Editorial: Disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein is the ogre of our age

Harvey Weinstein outside court in Manhattan following a bail hearing. AP Photo / Mark Lennihan

Editorial

EDITORIAL

At his most powerful, Harvey Weinstein was worth an estimated $475 million and commanded a staff of 150. He oversaw movie projects with budgets of almost $150 million.

Now Weinstein is prisoner number 06581138Z. Once he's cleared by medical staff, he's bound for the notorious Rikers Island. It's speculated he will spend much of his five-year minimum stretch (which could extend to as much as 29 years) at upstate Clinton Correctional Facility.

The testimony during his trial brought the visceral reality of the Hollywood dream flickering into the public eye. Weinstein was a physically deformed monster with a voracious appetite for forcing himself on women. Were his character conjured up for one of this films, critics may have called it an implausible exaggeration.

His actions proved him to be just another - albeit extremely odious - trope of the Hollywood "casting couch" cliche: the troll from beneath the bridge who demands payment for crossing into the golden land of movies and fame.

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That Weinstein's crass defence, roughly translated to "that's how Hollywood works", was ever mooted at all, shows how isolated parts of the movie industry had been to the evolution of humankind outside of the movie lots and offices.

On the whole, as Nicole Sperling reports today in the Weekend Herald, Hollywood has become a more inclusive place, partly in response to the Weinstein revelations - #MeToo has at last swayed the course of Tinseltown.

Women and people of colour have been finding their voices through organisations such as Time's Up and ReFrame, which have transformed issues of gender and racial equality from meaningless catchphrases into actually addressing the unbalanced power structures some say enabled abusers such as Weinstein.

It has also been helped by the rise of streaming services, which have a seemingly insatiable need for more content that appeals to new and diverse audiences.

Netflix is changing the landscape, as audiences increasingly expect to see themselves and people like themselves portrayed in film and television series. By paying for streaming services, they are calling some of the shots on what sort of people are cast for what sort of roles.

Yet young women will still beat a path to this door of opportunity, some willing to chance their bodies on a shot at stardom. Hollywood needs to shake the scales from its eyes and realise it has a duty of care to treat these people with the same protections obligated of any employer.

The temptation with such a revolting beast is to avert the eyes and put it out of one's mind. Weinstein should not be purged from memory but repeatedly refrained as to what the entertainment industry must change.

Weinstein is scheduled for sentencing on March 11. He has already put together a team of lawyers to appeal but, before he can mount that, he is due to face a trial closer to Hollywood heartland.

In Los Angeles, Weinstein is accused of raping an Italian woman at a Beverly Hills hotel after pushing his way into her room on February 18, 2013. He also faces allegations by Lauren Young, a 30-year-old model from Pennsylvania.

Weinstein's fall from disgrace still has depths to plumb. It's to be hoped those who still need to learn are watching.

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