward and our money into in the years to come.

Weinstein has since been fired from his company and has resigned from its board. At the very least, this means the hex Weinstein has cast over Hollywood and adjacent film industries has been broken. But there are countless other sexual predators who still haven’t answered for their abuses and remain on our artistic pedestals. It’s through taking a stand (long-term, not just when fresh allegations are on a front page) that we can follow through on the conversations about gender hierarchy and sexual assault.

“We’re billions of years beyond your petty obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes.” With that quote from the latest episode of Doctor Who in mind, let’s move onto the actual news itself…

Jodie Whittaker. BIFA nominated, powerhouse Northerner barnstorming actress Jodie Whittaker is the 13^th Doctor. The star of Black Mirror, St Trinian’s, and The Smoke is the new Doctor Who. She’s an actress as at home with the grit of a Jimmy McGovern serial as with the cutesy joy of something like Get Santa. She’s exactly the kind of performer capable of carrying Doctor Who and that’s no mean feat. Whittaker has already travelled back in time to play Izzy Huett in the BBC’s glistening Tess of the D’Urbervilles and fought aliens out of Brixton Joe Cornish’s Attack The Block. And in last year’s charming Adult Life Skills she lived in a shed, so she should be perfectly at home in the confines of the TARDIS.

Jodie Whittaker is an actor of extraordinary depth and range and I, for one, can’t wait to see her reunite with Chris Chibnall (Doctor Who’s incoming showrunner and former CO of Boradchurch) to deliver what promises to be a fresh, energetic and exciting new take on a decades old character.

Oh, and as for that other thing? To quote Hope Van Dyne, “It’s about damn time”.

Doctor Who returns for a Christmas Special on December 25.

With the recent conclusion of Season 10, Thom Hetherington looks back at Peter Capaldi’s tenure as the 12th Doctor… 

For a 54-year-old television show, Doctor Who certainly isn’t looking too shabby. And for the first time since its return to our screens in 2005 it’s starting to, literally, look its age. The choice of an older actor to play the Doctor was – relatively speaking – a risky choice at the time, as the show had, since its return, been predicated upon running down corridors while yelling exposition: a formula that had worked pretty darn well for the three sprightly actors who had taken the role before Capaldi. It was clear this was going to be a change of pace; perhaps a different, more cerebral take on the show. Less flirting, a tad less running and certainly no more snogging the companion.

For the most part, this approach and change of tone has served the show well. It was evident in the hiring of Ben Wheatley to direct Capaldi’s first two episodes that Doctor Who was heading into murkier waters. Wheatley brought his trademark unease to the series opener and this carried through the majority of Capaldi’s run as the Doctor. The hiring of horror director Rachel Talalay also gave the show a nastier edge and made clear showrunner Stephen Moffat’s desire to go darker. Later, the show tackled the grim idea of the dead retaining consciousness (“don’t cremate me”) in a storyline that drew complaints in the hundreds for being too dark. There were creatures lurking under the bed, cannibalistic houses and deadly eye sand. The rebooted show had been dark before, but never in such a purely thematic way.

The show’s cerebral edge was also brought to the fore during Capaldi’s tenure. Peter Harness’ standout episode “Kill The Moon” demonstrated this, showcasing a real-time ethical dilemma complete with carnivorous alien spiders. And it’s here that one must take the time to appreciate the sheer idiosyncratic brilliance of Doctor Who. There is no other television program in existence that can deliver such an amazing blend of intellectual stimulation, thrills, and a good dash of fear. That the show is also pitching for a family audience makes this achievement even more remarkable. The aforementioned “Kill The Moon”, as well as hand-under-the-bed-horror “Listen”, to name but two, work so well because they balance intellectual and physical horror. They combine a shiver down the spine with a chilled skull.

