Daily Times

Hollywood has had a long, ugly history with cases of sexual harassment. Scandals have surfaced to the forefront and spread like wildfire ever since the industry’s first major controversy 96 years ago surrounding the death of Virginia Rappe, which shook the very progressive substructures of an industry that stands laden with attempts of inclusiveness and strong moral imperative on fairness. Once again, Hollywood has had a knock on its door, and this time the avalanche of explosive accusations against one major movie mogul has opened a Pandora’s Box of Hollywood harassment and hypocrisy. The ‘Weinstein allegations’ have become a phenomenon, that which seems to have reciprocal implications on the present political climate of America.

What started off as complaints of sexual harassment against the 65-year-old film producer have swirled into full-fledged accusations of ‘sexually harassing women and making unwanted advances’ against them for over a span of nearly three decades, when New York Times published a piece last Thursday that fired rounds on social media and broke headlines all over. The scandal dramatically expanded within this week when reporter Ronan Farrow published the worst, detailed misconduct allegations of ‘rape’ and ‘assault’ in a New Yorker magazine investigation and released a police recording that was ambushed under the rugs, of Weinstein appearing to confess to assault.

Caught in the act

According to the New Yorker, Weinstein and model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez met in March 2015 when the former “lunged at her, groping her breasts and attempting to put a hand up her skirt” at a meeting in his offices in Tribeca.

Upon reporting the incident to the New York Police Department, she was asked to wear a wire.

In the audio of their conversation released by the magazine, Weinstein can be heard apologizing for grabbing her breast and then repeatedly pressuring her and insisting her to come into his hotel room.

“Our sex crimes prosecutors made a determination that this was not going to be a provable case, and so the decision was made not to go forward,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

“Obviously he has some serious issues, and the tape is terrible.”

The New York Times reported that at least eight settlements had been paid to women who reported allegations of sexual harassment to Weinstein Co. or Miramax, the studio that was built into a cultural juggernaut with independent films such as “Pulp Fiction”, “Shakespeare in Love” and “Chicago.” Mr. Weinstein had also enforced a code of silence that pertained to employees of the Weinstein Company signing contracts of non-disclosure, saying that they would not criticize their leaders in a way that could harm the company’s “business reputation” or “any employee’s personal reputation,” according to a recent document.

Across the years and continents, accounts of Mr. Weinstein’s conduct share a common discourse: Women were summoned to a hotel room for what they thought were work reasons, only to discover that a married Mr. Weinstein would require their assistance in a massage or watch him while he showered, said the paper.

“There’s not one actress who doesn’t have a story,” said actor and director Rob Schneider in conversation with TMZ.

A new angle to the Weinstein allegations shocked Hollywood when an investigation carried out by The Times found that amongst Mr. Weinstein’s victims, were a young assistant in New York in 1990, an actress in 1997, an assistant in London   in 1998, an Italian model in 2015 recounted from the very incident above and Laurean O’Connor shortly after, a colleague who recorded her writings in a searing memo asserting sexual harassment and other acts of misconduct against him.

“There is a toxic environment for women at this company,” Ms. O’Connor said in the letter that was addressed to several executives at Mr. Weinstein’s establishment.

The scandal hit rock bottom with revelation of the list of the Oscar-winner’s harassment victims also now reported to include Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Cara Delevingne, Rosanna Arquette and French actress Judith Godreche.

A number of Weinstein’s victims kept hush on the matter accrediting their silence to the fear that Weinstein would “crush” them.

“He’s big and fat, so I had to be forceful to resist him. I left his room, thoroughly disgusted,” said Lea Seydox, award-winning French star.

“He asked us to kiss and she began some sort of advances upon his direction,” claimed actress Cara Delevingne, in an Instagram post that detailed an encounter at a hotel.

When Delevingne got up to leave in a hurry, she added, “He walked me to the door and stood in front of it and tried to kiss me on the lips.”

His “behavior is inexcusable, but the abuse of power familiar,” said Meryl Streep, winner of three Academy Awards, whose movies have been championed by Weinstein.

Britain’s Judi Dench, who bagged the supporting actress Oscar in 1999 for Weinstein-produced Shakespeare in Love – lashed out in a statement against the film studio executive quoting that she was “completely unaware of these offences, which are of course horrifying.”

Weinstein and his lawyers downright denied all charges upheld against him in The New York Times, threatening to sue the newspaper. In a statement to The Times, Mr. Weinstein stated, “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go.”

Following the upheaval, Weinstein was fired from his company and even had his membership suspended from BAFTA. High profile actors and directors who have worked with the producer with close ties have strongly condemned him and expressed their support for the ever-increasing list of his accusers. On his whereabouts, spokeswoman Sallie Hofmeister reported that Weinstein was heading to a rehabilitation facility in Europe to receive counseling. Weinstein’s wife announced on Tuesday that she was leaving him.

A longtime Democratic donor, Weinstein threw a fund-raiser for Hilary Clinton in his Manhattan home last year. He also employed Malia Obama, the oldest daughter of former President Barack Obama, at an internee position this year at Weinstein Co. Weinstein has generously contributed to Democrats and liberal causes over the years; figures shoot up to more than $600,000 donated to Democratic politicians and groups, according to federal record reports.

Conservatives, who have spent years pinning up against Hollywood celebrities moralizing social issues under the leftist banner, celebrated a field day over the Weinstein scandal. “Waiting on the professional ‘pro-women’ outrage machine… Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein,” Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway tweeted Friday morning on the microblogging platform.

Withering accusations launched by Republicans have been on the rise, who claim that liberal elites were always protecting one of their own. Those in Donald Trump’s party have demanded that Democrats pour out all the load of contributions by the movie mogul.

Legal experts and law enforcement sources said that Harvey Weinstein could face 5 to 25 years in prison on sexual assault charges if the latest abuse allegations were tried against him in criminal court.

“From the outside, it seemed golden — the Oscars, the success, the remarkable cultural impact. But behind the scenes, it was a mess, and this was the biggest mess of all,” said former president of Miramax Los Angeles, Mark Gill.

“It wasn’t a secret to the inner circle,” said Kathy DeClesis, assistant to Bob Weinstein (brother) in the early 1990s, after an encounter with Harvey.

Everyone knew.

Instead of expressing the typical shock or dismay, most Hollywood insiders acknowledged that Weinstein’s behavior was an “open secret,” the fodder of gossip for over nearly three whole decades. While it is true that Hollywood likes to project an image of being progressive about issues it upholds, such as that of race, gender and social issues, at the end of the day it is an incredibly regressive industry – one that in many ways is decidedly premodern, with information that is everywhere, yet nowhere. The “Weinstein allegations’ are the in-between that we can not quite touch, that vast space between what we, as a public, understand on our colorful television screens and what we merely “understand.”