The last few weeks have seen Hollywood turn upside down. On October 5th, The New York Times published an article in which the authors discussed how Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein had reached settlements with at least eight women who accused him of sexual harassment. The article contains gut-wrenching stories about Weinstein’s advances on his employees and his promises to boost their careers if they complied with him. In turn, this article caused a wave of outrage like never before, not just in the Hollywood community, but throughout America.
More actresses than ever stepped forward to confess to the public their terrible encounters with Harvey Weinstein. These included Lena Headey, Rose McGowan, and Cara Delevingne. Many more celebrities also took to social media to scrutinize Weinstein and rape culture in Hollywood, including Meryl Streep, Matt Damon and Hillary Clinton. And soon enough, thousands of women across the country wrote “me, too” on their Facebook timelines to show just how devastating and gargantuan of a problem rape culture is in American society.
As a result of Weinstein receiving these accusations, the famous producer was fired from the board of The Weinstein Company, left by his wife, and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Currently, Weinstein is avoiding the public eye and allegedly in therapy in order to cope with the stress all this public scrutiny has put upon him. One thing is certain, however: Weinstein’s career is over.
Many aspects of the reactions to the Weinstein scandal are astounding, from the anecdotes from Weinstein employees and Hollywood actresses of their encounters with Weinstein to a number of settlements the producer has had to make in the last few decades. What truly stood out, though, were the magnitude of the public’s response and the ease with which such an influential figure in Hollywood was removed from his seat of power.
On October 12th the famous EGOT-winner and “West Side Story” actress Rita Moreno revealed at the Paley Center for Media’s gala celebrating the achievements of women in television that she had also encountered sexual harassment as a young actress in the 1950s. And, without a doubt, many of her contemporaries had similar experiences. For Moreno to only have stepped forward almost six decades after the incidents exposes not only how sexual misconduct has been prevalent in Hollywood since the very beginning of the American film industry, but also that Hollywood has finally evolved into a community in which victims of sexual harassment can openly share their stories and get their attackers to be brought to justice.
Hollywood has moved into a new age, albeit slowly. However, the fate of Weinstein indicates that the majority of Hollywood now actively fights against the allowance of sexual harassment and is able to condemn even the most powerful of the insiders of the community. First Bill Cosby’s career was ended, and now Harvey Weinstein is also experiencing his deserved fall from grace.
Of course, there is a lot of work to be done and many more predators to be sought out. Harvey Weinstein was definitely not the only Hollywood mogul misbehaving himself, and in order to convey that Hollywood is no place for the degrading and objectifying of human beings like that, the community must seek out and bring others to justice as well. Furthermore, it must also ensure that the rate at which these crimes are committed decreases, which can only be done by putting potential perpetrators in their place before they can harass someone. This will take time, but with the progress that has already been achieved, there certainly is hope for the future.
Hollywood is definitely not an egalitarian community. After all, the 2015 and 2016 acting nominees at the Oscars were all white, there are very few high-profile female directors, and sexual harassment is still prevalent within the entertainment industry. However, the condemnation of Harvey Weinstein indicates that slowly but surely the film industry is becoming more and more humane, just, and dignified. The new progressive age of Hollywood has begun.