Capaldi’s tenure was also a time to explore the dark side of the character of the Doctor – his first series was built around the cornerstone of the question “Am I good man?”. The introduction of Michelle Gomez, on lip-smackingly malevolent form as Missy, created a truly ying and yang dynamic that explored the good and evil lurking within them both. The relationship with his companions too, particularly Jenna Coleman’s Clara, has showcased the dangers of the Doctor’s power. It’s a testament to Capaldi’s brilliance as the Doctor that an entire episode, “Heaven Sent”, rested solely upon his shoulders. Together with the direction of Rachel Talalay, Capaldi made walking around an empty castle one of the most captivating forty-five minutes of television that year.

The show has also, however, managed to retain its trademark optimism and belief in good, a remarkable achievement in a world of television built around shock and violence. To do good “without hope, without witness, without reward” has been an unofficial motto for Capaldi’s time in the TARDIS. Yet the real triumph has been keeping this hope without infringing upon the show’s newfound darkness. This is something that shone out in the fervent anti-war sentiments of “The Zygon Invasion” and “The Zygon Inversion”, which culminated in a show-stopping moment of grandstanding from Capaldi.

It’s certainly a truism that Capaldi’s tenure hasn’t been wall-to-wall gold. Certain episodes have, at times, felt so chock-full of ideas they stop making any sense. There have been many promising premises ruined by this confusion, most notably in muddled two-parter “The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar”. But even those episodes, and others, were not without their delights, most notably featuring the Doctor riding in on top of a tank playing an electric guitar. Indeed, Capaldi’s tenure has been full of delightful moments; he’s verbally sparred with Santa, physically sparred with Robin Hood and even been a superhero for a little while. In its strongest moments, Capaldi’s tenure on Doctor Who has continued to prove why it’s one of the best programs on television. Upon first appearing in the TARDIS on Christmas day 2013 the Doctor hurriedly asked the question “Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?” Four years later, it’s clear that Peter Capaldi certainly did.

Doctor Who returns to BBC One for a Christmas special – the last episode to star Capaldi as the Doctor – on December 25.

With the release of Wonder Woman upon us, Podcast Producer Thom Hetherington looks at the way we watch and respond to films today.

There has been a tectonic shift in the way we watch movies. And I’m not talking about the rise of 3D, the age of IMAX or even those godawful vibrating chairs that spray you with disturbing smells and jets of water. I’m talking about you. When did you get so cynical?

Audiences seem increasingly reluctant to engage with films, often before they’ve even seen them. The desire to enjoy is being trumped by the desire to get one’s money’s worth. Suspension of disbelief seems to be supremely lacking in modern cinema audiences and it’s a crying shame. The more time I spend at the pictures the more I find more that people are laughing not with films, but at them.

Indeed, cynical film watching has become a kind of cottage industry in recent years. Showings of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room regularly sell out across the globe, often frequented by the director himself. People gather not to watch the film, but to point and laugh at it. And whilst this isn’t a problem in of itself, certainly not given it has Wiseau’s full participation, it does point to a wider problem. These screenings are part of a world of YouTube videos that surgically dissect a film’s plot piece by piece, TV shows centred around mocking continuity mistakes and entire blogs and social media channels specifically targeted at strategically shit-bombing the work of numerous filmmakers, actors and writers. Namely that there seems to be an increasing desire for failure on the part of the cinema going public.

Nothing seems to delight people more than when a film bombs at the box office. When Shia LaBeouf’s recent thriller Man Down failed to sell more than one ticket in its UK opening weekend, everyone lined up to have a giggle. But at what? As Simon Brew, editor of Den of Geek, pointed out on Twitter; ‘a small distributor took a chance on a half-decent movie, and we’ll now sneer at them for trying.’ We know full well, given the box office receipts, that the dissenters hadn’t bothered to watch the film in question. The same is true of recent ‘flops’ such as Live By Night (our review), John Carter, Jupiter Ascending and Tomorrowland (a film all about cynicism bowing to wonder) and countless others. I am, admittedly, an outspoken defender of all of these films but this is partly because, and here’s the rub: they swing for the fences. And, yes, their batting average may look a bit skewed from afar but so what? When did it become so delightful to heap scorn upon derision instead of stepping back and admiring a bold creative choice and direction? To heave up a bitter cackle before stopping to think? Jupiter Ascending, for example, features a fascinating exploration of class and exploitation whilst also being incredibly beautiful and featuring Sean Bean as a half Bee man. Yes, it’s a bit silly sometimes, but it doesn’t take itself as seriously as half its critics seem to do. If people stopped laughing at its Rotten Tomatoes score and actually watched it, they might be pleasantly surprised. There are an alarming number of people who seem to be baying for cinematic blood to gorge themselves on. And it isn’t particularly pleasant.

