The MeToo movement that broke out in October 2017 is aimed at opposing sexual harassment and sexual assault incidents in different fields. Since its inception, it has caused a huge shock throughout the United States. Countless women have come forward to talk about their experiences of being harassed/assaulted. , Many high-powered men were removed from their posts after being reported.
and the fuse of all this is because the New York Times reported on October 5, 2017 to Harvey Weinstein, who was once regarded as the “Hollywood’s number one tyrant,” in this article In the report titled "Harvey Weinstein Used Money to Settle Sexual Harassment Cases for Decades", many women who had been harassed by Harvey Weinstein were interviewed, and many of them were movie stars. Once published, it caused a huge sensation and brought a chain reaction.
①Who is Weinstein?
Who is Harvey Weinstein? For film industry practitioners and fans, this used to be a very important name. Born in New York in 1952, he founded the film company Miramax in 1979 with his younger brother Bob Weinstein. With his talent in publicity and distribution, he has turned many previously unknown films into phenomenal levels. Independent production, such as "Sex, Lies, Videotape", "Crying Game", etc. In 2005, the brothers set up a separate portal and founded the Weinstein Company. He is even more a pioneer in operating and winning Oscars, and he has become popular among many actors such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lawrence, Matt Damon, and directors such as Quentin Tarantino.
Harvey Weinstein (Harvey Weinstein)
The controversy surrounding Harvey has never been less. He has a bad temper, and he often scolds employees; he acts in a brutal style, does not play cards according to routines, and does not give up if he fails to achieve his goals. The famous Chinese director Feng Xiaogang publicly cursed him after dealing with him.
But these are personal working styles at best. What really caused serious consequences and ultimately ruined his career was his "lifestyle issues." Since the 1980s, there has been lace news about him harassing other women, and these scandals have continued unabated for decades. It is an open secret that he eats female star tofu in Hollywood, but people in the circle are very "sensible" to ignore these things. Whenever a victim tries to file a lawsuit against him, Harvey relies on his connections and skills to spend all money to settle it, and through a strict settlement agreement to prevent these victims from speaking out. The most ironic thing about
is that Harvey has always set himself a feminist personality in public. He has donated money to feminist journalists, his company has published anti-sexual harassment documentaries, and he himself participated in the Women's Rights Parade in January 2017.
In recent years, with the vigorous development of streaming media platforms such as Netflix, Harvey's influence has been much lower than before, but the lean camel is bigger than the horse, and he is still a symbol of power in the movie circle. He also has the means to operate contacts and has been a firm supporter and fundraiser of Hillary Clinton for many years. When Obama's eldest daughter Malia was looking for an internship, Harvey put her into his own film company without saying a word.
Weinstein, Obama and other elites are very familiar with
. Over the years, many reporters have tried to make Harvey’s actions public, but due to various reasons, these reports were basically unable to be published and did not attract public attention. It was not until the publication of the New York Times report mentioned at the beginning of this article that it caused a huge domino-like response. So how did the two journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, who completed this report and won the Pulitzer Prize, accomplish this difficult task?
②Victims: Superstars and ordinary people
reporter Judy has been investigating women’s career experiences since 2013. After a period of time, she discovered that because most women in the workplace cannot enter the core leadership circle at the top, by observing women's living conditions in the workplace, one can understand how power operates in the workplace. This idea was of great help to her later investigation of Harvey's case. To assist Judy’s investigation, her long-time editor Rebecca Corbett recommended Megan, who has also been in this field for many years, as her partner.
(left: Judy; right: Megan)
In 2017, Judy learned that actress Rose McGowen was planning to write an autobiography to expose the oppression of actresses by the abnormal working environment in Hollywood, which is very likely Including Harvey, so Judy contacted Mai Gao and invited her for an interview, but Mai Gao refused her. After repeated struggles, Mai Gao finally agreed to accept an interview with Judy on the phone, and said his own experience:
In 1997, Mai Gao, a newcomer in the film industry at the time, happily participated in the Sundance Film Festival and participated in her performance. Promotion and screening of the movie "All the Way Forward". The Sundance Film Festival has always been a paradise for independent films, and Harvey, who made his fortune in independent film distribution, is like a king here. Therefore, when Harvey invited her to discuss work together after the screening of Mai Gao's movie, Mai Gao readily agreed.
