Well, would YOU have told about Weinstein?
AS the avalanche of revelations about Harvey Weinstein’s reign of terror conducted over three decades against up-and-coming actresses continues, uncomfortable questions have been raised about why no-one shouted stop. Why did the women who Weinstein assaulted not report him to the police then, rather than wait 20 years to talk.?
Did these actress not help deliver scores of ingénues into the hands of the depraved movie mogul, bring suffering on women who with one word could have been saved?
Fears of being demonised in this way have prompted stars like Jane Fonda to say they regret staying silent.
But there is something repellent about the avalanche of criticism and wide-eyed horror now being directed at those who decided not to speak out.
Marilyn Monroe described Tinseltown as an ‘overcrowded brothel’ while Joan Collins recounts hair-raising tales of losing roles after resisting the casting couch. But no amount of cautionary tales deter ambitious young women , striking out for the movie capital of the world with stars in their eyes and beauty and brains as their calling card.
Most have their heads screwed on enough to suspect that they’ll meet some disgusting men on their journey; they are brave enough to fend them off, but should they really be condemned now for not going public?. Movie stars aren’t always great actors but they have beauty and sex appeal in spades. Call it the X Factor, star quality or aura but it’s the main tool of their trade, deployed when they flatter or flirt with those in a position to give them a break.
The testosterone-charged predators who rise to the top in Hollywood undoubtedly have the power to make or break careers, none more so than Weinstein.
The desperation of beautiful young women to see their names in lights makes Hollywood an ideal hunting ground for such sleazeballs.
They know that for every woman who rebuffs their aggressive overtures, there is another who acquiesces and that the former will, if she knows what’s good for her, shut up.
If she doesn’t then her silence can always be bought with a hefty cheque and a non-disclosure clause as producer Zelda Perkins discovered.
But even actresses who had made it and had some kind of heft in Hollywood said nothing. The fears of actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow about their careers going down the pan shows the unassailable position of these Hollywood kingmakers.
In a milieu where a handful of men hold all the cards and the talent pool is overcrowded and eager-to-please, it’s not fair , with the benefit of hindsight, to expect women who are suffering like Rose McGowan or Ashley Judd from a sexual assault to also sacrifice all her hopes and dreams. It may be wrong, but it is completely understandable that young hopefuls decided not to speak out against one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.
Reporting sexual harassment in their case would have been a self-inflicted injury, professional suicide . And would it have even made any difference? Weinstein’s trading of roles for sexual favours was it appears ‘an open secret’.
Allegedly Ben Affleck, George Clooney and Brad Pitt knew of it.
Italian model Ambra Battilana who taped him trying to lure her into his bedroom – a chilling testimony of how he could terrorise young women and bend them to his will – got nowhere with her sting.
Ronan Farrow worked on his exposé of the sexual tyrant for years, hawked it to news organisation like NBC ,to see it published only last week.
If influential power players , the NYPD and media behemoths turned a blind eye to Weinstein, what hope did a no-name actress have of even being heard?