This is reflected, too, in the number of people who seem to delight is smugly pointing out the similarities in plot between the original Star Wars and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. They are, of course, being wilfully stupid in ignoring the fact that the storytelling in these two films is entirely different. The characters, and the way that they interact with each other, in Abrams’ film are vastly different way to Lucas’ original creations. The same is true of the super intellectuals who point out the kinship of Avatar and Dances With Wolves, who seem to be vitally missing the point that one of these films is a groundbreaking piece of visually breathtaking cinema that is, crucially, set in space. If viewers can’t lose themselves in the visual majesty of a world where a six foot blue Sigourney Weaver lives, then there’s something wrong. Whilst this may all be a snag for certain viewers, it shouldn’t ruin their enjoyment entirely. Movie watching is an emotional, escapist, experience and it shouldn’t be hampered by a fixation with plot. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stand By Me and Clerks barely have a plot between them, but we’re all happy to accept them as masterpieces in their own right. If you want to get stuffy about plot, then you will, I assure you, be much happier staying at home reading summaries on Wikipedia.

There are, of course, many contributing factors. A night out at the cinema is no longer a cheap affair, if you want to go all in with snacks and drinks then it can very quickly become more expensive than a trip to the theatre. The temptation to write a film off as absolute baloney purely from a trailer makes sense, particularly if you want to save money. And a quick glance at Rotten Tomatoes can be misleading too; there might be a five star review from someone whose opinion you deeply value, but you won’t find it by quickly glancing at the ‘fresh’ percentage. Financially too, it makes sense to laugh at a film rather than with it once you’re in the cinema watching it; at least then you’re getting some fun for your money. But as the world increasingly becomes a cynical place, shouldn’t we be trying to escape in the cinema? Or learn something? Not guffaw because we think we’re more intelligent than the filmmakers?

However you, gentle reader, cannot be entirely to blame in this large and complicated game of self-righteous finger pointing that I’m playing. It’s hard not to feel that audiences are merely becoming savvy to the rising cynicism of the film studios. It’s not uncommon now to get five sequels announced to a film that hasn’t even been released yet and cinematic universes seem to be popping up left, right and centre like dandelions, just begging to be uprooted by schadenfreude. Even within the movies themselves, we’ve seen Captain America fighting against the United States instead of for them, and Batman repeatedly smashing a bathroom sink into Superman’s face. Cynicism, it seems, is all around.

But for all this loathsome negativity and impending misery there does seem to be a turn in the tide. Most notably the recent Wonder Woman (our review), for example, feels alarmingly retro in its protagonist’s heroics; Wonder Woman fights for a cause as much as she fights against an enemy. It feels like a direct response to the cynicism in and surrounding the underrated Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Wonder Woman is a film all about the power of love in a world that’s seriously lacking it, it’s about a humanity that needs saving not from sky portals or inter-dimensional beasties but from itself. It’s sad that it seems to be so timely. But perhaps we could take a lesson from it as viewers, to find the good in films, to will for something beautiful, not something that we’re more coldly intelligent than. George Carlin once observed that “inside every cynical person is a disappointed idealist”, it’s time we each dug them up. It’s better to walk out a cinema disappointed than walk in bitter. Call me schmaltzy, but to escape into the warmth of wonder seems far more inviting than to sit and nitpick. I dare you to suspend your disbelief. After all, once those nits are picked, they’re only going to end up biting you.