Rose McGowen (Rose McGowen)
McGowen went to Harvey's hotel suite as agreed, and the two really only talked about business at the time. But when Mai Gao was about to leave, Harvey suddenly pulled her into another room and forced his face between her legs. Mai Gao was shocked on the spot, and could only leave the room as soon as possible without irritating Harvey. A few days later, Harvey left a phone message to the frightened Mai Gao, saying that a famous actress was his "special friend" and he hoped that Mai Gao could also "join" them. This message angered Mai Gao, and she found a lawyer to go through the legal process. In the end, Harvey agreed to pay $100,000 to Mai Gao, on the condition that Mai Gao signed a settlement agreement, acknowledging that Harvey was not responsible for the matter, and Harvey’s lawyer team did not leave any form of evidence to Mai Gao.
is certainly not enough to have only one respondent, so Judy began to look for other celebrities, but with difficulties. If you want to get close to female celebrities, you must first get close to their agents, but no agent wants his artist to accept interviews on such topics. So Judy looked for the personal contact information of these actresses instead. After a lot of searches, she also contacted some female stars, but due to various practical considerations, they all rejected her. Later, through the help of columnist Nicholas Kristof, Judy was able to interview the actress Ashley Judd (Ashley Judd).
Ashley Judd (Ashley Judd)
Judd happened in 1996, and the specific experience is very similar to that of McGee: Judd was appointed to his hotel suite by Weinstein in the name of work during his career. As soon as Judd walked into the room, he found Weinstein wearing a bathrobe and asked Judd to give him a massage. Judd wanted to escape very much, but he didn't dare to offend the big man in the industry, so he had to flee the room in a hurry after constantly tactfully rejecting all kinds of unreasonable requests he followed.
Judd’s story did not make any substantial progress in Judy’s report, but she introduced Judy to very important people: Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, who have been very concerned about feminist issues. It was through the match between the two that Judy was able to interview the Oscar star Gwyneth Paltrow (Gwyneth Paltrow).
Gwyneth Paltrow (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Because of the past two decades, Gwyneth's career has been tightly tied to Harvey, and it is one of Weinstein's golden signs. She and Harvey have been photographed at the same occasion countless times. Her 1999 Oscar for "Shakespeare in Love" has been regarded as one of the classic cases of Harvey's Oscars. Gwyneth even had a nickname during that period: Miramax (Harvey's first company) first lady.
So when Gwyneth agreed to be interviewed, Judy was overjoyed because she felt that Gwyneth might know more than anyone else. But in fact, Gwyneth told Judy’s experience that it was very close to McGee and Judd: when she was 22 years old, Harvey took her first time in the film industry to the suite and tried to move her hands and feet. Nice tactfully rejected him and left the room, then told his relatives.Friends, and her boyfriend Brad Pitt at the time.
At that time, the energetic Pete met Harvey at a movie premiere and warned him not to touch his girlfriend. Harvey then called Gwyneth angrily and asked her why she had leaked the wind. Out of cherishment of the job opportunities, Gwyneth quietly reassures Harvey on the phone, hoping that he will calm down and continue to apologize for himself and Pete. After that, Harvey did not seem to be angry anymore. Not only did he not suppress Gwyneth, he had been working with her for several years. After the 2003 movie "American Stewardess" was released, Gwyneth felt that he was no longer favored, so he began to alienate Harvey intentionally. The two were in contact again in 2016, when New York Magazine tried to interview Gwyneth to investigate Harvey’s sexual harassment case, but because Harvey contacted her in advance and asked her to keep her confidential, Gwyneth refused. Media interview request.
Judy later sent interview invitation emails to famous actresses such as Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, Salma Hayek, but they all fell to nothing. This road of female stars is temporarily unavailable, so will ordinary people who have been harassed by Harvey cooperate with the interview?
Megan has made a lot of attempts and efforts in this regard. She began investigating whether Harvey had recorded sexual abuse in the middle of July, and inquired with the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and relevant government agencies in New York. However, only some complaints were found. Information of both parties. Megan then decided to start with the old employees of Miramax. The effort paid off, and after repeated investigations, Megan finally found an assistant who had suddenly resigned from Miramax. This person is known for his intelligence and rigor. He was promoted quickly, but he suddenly resigned in 1990 and has since disappeared. Some veterans secretly said that this was because of what Harvey did to her, but no one knew the details.
