As someone who studies movies and the industry that makes them, I’ve always known Harvey Weinstein to be one of Hollywood’s most lucrative figures. He was the guy who everyone thanked first while accepting their Oscar. He has 339 film and television producer credits to his name ranging from major blockbusters to indie darlings. Usually he and his brother Bob have at least one horse in the best picture race and have become known for their extreme campaign practices, famously managing to take home a statue for Shakespeare in Love while up against Saving Private Ryan. Although there are contradictory reports, he is said to be worth somewhere around $200 million. The average person might not be able to spot him in a crowd- he doesn’t have the movie star good looks you’d expect from a show business mogul- but they’ve heard the name and they’ve seen his movies.
(Pictured: Weinstein, centre, and company at the 1999 Academy Awards)
I read a report in some tabloid a couple of years ago accusing Mr. Weinstein of inappropriate behaviour towards a female employee. Sufficed to say I was not surprised. Sure, he always came off as a fairly affable guy when he was the subject of some punchline in a Steve Martin Oscar monologue. Respectable movie stars, like Meryl Streep and Judi Dench, seem to have a very high opinion of him. Plus he’s responsible for putting Project Runway on television, and that occupies a very special place in my heart. But I wasn’t surprised because it seems to be impossible to be that wealthy, that influential, and that powerful in your industry and not take advantage of that in some repulsive way. It pains me to my very core to admit that President Donald Trump is right about anything, least of all this, but alas he is: “when you’re famous, they let you do it.”
Over the past few days there were reports that Harvey Weinstein was lawyering up in preparation for a bombshell the New York Times was about to drop. It was widely believed that the newspaper would be publishing an expose of sexual harassment allegations from his female employees as their have been small reports like the one I came across a couple of years ago for years. I thought about the women- I imagined aspiring actresses, producers, writers, directors. As someone who has always wanted to work in the film industry in some capacity I imagined how hard it must be to confront a man who has so much of it in the palm of his hand- I certainly wouldn’t want to go up against the lawyers his $200 million could assemble.
On the morning of October 5, 2017 New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the story:
“An investigation by The New York Times found previously undisclosed allegations against Mr. Weinstein stretching over nearly three decades, documented through interviews with current and former employees and film industry workers, as well as legal records, emails and internal documents from the businesses he has run, Miramax and the Weinstein Company.”
Many of the stories are somewhat typical- the young ingénue in her early twenties wanting to get her foot in the door is met by the powerful studio exec. Thinking he can possibly further her career or worrying she’ll never work again (perhaps both) she goes along with his manipulation and his malapropos behaviour. Sometimes documents are filed hoping to get justice but are met with an undisclosed settlement in exchange for silence. Other times the women are seemingly higher up on the industry food chain- top executives, business partners. Actress Ashley Judd was at the apex of her career when she walked into the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel allegedly finding Mr. Weinstein in his bathrobe asking the star to give him a massage or watch him shower.
(Pictured: Actress Ashley Judd)
It was easy for liberal minded people like myself to sneer with disgust at Roger Ailes and the toxic environment he created at Fox News. I took great pleasure in watching him and Bill O’Reilly exit the organization in disgrace (leaving aside their million dollar payoffs). But as someone who revels in Hollywood culture- both the onscreen product and the offscreen lifestyles- this is a harder pill for me to swallow despite it not coming as a surprise. Harvey Weinstein donated large amounts of money to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, when he issued his public statement he pivoted to raising awareness for gun violence through his foundation- which will be named after his mother. A typical recourse for a man accused of flagrant misogynistic behaviour is to remind everybody he loves his mother.
I’m sure in the coming days and weeks there will be many actors, directors, and other industry figures who will come to Harvey Weinstein’s defense. You can’t completely blame them, he is likely responsible for a large portion of their careers. Yet, it’s this avoidance and these defenses that have allowed Harvey Weinstein to get away with this for the past three decades. Is this a surprise? Not at all – in fact, it’s the story of Hollywood.
Hollywood is the industry that has given me products that are some of the greatest joys of my life. It is the industry that let’s me go to school every day and bask in the history and theory of motion pictures. It is the industry that often likes to pride itself for its liberalism and devotion to justice. But it is also the industry where studio heads took ingénues to the “casting couch”, that ruined the lives of young talent like Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe by treating them like products rather than human beings, that allowed Alfred Hitchcock to treat Tippi Hedren like garbage because she wouldn’t sleep with him.
Both versions of Hollywood can be true, but it’s important to ask why we remember the genius of Alfred Hitchcock rather than the allegations of Tippi Hedren.
(Pictured: Director Alfred Hitchcock and Actress Tippi Hedren)