‘Wein’ sampler
It’s tempting to think that the fall of alleged rapist and Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein signals a change in the status quo and marks the beginning of an end to an age of acting with impunity. But how many times has this happened before? The breathless coverage on Weinstein’s acts, and his heroic accusers, isn’t very different from that of Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, and the other alleged sexual predators exposed in recent years. Magazines this week drop the gauntlet — or don’t.
Time puts Weinstein’s mug on the cover. The weekly doesn’t break any news here on the scandal, but it does a laudable job of putting it into context with a timeline of accusations and the women who made them. The section is anchored by fiery pieces from Stephanie Zacharek, the mag’s film critic, and Jill Filipovic, a journalist and lawyer. There’s also a piece from Mira Sorvino, who accused the producer of sexual harassment. Of those pieces, Zacharek’s on the Hollywood code of silence is the most arresting. “Weinstein seemed to be off-loading responsibility for his behavior — essentially standing there in his short pants with his lollipop, blinking in disbelief that women could be so damn uncool about everything — [making] that behavior even more monstrous,” she writes. By now, the New
Yorker’s explosive piece on Weinstein, which was written by Ronan Farrow, has already reverberated around the world. Although it followed The New York Times’ initial salvo, Farrow had been working on it for months and it has arguably done the most damage. The rest of the mag’s “Money Issue” is strong, too. Jane Mayer writes an exhaustive piece on Mike Pence, who was a lot closer to losing out on the vice presidency to Chris Christie than has been previously known. Novelist Jonathan Franzen writes an impressionistic take on being young and broke in New York in the 1980s.
New York, rather than looking at the world around it, published its backward-looking 50th Anniversary edition. Weirdly, it’s the first of two such editions to be published a year apart, both of which are about six months away from the actual anniversary this coming April. (One wonders if the pricey book version available in book stores next month has anything to do with that). Regardless, it’s a nice stroll down memory lane with New Yorkers famous, infamous, and anonymous. A photo essay on New York in the ’70s and ’80s from ex-cab driver Joseph Rod- riguez is worth the price alone.
People does a mystifying job of minimizing the Weinstein story to a picture-heavy page and a half in the middle of the book. ”Many in the industry weren’t so shocked by the scandal,” according to the tiny, tepid write-up. It’s possible that the most explosive rape accusations were published after this issue closed, but ending the piece with speculation about “whatever the future holds” for Weinstein isn’t a good look. The rest of the magazine is jammed with so much filler it might as well be a hot dog on sale in Penn Station. On the cover are Chip and Joanna Gaines, who are the stars of the HGTV show “Fixer Upper.” It’s about the real reason they’re leaving their hit show, which, it turns out, is family. How adorable. They say that being on TV was never their end goal, so here’s hoping they fade back into obscurity.