"Men live like Jews in Germany"

The New Yorker - about what has changed in Hollywood after the case of Harvey Weinstein

On January 1, 2018, The New Yorker published the material of Dana Hudir about how Hollywood is experiencing the consequences of the case of Harvey Weinstein and other accusations of doubtful sexual behavior against directors, producers and actors. It follows that the culture of sexual superiority has dominated Hollywood for decades, but now the situation is changing sharply: almost every Hollywood man is now afraid that they can be accused of something-while women-activists are trying to provide real changes in the field of gender equality in the film industry. "Medusa" says that it turned out from the material of The New Yorker.

After the case of Weinstein and the revelations of other major film business figures followed by him, many of whom ended with dismissal and abolition of projects, the atmosphere of paranoia reigns in Hollywood: one of The New Yorker's interlocutors calls everything that is happening “cleaning”. According to the interlocutors of Goudir, we are talking about stories around sexual harassment and violence at any business meeting and any party-and white men often guess if they did something that can be put in appearance. “No one knows how to behave now. The rules have changed, ”says one television manager.

These rules concern even little things. For example, people in Hollywood almost stopped hugging (“unwanted embrace” were one of the accusations against the head of the Pixar studio John Laseter). The producer and the head of the “Women in the Cinema” organization Katie Schulman says that now that she meets men in their offices, they demand to leave the door open - and at the meetings, managers are trying to say the neutral “they” instead of “he” or “she” and apologize if they use gender -colored pronouns.

All Hollywood men that buzzed spoke with. They do not understand what they can be accused of. Most of them have assistants - young girls - and they do not understand how to behave with them. “I have never done anything comparable with what these guys were doing, but I am not perfect,” says one of them. “Men live like Jews in Germany.”

The New Yorker journalist also shows that the culture of sexual superiority and abuse of power was widespread in Hollywood for decades. So, she tells the story of the actress, who began to star in the 1930s in the age of three and played mainly the role of large actresses in childhood. When she turned 16, screenwriter Harry Raskin, one of her main patrons, invited her to lunch, showed her a script with a role written specifically for her - and made an obscene proposal (specific conditions, like the name of the actress, are not specified in the material). The actress did not agree and stopped her career in the cinema. She argued that her friends-cognition did not understand her decision-they advised to get used to such situations and not pay attention to them.

Another story happened in the late 1990s, when the black girl Amani Lyle got a job in the script group “Friends”-one of the most popular American series at that time. Her work was to record the ideas of the scriptwriters who were white men. As Lyle subsequently approved in court indications, men constantly talked about masturbation, anal and oral sex, discussed the hair color and breast size of women; One of them regularly talked about his fantasy - a series of “friends”, in which one of the heroes finds the heroine in the soul and rape it. One of the proposals of Lyle was to make a little racial variety to the series-Joeie had to have a girl-American girl. Four months later, Lyle was fired - the reason was that she printed too slowly.

Lyle sued, accusing the studio of unfair dismissal and racial discrimination. The studio in response stated that the scenario group that took place inside was protected by the first amendment to the American constitution, guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech: all these discussions were “creative necessity” for screenwriters who compose a series about unmarried adults. In 2006, the California Supreme Court took the side of the studio. After Lyle filed a lawsuit, her career in Hollywood was essentially over. Lyle says that if she had not been fired, she would hardly have a complaint about what was happening in the scenario group: she said, she was “completely immersed” into the culture of Hollywood.

The New Yorker tells the stories of other women who say that the culture of sexual superiority was universal in Hollywood. One television center admits that she developed the psychological mechanisms that allowed her to adapt to the situation when they looked at her from top to bottom and constantly joked with her about sex. The former vice-president of one of the production studios tells how the boss constantly harassed her: when they talked about work, he asked not about the projects that she led, but about how she looks naked; He openly told her that he wanted to sleep with her, while boasting of the beauty of his girlfriend.

More recently, rumors about the doubtful sexual behavior in Hollywood were not leading to anything. Kim Masters, an employee of The Hollywood Reporter, made an investigation about accusations against the head of Amazon, Roy Roy Price in August - but did not want to publish him, since the woman who accused Price was reluctant to talk with the journalist. After the publication of investigations about Weinstein, she changed her mind and told Masters everything; Price was removed from office on the day of publication of the material and subsequently quit .

Now The Hollywood Reporter has a special department of dubious sexual behavior; Seven people work in it, who come from ten to fifteen stories per day. Masters claims that new revelations are inevitable. In parallel, the Los Angeles police created an operational group for sexual crimes of ten people; They are already conducting 27 investigations of various charges. The profession of a private detective specializing in sex investigations is flourishing. On the contrary, people who were previously engaged in rehabilitation of those accused of sexual crimes are almost not in demand: now companies do not send men for treatment, but, as a rule, immediately get rid of them.

Hollywood activists are trying to use this whole situation in order to change the rules of the game seriously and for a long time. According to the interlocutors of Goudir, the situation in the industry from the point of view of gender equality is still deplorable: Staisi Smith, a journalism professor at the University of South California, gives statistics according to which, for example, among heroes of Hollywood films and series, which is more than forty years old, almost 75 percent. More than 70 percent of scriptwriters and almost 85 percent of directors are men.

Smith proposes to introduce a rule similar to Rooney in Hollywood in the NFL : it requires that a variety of candidates be interviewed as the head coaches of the teams. Hollywood women who have influence - Oprah Winfrey, Ava Duvernya, Reese Witherspoon and others gather together for meetings to coordinate actions to change the industry ( January 2, 2018, it became known that they organized the Timeʼ UP movement - approx. Medusa ). Two agencies have already stated that by 2020 they should reach an equal gender balance in their leadership. “We use the concept of the capitalism of disasters invented by Naomi Klein - when, for example, a natural disaster happens, and corporations earn on the chaos that it gives rise,” one of the activists explains. - We are engaged in the feminism of disasters. How can we make structural changes that remain in place in the current chaos, even when it all ends? ”