After extensive searches, Megan found the woman in a humble company employee roster on the Internet. Megan called the company's front desk, but did not get any effective information, so she went to get her mother's address in New York and came to visit directly. Surprisingly, the woman happened to be there. After learning about Megan’s coming, the woman euphemistically expressed that she had privately settled with Harvey and signed a relevant agreement, and according to the agreement, she was required not to disclose too much relevant information. Although
has not made any real progress, this woman makes Megan feel a lot: Harvey’s former employees are a group that they have not considered before, but this group is precisely the most overlooked. As long as the female celebrities make up their minds, they will get attention anyway after they speak up, but ordinary people facing Harvey alone, if they do not operate properly, they will get into trouble.
Following this idea, Megan and Judy interviewed former employees of Miramax’s UK office, including Amy Israel, Zelda Perkins, Rowena Chiu, Laura Madden, etc., all of whom were harassed and harassed by Harvey The process is basically similar to the description of the female celebrities that Judy has interviewed before, including keywords such as hotel suites, bathrobes, requesting massage, and harassing behavior. The difference lies in the degree of severity. Among them, Perkins and Chiu had consulted a lawyer together, and the answer was: The best way to deal with it is to settle in private, and then take the money, the amount is about 20,000 pounds. In the end, they could only sign a settlement agreement with Harvey, but in accordance with the requirements of the agreement, they could not keep any form of materials and could only go to the law firm to check the copy. Perkins told Judy that she could only show her part of the agreement. If she violated the requirements, Harvey would be sued and lose money.
(Zelda Perkins)
Harvey also has a special assistant to arrange this kind of "invitation" for him. Sandeep Rehal's job includes helping Harvey book rooms, order flowers, and organize a list of women named "Harvey's Friends" and plan their coming and going in advance. Her work also included the purchase of an erectile dysfunction drug called Caverject for Harvey.
During the investigation, Judy and Megan found that these victims, no matter what city they live in, whether they are superstars or ordinary people, their experiences are surprisingly similar, and their handling methods are almost the same. They didn't break their faces with Harvey, because they were also eager for work and opportunities for success. inIn this story, every woman is like an island. For example, Amy Israel and Laura Madden were colleagues working in the London office at the same time, but they never talked about it. Everyone kept the fragments they knew in their hearts, and no one was able to piece together the entire incident.
③Why did they endure it?
Judy encountered the biggest difficulty of this type of report after interviewing Mai Gao at that time: because Mai Gao was reconciled privately, she did not have any evidence. As a person in charge, the media must interview both parties when publishing such reports, and cannot just publish one-sided words. But because Mai Gao has no evidence, Harvey can easily refute her. The senior editor of The New York Times, Matt Purdy, also suggested that Judy, because Harvey’s articles have never been officially exposed before, so if you want to make an influential report, you must ensure that the evidence in the report is complete and that every evidence is dry Clean and flawless. As long as you can tear a hole, you can pull out the radish and bring out the mud. Editor Rebecca Corbett also suggested that Judy and Megan should not blindly accumulate the number of interviews. If there is no legally valid evidence, it will turn into a meaningless tug of war in the end.
After a lot of investigation, Judy also realized that workplace sexual harassment incidents do not only occur in Hollywood. In the catering industry, retail industry, hotel industry, construction industry, and other blue-collar industries, such misconducts are common in various forms. Waitresses will be harassed by drunk customers. Upstarts in Silicon Valley are also prone to act on female employees because they feel too good about themselves. In some heavy industry companies, female employees who refuse to be eaten tofu by male employees may be directly exposed. Abandoned in dangerous places such as mines.
As reported by some media, most workplace harassment cases end up in private settlements between the two parties, and these privately signed settlement agreements are actually more like "cover-up agreements", which require the woman to hand over all evidence with strict clauses Materials, then take the money and shut up. There is another very realistic reason for
to sign the settlement agreement. The Federal Court has set a maximum payment limit for similar harassment cases. If you sign a private settlement agreement, the lawyer will get more money, usually one-third of the amount of compensation. And if you go to court, if you lose the case, the lawyer won't get a penny.
