I went to bed last night reading Louis C.K.'s admission of guilt in response to the allegations of sexual misconduct made against him by five female comedians. I woke up this morning to headlines touting Anthony Edwards accusing a producer of raping him and a friend when they were 14, a male model accusing George Takei of attempting to rape him in 1981, and WB suspending Flash/Supergirl co-showrunner Andrew Kreisberg after 15 women and 4 men (all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity since many still work on those shows) accused him of sexual harassment.
Edwards' alleged abuser, Gary Goddard, has denied the accusation just as he denied similar accusations made against him in 2014 in a criminal case which eventually fell apart in court and resulted in his accuser going to jail for fraud. At the time of this writing, Takei has yet to respond. Kreisberg has vehemently denied all allegations while acknowledging that in his role as EP he's said things about actor's appearances others might have taken out of context and occasionally offered a non-romantic hug or kiss on the cheek some might have misinterpreted.
All of this caps off a week which saw the Louis C.K. story explode and almost immediately end his career, Corey Feldman and others accuse Charlie Sheen of raping Corey Haim on the set of Lucas (a claim Sheen denies), Terry Crews file charges against his groper, more actresses come forth to accuse Steven Seagal, and Ellen Page accuse the already-disgraced Brett Ratner of outing her when she was only 18 and generally acting like a lecherous pig on the set of X-Men: The Last Stand (she also detailed troubling behavior she observed on other film sets when she was still a minor). Plus, the GOP is currently jumping through hoops to try to make the Roy Moore abuse story go away, leading outlets like Splinter to run with headlines like, " Fuck the GOP's Cowardly 'If True' Roy Moore Statements":
We have always undervalued women's voices. Believing the women who have come forward with their stories against Moore might not even be enough-it's been a year since Donald Trump was elected president, even after several women came forward with their stories of sexual assault. A poll from October 2016 showed that 68% of registered voters believed that Trump made unwanted sexual advances toward women.
As Jia Tolentino wrote in the New Yorker on Thursday morning, we failed the women who came forward to accuse Trump almost exactly a year ago. As the Moore story plays out, and Republicans jump in with their "if true" statements, it seems depressingly unavoidable that we will fail the women who came out with their stories today.
Hollywood, however, is determined to not fail any women and men who are coming forward with their own stories of assault. Such accusations are triggering instant suspensions and project cancellations in ways we've never seen before, even if it leaves the livelihoods of over 2,000 House of Cards Baltimore crew members hanging in the air.
Of course, some of those crew members are among the now dozens of Kevin Spacey accusers, which is a pattern we see repeating itself. For the serial offenders in Hollywood, all it takes is one person willing to go on the record, and once they do the corroborating stories from similarly harassed or abused come flooding in. Even that level of proof is falling away since in Kreisberg's case not even a single person had to go on the record, nor should they have to, really, at least not until they can feel comfortable to speak openly without fear of losing their jobs.
Thus, decades of inaction are now being met with vigilant reaction and systemic self-reflection, both as a matter of image control and improving employee morale as well as simply doing the right thing. This is larger than Hollywood, but what Hollywood does in response to it can help countless others deal with their own experiences. As Edwards wrote in his heartfelt essay about his own experience, "There are millions of children in our country who are one conversation away from being heard. Just as there are millions of adult men who are one step away from healing. I did not go from being a victim to a survivor alone. No one does. I had to ask for help, and I am so grateful that I did."
So, when Jeremy Piven, who stands accused of harassment by three different women, writes on Instagram, "We seem to be entering dark times - allegations are being printed as facts and lives are being put in jeopardy without a hearing, due process or evidence," we roll our eyes and think, "Sounds like something a guilty person would say."
Just as Rose McGowan memorably had this to say in response to Woody Allen's observation that this is all starting to look like a witch hunt:
In this case, the messengers are clearly flawed, but is the message as well? Do they have a point? Are we in the midst of an unprecedented industry-wide cleansing and national conversation about gender relations and sex? Or are we looking at a witch hunt? Or is it kind of both at the same time?
THR's Stephen Galloway, for one, is concerned about the potential for collateral damage:
"I'm terrified that, in our righteous quest to do good, we're sweeping up the innocent as well as the guilty. We're accepting allegations in the place of solid proof. We're conflating those guilty of more minor crimes with perpetrators of egregious and even criminal behavior.
Journalists have a responsibility to stand firm, to not get swept up in the rush to judgment or the race to break a story, remembering that some of the most incendiary material may turn out to be less combustible than it seems. But faced with white-hot competition, we're giving up tried-and-tested codes of conduct, knowing that if we don't, we'll lose the battle to get the story first. We in the media are not verifying and re-verifying the facts, but only checking that so-and-so did indeed say such-and-such - not always even on the record."
Of course, that old standard of proof (or a failure to live up to it) is allegedly why NBC opted not to run Ronan Farrow's bombshell Harvey Weinstein story, and look at the beating their reputation has taken as a result. Considering the way the Weinstein story mushroomed, Farrow's journalistic instincts were correct, turning NBC's journalistic caution into an integrity-sapping indictment of not just them but broadcast news in general.
And that seems like a very 2017 thing to happen. We don't trust the news anymore and haven't for years. We don't trust men in power because in a world with Donald Trump as President everything seems suspect and corrupt (or, if you support Trump, then you believe his line about everyone other than him being corrupt). We don't trust the justice system which continually fails those who actually file charges against sexual abusers or harassers (via Slate):
Thus, even with the nearly 7,000sexualy harrassment complaints received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last year and thousands more by state agencies three out of every four victims of workplace harassment still don't report it.
So, the only court that matters anymore is the one of public opinion. In this arena, we are now determined to do right by any person, man or woman, who has the bravery to come forward to point the finger and in so doing tear away another piece of fabric from Hollywood's veil of silence. We assume they are all telling the truth because their stories confirm our worst assumptions about this fucked up country we live in and morally bankrupt entertainment industry we so cherish.
But what happens when someone turns out to be lying and an accused turns out to be innocent? Or, at least, if the situation turns out to be not nearly as black-and-white as it seems? Will those falsely accused, but entirely ruined merely be collateral damage on the road to a larger and longer overdue cleansing? Will the world even weep for them considering the decades upon decades of countless accusers having their lives ruined for simply telling the truth?
What do think? Let me know in the comments.
