Why #MeToo is prey to Weinstein’s attack dogs
THE ruthlessness of Harvey Weinstein’s response to his legal troubles is entirely what you’d expect from a man who wielded such a reign of terror in Hollywood. He assembled a crack legal team to fight his corner and from day one they scornfully decreed that the case against their client would topple like a house of cards.
Their demand that the lawsuit be thrown out, citing proof of police corruption and evidence that accusers lied has, it seems, plunged the case into chaos.
It’s safe to say no stone has been left unturned, witness gone unchecked or millions spared in the drive to prove Weinstein’s innocence.
But even should he walk free, and he roundly denies the five criminal charges against him, Weinstein is ruined.
The likelihood is that he will live out his days, like Roman Polanski, in semi-seclusion, shunned and hated by society.
But Weinstein’s fate is not the most significant aspect of what’s bound to be a gripping show trial.
What’s most at stake is the future of #MeToo, the grassroots organisation that became a global phenomenon in the wake of allegations against the movie mogul.
After actress Alyssa Milano’s call to action, tens of thousands of women used social media to share their experiences of sexual harassment and assault under #MeToo. Time magazine awarded its vanguard, the so called ‘Silence Breakers’, Person of the Year.
Weinstein’s walking free would be a massive blow to the movement which suffered a setback when one of its leading lights Asia Argento was accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy.
The episode highlighted the perils of protest movements allowing celebrities on board so that their star power eclipses the message and indeed the millions of ordinary people who joined the chorus of #MeToo. Even with the best will in the world we can misremember events and perhaps exceptionally driven people, with a talent for histrionics, and a hankering for the limelight are least reliable.
In that sense a parade of minor celebrities falling apart in the witness box under the withering scorn of Weinstein’s attack dogs could throw #MeToo into jeopardy.
It may even provoke a backlash to a movement that has at its core, not a revolutionary credo to threaten the balance of power between nations but a simple message of social justice.
#MeToo’s vulnerability to the credibility of a line-up of littleknown actresses and models is perhaps part of what’s behind founder Tarana Burke’s criticism of the movement for having strayed too far from its roots.
Burke told a TedTalks in California that #MeToo has become unrecognisable to her and is now mis-representated as a vindictive plot against men. She believes that in the aftermath of contro- versies like the bitter row over Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the US Supreme Court, politicians are turning away from it.
She calls for #MeToo to return to its original mission of building a world free of sexual violence. ‘This movement has been called a watershed moment, but some days I wake up feeling that all the evidence points to the contrary,’ she says, echoing those who liken #MeToo to a feeding frenzy of unsubstantiated she-says-he-says celebrity scandals.
#MeToo is in danger of following in the path of many historical protest movements and art forms which were co-opted by the mainstream to see their power ebb.
That its fate may hinge on the Weinstein trial rather than on substantial social change or greater equality, shows that the Era of Celebrity, which gave it such a remarkable lease of life, may also be its death knell.