Last time on the Podcast: Superheroes.

Illustrations credit: Rachel Levit.

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.

Raphael Duhamel reports on the ongoing story.

On October 5th, the New York Times published an investigation about Harvey Weinstein and let the world discover the odious acts of a perverted, powerful man. Since then, the ex-Hollywood mogul has been fired by the board of his own enterprise, The Weinstein Company, and a great number of women (thirty-three for now, though the number keeps growing), some of them famous, have shared their own dreadful experiences with the producer. What started as harassment complaints quickly escalated to sexual assaults. The New Yorker reported that three actresses were raped, including Asia Argento, daughter of Italian director Dario, who was only twenty-one at the time. Their accounts all converge on one point: they stayed in touch with Weinstein, afraid of his considerable influence and extensive reach in Hollywood.

Stories like these have a far too familiar ring to them. The Weinstein case echoes not only Casey Affleck’s recent sexual harassment claims but innumerable older ones which have surfaced in the last few years. Among these are the question of whether Maria Schneider consented to the activities on-set while shooting the infamous butter scene in Last Tango in Paris, and assault allegations against Bill Cosby spanning a period of forty-three years. Although not all scandals are comparable, there is a general feeling of injustice among women in the movie industry, as most perpetrators proceed in their professional life without much difficulty. This applies particularly to Harvey Weinstein, who appears to have been assaulting women since at least 1990 and has gotten away with it – helped by lawyers who negotiated settlements with the victims, dealing sums that went up to millions of dollars. The opening of a NYPD investigation now gives hope to the countless victims.

The producer’s predatory behavior was well-known in his workplace, but all employees were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement in their contract. Indeed, as the company’s “business reputation” was to be protected, dozens of cases were covered up. The New Yorker’s article reveals that Weinstein was almost prosecuted in 2015 for sexually assaulting an Italian model and admitting it in an audio tape. The charges were dropped following the intervention of the producer’s legal team. This accumulation of facts and hard proof is enough to question the complicity of many: it is hardly conceivable that these revelations were news for anyone in Hollywood, especially in his close circle of friends, which includes the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Ben Affleck. The latter expressed his anger and disgust when reading the stories about Weinstein; but his apparent dishonesty was noted on Twitter by Hilarie Burton, who complained about the Argo director groping her during a live MTV show in the past. He briefly answered by apologizing on the social network, but Affleck’s attitude seems representative of the typical Hollywood self-righteousness. Hypocritical behavior also prevails outside of the film industry, as audiences appear to have double standards on the subject of celebrities: how is it that Nate Parker, the director of The Birth of a Nation, got boycotted by critics and audiences because of a rape charge, for which he was acquitted in 1999, whereas Roman Polanski, who now faces a 4th sexual assault allegation, remains one of today’s most acclaimed directors? The same goes for Woody Allen, whose implications in assault cases are still widely overlooked by international audiences. [article continues below]

Worldwide reactions to the Weinstein scandal have been almost unanimous so far, but the question of safety in the movie industry now needs to be tackled effectively, in order to create a supportive environment for women. Most importantly, security in film festivals needs to be scrutinized, since at least four of the sexual assault charges against the producer took place in hotel rooms in Toronto, Cannes, or Sundance. These locations acted as sanctuaries for Weinstein, who took advantage of his status of “independent film god” to molest his victims. Some organizations, such as Women in Film, have put forward some proposals to help actively fight harassment. The two main points involve increasing the number of women in decision-making positions, and refusing to allow compromise and settlement in legal actions against abusers.

According to recent reports, Weinstein is now headed to a rehabilitation center in Europe. The BAFTA has censured him, as well as The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has announced a special meeting to discuss the allegations directed at the Oscar-winning producer. AMPAS is known for giving the Best Director Oscar to Roman Polanski in 2003, for The Pianist, in spite of his abusive behavior and exile to Europe; but, as of today, a merciful decision from the Academy appears improbable. Weinstein has issued a statement explaining how devastated he is but, strikingly, instead of asking for forgiveness or expressing any remorse, he seems focused on being granted a second chance. His attitude only goes to show how despicable, pathetic, and most importantly oblivious this man is, as well as reinforcing the absolute necessity that he faces an uncompromising and symbolic trial.

UPDATE (October 19)

 

This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.