④Infernal Affairs
Harvey, of course, can’t do nothing. He was very well informed. After Gwyneth and Judy completed the first interview by phone, he contacted Gwyneth and asked to attend an investment-related event she held in mid-July. Gwyneth thought it was Harvey implying that he already knew the situation and that he was paying attention to her.
Harvey didn't let the reporters Judy and Megan pass. According to the "hidden rules" of this industry, when a "big man" like Harvey is under investigation against him, he will hire private investigators to conduct counter-reconnaissance. Harvey's long-term cooperation is an Israeli company called Black Cube. Among those who did
for Harvey were the mother and daughter Gloria Allred and Lisa Bloom. Mother Gloria Allred is a well-known feminist lawyer who has always been an active voice for social affairs on the bright side, but when Megan asked her whether she had experience and methods in obtaining sexual harassment records from government agencies, she did not give any advice. Not to mention that Megan has several Harvey case records in her company. Although Gloria Allred is famous for litigating female victims, a considerable part of her income is also commissions earned by letting female victims sign settlement agreements. Megan learned later that Gloria Allred had also signed a settlement agreement for Harvey. Not only that, she also personally obstructed the private settlement of California legislation prohibiting sexual harassment cases, and strongly recommended that the existing confidentiality agreement be maintained.
Gloria Allred
In August 2017, Megan learned that Gloria Allred's daughter Lisa Bloom works for Harvey, and the consultation fee is $895/hour. At that time, in order to "solve" the high temperature of wheat, she sent an email to Harvey, detailing her thoughts on dealing with the problem of high temperature of wheat, such as spreading a large number of negative articles about the high temperature of wheat on the Internet, and confessing that Harvey had passed away. Mom moved out to show sympathyBrands, the establishment of charitable funds to promote gender equality in the name of Weinstein, etc. She also suggested that Harvey work with a reputation management company to "optimize" Google search results so that everyone sees positive news when they search for his name.
Gloria Allred's daughter Lisa Bloom
Judy and Megan accumulated a lot of information throughout August and September, but there is basically no "real hammer" that can be directly used in the manuscript. After being introduced by an informant, I met Irwin Reiter, Executive Vice President of Finance of Weinstein Company, who has worked for the Weinstein brothers since 30 years ago. After many fights, he finally agreed to meet and talk with Megan and Judy. In the interview, he said that he and Harvey’s younger brother Bob both noticed the accusations against Harvey that have become more frequent in recent years, and are aware of the harm these accusations have to the company’s operations. They all persuaded Harvey, but he couldn't listen. In 2014, Irwin Reiter's anxiety about Harvey reached its peak. At that time, the well-known American actor Bill Cosby's sexual assault case was raging, and the public was very sensitive to such things. At that time, the Weinstein Company seemed to be very beautiful because of "The King's Speech", "The Proud of the Bridge" and other movies In fact, there are a lot of internal losses, and it can no longer withstand any blows. Irwin Reiter wrote an e-mail to Harvey in December that year to make him pay attention to his words and deeds. Harvey not only refused to listen, but also harassed an employee, Emily Nestor, the following year.
Harvey’s younger brother Bob has a very different style from Harvey. Harvey is a wild road, and Bob is very cautious. In 2005, the brothers left Miramax and founded the Weinstein Company, but the new company has been plagued by various financial problems. Bob certainly knows about Harvey's relationship between men and women, because some early settlement agreement checks were written by Bob himself. The relationship between the two brothers is also deteriorating in this bad operating situation. At a meeting around 2010 and 2011, Harvey punched Bob in the face because of disagreement. Many executives present saw Bob bleeding on the spot. Since then, although the two brothers still work together on the bright side, they have been grieved in their hearts. Bob has repeatedly suggested that he wants to stand on his own, but Harvey directly rejected it.
Left: brother Bob; right: Harvey
's board of directors has also changed. Originally, the board of directors was Harvey's cronies, but this situation changed in 2013. In order to prevent the brothers from exploiting the interests of other shareholders, the main investors of the company, including WPP and Goldman Sachs, arranged their own eyeliner Lance Maerov to join the board of directors. Lance Maerov also heard the rumors about Harvey at first, but he didn’t take it seriously until there were more and more such things. He decided to restrict his behavior and power by letting Harvey re-sign the contract, and increase it. The board of directors fined Harvey every time there was a complaint of harassment.
