By now you should have seen it. The flood of news and comment on Harvey Weinstein. He is the giant of Hollywood. He drowned when a dam burst. The dam had held back an ocean of stories of his sordid sexual behavior toward women. The stories included rape accusations.
The comments were about how powerful he was. How he used that power to punish women who spoke out. Or threatened to. Or to reward those who had sex with him. He made or broke many Hollywood careers. Sex was one of the tools he used to make or break.
If a long list of women are to be believed, he was a sexual predator. And it is clear now that “everyone” knew he was. They kept silent. To advance their careers. Or to keep them. They chose silence for a good reason. They know heroes who speak up usually get shot.
They also knew casting couches are real. You want to be a starlet? Leave your innocence behind in Paducah. In Tinseltown you will have to pay a price. You try to minimize the damage.
Weinstein had the power to silence snooping journalists. He intimidated the likes of NBC News. Enough so that it refused to run the story. Other outlets ignored stories about Weinstein. For years.
His accusers claim he also had a system. Within his movie company. Staff would invite an ambitious woman to come to be interviewed. By the powerful Harvey. The guy who could make her a star. Then staff would leave her alone with him. Knowing he would probably demand sex with her. Label the staff enablers.
Does any of this ring a bell? It is identical to the behavior of Bill Clinton. He was (maybe still is) a sexual predator. As a governor he used his power to lure women. Into casting couch situations.
His staff deceived women. Into thinking the governor wanted to discuss something with them. Once they delivered the gal they vamoosed. Leaving a woman like Juanita Broddrick to be raped. Leaving others to be assaulted and molested.
When some women spoke up they were threatened by Clinton people. Or punished. Or trashed publicly. Meanwhile journalists and Big Media kept silent. Intimidated.
Supporters contorted themselves like circus rubber-men. To justify his behavior. They ignored the obvious. They kept silent. They knew that if they spoke up they could get crushed. By the Clinton machine. No different than Weinstein’s enablers. They protected their paychecks, their careers. Just like Weinstein’s staff did. Like the stars in his movies did.
The public often dismiss reports of sordid behavior by their favorite stars. Or they excuse the behavior. For a greater cause. Or they justify it.
Maybe the accused villain is their favorite newscaster (Bill O’Reilly). Or favorite sports star (OJ). Or favorite entertainer (Bill Cosby). Or favorite movie producer (Woody Allen. Roman Polanski). Or favorite politician (Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Teddy Kennedy).
This is human nature. We chose these guys to be our heroes. We don’t want to admit ugly truths about them. Or about ourselves. That the people we chose do bad things. It might reflect badly on our judgement.
Our motivations differ from those of the enablers. They want to keep their jobs. Or maybe get better ones. They want to keep getting roles and Oscars and Emmys. They want to keep their marriages intact, for whatever reasons.
And enablers of politicians? They may want to run for high office themselves some day. Why cross the guy when it could ruin things for you?
From Tom…as in Morgan.
You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com. You can read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com.