A year of falling stars

It’s going to be Christmas soon, if the loony left haven’t abolished it before we get there. There will be presents under trees, lights on houses and winter decorations melting in the summer heat. While I can’t wait to see what Santa has brought me (my guess is a calendar!), for many people, Christmas has come early. It wasn’t movie money or a DVD box set; it was a crack in what is popularly referred to (in my inner circle of one) as ‘‘the sexual assault dam’’.

Thanks to Harvey Weinstein et al, the flood gates of sexual assault revelations have opened and the mood is finally beginning to shift from denial to belief.

It’s not exactly the Christmas present I dreamt of getting as a kid, but I don’t actually enjoy riding a bike that much anyway.

The most striking thing about these revelations is the level of public shock, mostly from men.

Women have known about this for years – almost all the women in my life have faced sexual harassment or assault at some stage. What’s new about this is that men are finally hearing about it too, and that the women who haven’t spoken about their experiences get to witness the world saying that this behaviour is not OK.

As it turns out, 2016 was the year of celebrity deaths and 2017 was the year of celebrities becoming dead to me.

One by one they’ve fallen from great heights, with the only downside being the movies they’ve taken with them. In our brave new world, we’re richer for being safer, but poorer for all the illustrious art we can no longer enjoy. We won’t be able to watch Pulp Fiction or Shakespeare In Love or Good Will Huntingany more.

I’ll never find out what happens in the first five seasons of House of Cards. I’ll never be able to watch Kevin Spacey’s Fred Claus without looking over my shoulder to see who’s spotted me sinning.

RIP, Harvey Weinstein’s Air Bud, Harvey Weinstein’s The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D and Harvey Weinstein’s Scary Movie 4. RIP the opportunity of ever revisiting Rene Naufahu’s Shortland Street seasons, as well as whatever commercials he probably starred in during the 90s.

It’s a true tragedy that all this great art is tainted forever. This Christmas I’ll celebrate the wins and shed tears for these great losses.

But what’s missing from the discussion about the behaviour of these men – and the art they made that’s now been tainted – is the art we no doubt lost from the women whose creativity they stymied.

The women they made feel worthless. The women they intimidated out of the business. We

and focus instead on looking forward, towards all the great movies and TV that will be made now that creeps like Weinstein are finally getting their last 15 minutes of fame.

That these revelations have started in the entertainment industry only proves that people don’t always present as they are. Movie stars and liberals can be sexual predators. There is no ‘‘sexual predator’’ look. A thin upper lip moustache, is however, the official facial hair of sexual predators.

Perpetrators are everywhere, and it’s not like people don’t know about it. People knew about Weinstein, just as they know about similar figures in New Zealand’s entertainment industry, just as they know about others in every other industry that’s ever existed.

But it’s a true Christmas miracle that it’s all coming out in the open.

What's missing from the discussion about the behaviour of these men is the art we no doubt lost from the women whose creativity they stymied.