As reported in the New York Times, he often invited women looking for work in the movie industry up to his “luxury suites” for a meeting and then would hit on them. By most accounts, he didn’t exactly use force, but he clearly didn’t want to wait until a deep friendship had been established before asking for sexual favors. Several women, including Sarah Polley, have reported that he attempted to initiate something with them and they refused and walked away. When the other women complained and threatened to report him, he offered them money. A lot of the women took the money, in exchange for which they signed non-disclosure agreements.
It is highly probable that some women acquiesced. There might be some uncomfortable attempts to come to terms with the compromises made, which, in effect, enabled further abuse. [See Salma Hayek] It is probable that some of those women received choice roles in Miramax films. This will be an uncomfortable issue in the future for some people, though, so far, nobody has named them.
In the article linked above, Bari Weiss thinks that Weinstein should release these women from the non-disclosure agreements they signed so they can speak out. Nowhere does she suggest the obvious corollary: that they return the money. That is a glaring omission and one I think she might regret eventually: to accept the money and then proceed to break the agreement would be repugnant, though in today’s culture it would probably be readily dispensed with by the media. To accept the money in the first place, in exchange for not alerting other women to the possibility of harassment, was also, probably, repugnant. Weiss wants to argue that the agreements were illegitimate in some way, and that the women are entitled, therefore, to break them. But they took the money, and that cannot bed swept conveniently under the carpet.
In essence, they agreed not to blow Weinstein’s cover, and prevent him from exploiting other actresses, in exchange for a large sum of money. Nobody wants to discuss that.
She also suggests that there is hypocrisy out there because Weinstein won’t receive the same treatment as Bill O’Reilly or Roger Ailes received from the liberal establishment, because Mr. Weinstein is a well-established liberal icon and fund-raiser. [2018-09: obviously she was wrong about that.]
It’s always poor form to make assumptions like that. You get to make your rhetorical flourish and feel all pious and righteous about it without having to actually wait and see if your accusations are true.
But the first issue is this bullshit idea that Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly suffered any real consequences at all for their behaviour towards women. Like Harvey Weinstein, they paid off most of the women who made allegations against them. And, as in the case of Harvey Weinstein, most of the women accepted the money and agreed not to warn other women about these gentlemen in exchange for cash.
We know all about the consequences suffered by Donald Trump after allegations of his harassment of women came forwards: nada. Not a thing. Not a blessed thing.
So perhaps Weiss is publishing in the wrong forum here: you need to get on Fox News and find out why so many women– especially, good Christian evangelicals– went ahead and voted for Trump anyway.
I might add that there is another difference: Ailes and O’Reilly are both stalwarts of the allegedly “family values” party, the Republicans, and have long been advocating for a return to “traditional values” in America, to abstinence instead of birth control, to “character” development instead of gratification, to valued institutions instead of self-fulfillment, and so on. They proclaim their alliance with evangelical Christians who don’t seem to believe what they say about sexual morality, unless it concerns a Democrat like Bill Clinton.
It always was obvious that conservatives believe that everyone should live by those values, except themselves.
Which leads to this question: what of the women that accepted these payouts from The Weinstein Company rather than reporting the behavior?
Reporting to whom?
Take note of this, from NYTimes 2017-10-10, offered as an indictment:
Zelda Perkins In 1998, Ms. Perkins, then a 25-year-old assistant in London, confronted Mr. Weinstein over his alleged harassment and threatened to go public or take legal action if it continued, according to former colleagues. A lawyer for Mr. Weinstein was later dispatched to negotiate a settlement with her.
Which she accepted.
Which, yes, makes her complicit. And which has not adduced any critical comments whatsoever from Bari Weiss or Amy Schumer or any of the other women who are insisting that women don’t have to not be complicit to be innocent of this tacit arrangement. It hasn’t even stopped them from calling Ms. Perkins “courageous” even though she accepted the pay-off. The “courageous” thing to do would have been to say, “I will never accept money in order to hide your criminal behavior. That would allow you to victimize others. I’m calling the police”.
But isn’t Ms. Perkins in dangerous territory there? We are told over and over again that the women should be believed and that men who try to discount their allegations by alleging that they are seeking a payout are wrong. But if you accept the money, are you not validating the charge? Are you not agreeing to deceive people in exchange for money? You weren’t seeking money, but you took it anyway?
Weinstein’s behavior may have been ugly and offensive, but I doubt that it really crossed a line into criminality. He was a hustler and a pig and disgusting. Some of the women might be able to show that their careers didn’t advance after they refused him, but some women, like Gwyneth Paltrow, can show that their careers advanced very quickly at Weinstein’s organization after the incident.
Without a doubt, a lot of established feminist opinion believes that Weinstein’s behavior was “criminal”. I don’t. I believe the women should have walked away or told him off and reported it to the media and to other employees and the board of the organization: not to the police. Weinstein would easily have been deterred very quickly if thought that most women in the situation he placed them in would be likely to report his actions.
But at least some of the women accepted money instead in exchange for silence– or acquiesced to his wishes. Or obtained good roles in films he controlled.
We now have the gruesome process– which we were spared in the cases of O’Reilly and Ailes– of Weinstein toadying to the cultural avatars and proclaiming how he will reform himself, get therapy (oh please!), and donate to good causes. And various female politicians declaring that they will take the money he donated to their campaigns and forward it to charities instead of using it to get elected.
I don’t blame him entirely for the absurd “therapy” angle he’s putting out there: the absurdity comes from the social entities who really believe in that crap. He’s just following the script and I’d almost admire him more if he would just say, “look, I’m a creep, but explain to me why they accepted the money and I’ll explain to you why I didn’t stop”.
[whohit]The NDAs[/whohit]