Why Weinstein? How powerful but unknown figure touched
Donald Trump didn’t do it. Nor did Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes or Bill O’Reilly.
None of these famous men, each publicly accused of sexual harassment or assault, touched off the cultural reckoning that has swept the United States and other parts of the world over the past three months.
The honour, or perhaps dishonour, goes to a far more obscure and unlikely figure: Harvey Weinstein. The Hollywood producer’s alleged predations unleashed the outpouring of #MeToo revelations on social media along with echoing volleys of claims against more than 100 prominent men in news, entertainment, government and other fields.
Why Weinstein? Why did his story inspire a cultural eruption, particularly given that most people probably couldn’t identify him before the New York Times and the New Yorker revealed his alleged secret history in articles that became the spore of the anti-harassment movement?
Social media played a role, making a story that began in the mass media into something personal. The timing seems important, too, coming after years of pent-up anger about assault, harassment and rape that has been bubbling like lava below the surface.
But perhaps the most important factor was the identity of the victims, not of the alleged perpetrator.
“The first [Weinstein] stories had highly identifiable victims, people everyone knew,” said Teresa Younger, chief executive of the Ms Foundation for Women, a charitable organisation. “These were wealthy white women whose images people have seen for years and years. . . . They were trusted and believed” in ways that previous accusers might not have been.
She is referring to the early wave of Hollywood actresses who went public with their stories of abuse by Weinstein. Ashley Judd appeared in the first paragraph of the first Times article. Her account was followed within days by similar claims from the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Heather Graham, Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette. Another actress-director, Asia Argento, told the New Yorker that Weinstein raped her.
Other famous people responded by condemning Weinstein — Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Lena Dunham, Brie Larson, Amber Tamblyn, George Clooney, America Ferrera, Lupita Nyong’o and Brooklyn Decker among them.
The celebrity aspect of the story made Weinstein different from almost every alleged perpetrator before him: Many of the accusers were better known than the accused.
Although some of the women who brought allegations against other men became well known — such as Thomas accuser Anita Hill and Clinton accuser Paula Jones — their fame was based almost entirely on their accusations.
The Hollywood element also had the effect of lifting the story out of the realm of politics, where partisanship has often fogged the issue, as it did in the Thomas, Clinton and Trump accusations. It also created a media hurricane.
The reaction to the Times’ first Weinstein revelations “staggered” editors and reporters at the paper, said Jodi Kantor, the reporter who with colleague Megan Twohey broke the story.
“Before publication, our editors pointed out that Harvey Weinstein was not a household name,” Kantor said. “In interviews over the summer, more than a few people in the film business told us that our work would not matter. Weinstein’s behaviour had been an open secret for years, they said. Everyone knew and no one cared. Even if we were able to document the allegations, nothing would change, they predicted.”
Social media helped turn the story into a personal crusade, with women talking to women in a way that was impossible when Anita Hill first appeared, said Casie Yoder, a spokeswoman for 9to5, an organisation that advocates on behalf of working women. The #MeToo hashtag, with which women shared their own harassment stories, became “a tsunami”, she said.