On the day before news officially broke of alleged sexual harassment stretching back decades, Harvey Weinstein, the 65-year-old Hollywood movie mogul, said: “The story sounds so good I want to buy the movie rights.”
In its blend of the glib, the acquisitive and plain braggadocio, it seemed an incredible response to a potentially career-ending expose. Yet, those familiar with the man Meryl Streep called “God” at the 2012 Golden Globes, know that he’s defined by an attitude of infallibility. In 2000, having allegedly assaulted a young reporter at a crowded party, Weinstein is said to have screamed: “It’s good I’m the [expletive] sheriff of this [expletive] lawless piece-of-[expletive] town.”
With more than 300 Oscar nominations to his name, he is one of the most powerful men in Hollywood — a formidable, even unrivalled mix of art, celebrity, politics, money and power. The New York Times story, the result of a far-reaching investigation by two female reporters, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, includes allegations of sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact and reveals eight previously undisclosed colonies.
A statement from Weinstein’s lawyer called the New York Times story “saturated with false and defamatory statements” and Weinstein is suing the paper. Among the women who spoke on record to the New York Times is actress Ashley Judd, who commented: “I said ‘no’ a lot of ways, a lot of times. Women have been talking about Harvey among ourselves for a long time and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.” The implication that Weinstein’s misconduct was known in Hollywood and beyond has been widely echoed.
In 2015, journalist Jennifer Senior denounced what she called “a despicable open secret”.
The lack of surprise greeting the story is not, however, entirely attributable to Weinstein himself, but to the culture in which the word of a young woman tends not to be believed over the word of an older, much more powerful man. Within Hollywood, the casting couch remains a place of dubious transaction.
But the climate may be changing. Traister, writing in New York magazine, noted that “recent years have seen scores of women, finding strength and some kind of power in numbers, come forward and tell their stories about Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Donald Trump. In all of those cases, as in this case, the history of allegations has been an almost wholly open secret, sometimes even having been reported in major outlets, and yet somehow ignored, allowed to pass, unconsidered. But now our consciousness has been raised.”
Unlike the men mentioned above, Weinstein has long presented himself as a supporter of women within liberal Hollywood. He was a major donor to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and last year hosted a fund-raiser for the latter at his home. The phenomenon of a predatory, powerful man evading censure for years is clearly not a partisan issue.
Weinstein’s statement to the New York Times included a defensive apology of sorts: “I came of age in the 60s and 70s, when all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.”
America’s Civil Rights Act, which under Title VII defines sexual harassment as a criminal act, was passed in 1964. “Culture” and “law”, then, are not always conterminous; perhaps unwittingly, Weinstein demonstrated that what is legally outlawed can remain socially acceptable. He added: “I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office — or out of it. To anyone.”
Actress Rose McGowan is among the eight women with whom Weinstein reportedly reached confidential colonies and she tweeted: “Women fight on. And to the men out there, stand up. We need you as allies.” McGowan’s sentiments echo a tweet from earlier this year. In linking to a news story about O’Reilly’s firing due to sexual harassment claims, civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom wrote: “When women speak out the truth, the old order shatters. We slayed the dragon. Never forget this is what we’re capable of.”
How did Weinstein, born into an unremarkable family in Queens, reach this stature? He amassed power through his knack for seizing cheap art house films and engineering them into the commercially viable mainstream, a formula that not only gave us a pantheon of cultural touchstones — Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, Gangs of New York — but also helped independent cinema itself become a going concern.
His career began in 1979 when Weinstein set up a distribution company with his younger brother, Bob. The two of them conducted operations from a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan and it took almost a decade for them to strike a hit. That was Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the 1989 independent drama that also made Steven Soderbergh’s name. Soon, Miramax, named for their parents Miriam and Max, became a key player in the industry and by 2005, Weinstein left to form the Weinstein Company. Yet, his extraordinary cultural force, one recognised in accolades, including an honorary CBE from the Queen and the Legion d’honneur from the French consulate, has arguably waned. His last Oscar winning film was The Artist in 2011. His most recent movie, Tulip Fever, has been deemed a critical disaster.
James Ivory once said: “He is a bully who feels that if he screams and yells and punishes you enough, he is going to get his way […].”
Weinstein’s physical and verbal aggression has been well documented and yet it has tended to be met with indifference. He has frequently been described as “larger-than-life” and has blamed a glucose imbalance for his tirades. Weinstein’s statement last week included this sentence: “I want a second chance in the community, but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it.”
Those who take Cosby and Co as bellwethers might be reminded of a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald: “There are no second acts in American lives.” Then again, others may look to the American President Donald Trump, as an indicator of Weinstein’s professional durability. Now, Weinstein has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has police investigations underway on both sides of the Atlantic. That’s a screenplay he would have jumped at.
— With inputs from Guardian News & Media Ltd