Irwin Reiter knows that a former employee named O&39;Connor left a memo on the company's computer, recording in detail the entire process and details of the harassment and reconciliation between her and Harvey. In order to make the memo public, he invited Judy to the Weinstein company conference room, opened the memo, and left during the conversation. Judy understood that he was suggesting that he copied and archived the contents of the memo. After leaving the Weinstein Company, Judy immediately showed the contents of the memo to other colleagues including Corbett, Purdy, and Baquet. Their reaction after reading it was just one word: write!
At the end of September, Judy and Megan worked hard to improve the content of the manuscript. When Harvey learned that they had contacted Lance Maerov, he asked the latter to help stop them from publishing. Makko obtained part of the copy of the settlement agreement she signed that year and provided it to Judy and Megan, so as to avoid legal risks. Megan reconnected the female celebrities he had contacted before, and those who did not want to speak still did not want to speak up.
⑤The general trend has gone before the official publication of
, according to industry practice, they need to send the content to Harvey for confirmation, and get his reply (acknowledgment/deny), and publish his reply together. But Harvey did not give up the final struggle, he hired a new lawyer Charles Harder. This person was hired by Trump for helping Trump win a lawsuit with the Daily Mail. Charles Harder sent an 18-page letter to Meghan on October 4th for Harvey. The content was intimidating and threatening, saying that if Meghan did post this article, he would be prosecuted and so on. On the same day, Harvey brought a team of lawyers to the "New York Times" office premises and tried to prevent the report from being sent by provoking the relationship between Megan Judy and the interviewee. But it was too late, and these actions did not help Harvey to reverse the situation.
(Charles Harder)
On the eve of the official release of the report, even the people on the Harvey team realized that the situation is over. His lawyer Boies informed the company's board of directors to be mentally prepared, and Lisa Bloom persuaded Harvey herself to accept the reality, and in order to save her reputation, she also hurriedly issued a statement in the "New York Times" saying that she had been persuading Harvey.
At 1:41 pm on October 5th, Harvey released his statement on this report. Judy and Megan's report material is finally complete. At 2:05 in the afternoon, the report entitled "Harvey Weinstein used money to settle cases of sexual harassment for decades" was officially released.
"Harvey Weinstein used money to settle cases of sexual harassment for decades"
⑥Long way ahead
After the article was published, it caused an uproar, and Weinstein's company was shaken. Lawyers such as Lisa Bloom and Lanny Davis resigned from Harvey's team. At the same time, more female celebrities came forward to expose Harvey's harassment. All this is as Harvey said at his company's meeting the night the article was published: "There will be a movement."
A large number of news clues also flooded into the "New York Times", so they expanded the sexual harassment investigation team. And expand the scope of the subject to be investigated to various occupations such as restaurant waiters, ballet dancers, factory workers, Google employees, models, prison guards, etc.
also has more celebrities who have been exposed with a bad history similar to Harvey. The talk show superstar Louis C.K. was exposed to indecent harassment of five women and his career was hit hard. Women from all fields use MeToo (me too) as labels on the Internet to express their attitudes and tell their experiences. This label was originally initiated by Tarana Burke many years ago to promote sympathy and healing for victims of sexual violence, but now its meaning has been expanded to include any form of occurrence on any occasion that makes the person feel Uncomfortable behavior. Women who had remained silent all realized that these harassment incidents were wrong, and they needed to be brave to say "no".
But another question arises: Are these movements overcorrected? Some critics say that this movement has turned men into victims, and it seems that every woman has become a moral police officer.
But in fact, there are still a large number of unreported harassment cases, and there are even many victims who do not even have a channel to speak up. This gap in perception between “far from enough” and “overcorrected” is partly due to the lack of a scientific determination process, or the lack of reasonable determination rules for harassment cases. When the public does not have a unified understanding of the term harassment, and various institutions do not know how to set related rules, it seems that the entire movement has fallen into overall chaos.
Both sides felt wronged.
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