Another titan of our industry fell from grace this week. But we would do the entire entertainment industry a disservice to call these a few bad actors (rimshot). The Hollywood power dynamics that have allowed predators to ‘hide’ in plain site have been laid bare. These incidents are the perfect script in three acts about the Hollywood power dynamic.
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The author makes a lot of good points, but I also think it’s important to acknowledge, as many other articles have this week, that though Hollywood may be one of the most visible examples, this is in no way a “Hollywood Problem.” Nor is it, when considering Roger Ailes fall earlier this year, an “Entertainment Problem.” It’s a problem that exists more or less everywhere in one form or another.
I know several friends who have had men try to use their power or authority to coerce them into sexual situations. If I personally know more than one person, it’s safe to assume most people do. Tallied up, that indicates an enormous amount of abuse.
And sometimes the problem is subtler. Sometimes, it’s the male boss who only hires women he finds attractive, serially passing over more deserving women that already work for him and already do the job he’s hiring for. I’ve seen this happen to three different people with three different bosses.
Sure, we can try to change laws, help young professionals do better research, and ask companies to have better sexual harassment laws. But this problem is more deeply rooted in male privilege and systematic complicity. Long-term solutions will be found in the author’s first suggestion: men in positions of power need to speak up and police each other. These abusers need to feel sleazy and ostracized, not powerful. And women, though they shouldn’t have to and often have reasons for not speaking up (and it’s not our place to judge them for that,) will hopefully keep telling their stories and having the courage to resist.
Okay so here's the thing: number 5 needs to be longer. For me, it has indeed been just as simple as not consuming content from known abusers. So no, I've never seen a Woody Allen film and no, I really don't think Johnny Depp is the best actor ever.
But for a lot of people it isn't this simple. I've watched so many people dance around calling men like Wienstien, Allen, or Cosby abusers and ever predators even with women coming forward left and right to tell their stories. This isn't simply a Hollywood problem.
This is a culture problem
The patriarchal culture in the US does not hold men accountable for their actions. That's why men like Casey Affleck win Oscars even after being accused of sexual assault. The rich and elite in this country can not escape punishment anymore. They will of course still evade the justice system because they can buy their way out of it. But the court of public opinion can shift. And that needs to start with the way we talk about these men.
We can not talk about them as heroes but instead as men who let power go to their head. I really hope that one day this shift can happen. Art can not be separated from its creator.
What really stuck with me in this article was the fact that tv/film jobs require applicants to have tough skin, because if someone is abusing you and it upsets you, it's because your skin wasn't thick enough. This is something that is particularly bothersome to me, as I plan either this year or in coming years to apply for the DGA Assistant Director Training Program. Part of this application process, I am told, includes being yelled at until you break. They want to see how thick your skin truly is. This terrifies me slightly, because while I absolutely can hold my own in a difficult situation, I am very quick to tears. Even if I'm not that upset, it's more of a reaction than anything else. So when I'm told, essentially, that I need to withstand several minutes of being screamed at to even be eligible to work in this industry, this seems like a problem to me. Not just for my own weaknesses, but that we expect the anger and the abuse instead of working to stop it. Yes, there is a lot of money on the line and tempers run high, but it is still a place of work and I feel that basic respect should be applied from top to bottom.
This is not a new problem, nor is it one specific to entertainment. In the entertainment industry it is more visible because the culture we live in is very aware, attuned, and sometimes obsessed with the industry. The way the entertainment industry is structure it is a thing that, unlike in other industries and professions, it cannot be swept aside or denied. It is blatant and ever present. This article does a good job of breaking the issue down into its component parts and acknowledging that it is not something exclusive to the entertainment industry itself. This whole ordeal has also given me some hope. As awful as what Weinstein did was, it cheered me to see him being held accountable. Not just because what he had done but because of who he is. A MAJOR player in a MAJOR company who has been removed from a very high place of power in the entertainment industry and that's not something that I think would have happened not even five years ago. Not when men like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are still making films.
I think Rachel makes a good point above that this article implies that the problem of predatory men is somehow only a hollywood problem because of all the money and drugs and power, and it is true that that heightens the stakes and makes it easier for men to take advantage but this happens everywhere and with all men of power, even when men aren't powerful at all. My grandmother was a high school principle and my dad has hundreds of stories of janitors who were men talking down to her or making her feel inferior even though she has more power and money and status from them. The problem is that we teach men to be predatory and we teach women to be weak, and no matter what happens in their lives when it comes to the relationship and the power dynamic between men and women we continue to revert back to what we are taught, and what women are taught is to roll over and be weak. I think that we have to continue to dismantle these roles of what women and men must be, but we also have to recognize that powerful men aren't the only ones who use their power. Men are inherently powerful just be existing and we can't forget that, we have to change the whole system, not just Hollywood.
There is a strong sense of responsibility that needs to be taken when something like this happens in the industry. In number one the author asks men in power to speak up, and I couldn't agree more. A lot of these problems happen because the environment around it allows it to happen, there is a sense of fraternity when it comes to other men committing sexual acts, and often times that kind of behavior is encouraged in the workplace, which is the root of this problem. Problems like these continuously happen, as Tessa mentioned before, men like Woody Allen are praised as legends despite their creepy pasts. Its hard to see, but with so many men in positions of power over women, these issues are swept under the rug as universal issues, as artists and audiences, its our job to ask for better. That means, more female directors, advocates in the workplace, and not awarding predators.
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