For personal reasons that I won’t go into at this point, I’ve been away from the news cycle for a while. Now that I’m back, I am dipping my toes back into the sometimes foetid pond that is the news. On my return, I find that the American media, entertainment and increasingly the left-leaning political Establishment is in uproar over the allegations made against the Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
In this case, Harvey Weinstein is being accused not just of pestering young women for sex or the sort of inappropriate groping that some blokes go in for, but he is being accused by alleged victims of serious criminal offences such as rape. Although Weinstein has not yet been charged with a sexual crime, with the number of allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him rising to well over 36 and the rape allegations starting to emerge; it might only be a matter of time before Weinstein is charged with some form of offence.
I have heard some commentators and speakers call Weinstein ‘America’s Jimmy Savile’ but it’s likely that the Weinstein case, if the allegations are proven or are credible, may have far wider implications, both for the entertainment industry and for politics in the USA, than the Savile case ever did in the United Kingdom. Also there are profound differences between the bulk of the allegations made against Savile and those made against Weinstein.
With the Savile case, the vast majority of the allegations made against Savile were made after his death, when he could not defend himself either in a civil or criminal court. Some of the claims made against Savile, which were examined by the late great blogger Anna Raccoon, appeared to be somewhat shaky and may not be that closely related to the truth. Although Savile was probably dodgy in some aspects of his life, the proliferation of potentially questionable claims made after his death, taint the waters of the story a great deal. There was always gossip about Savile and I heard a lot of it from other now mostly deceased journalists when I was working for newspapers, but none of it concerned child abuse, which was the focus of the Savile Scandal; it was nearly all tales about Savile and his alleged kink of necrophilia.
The Weinstein case is very different. For a start these allegations are coming out while Weinstein is still alive. He could still sue for libel, especially for allegations made in the UK, the world’s libel case capital. He could still be prosecuted in a criminal court and could still be subject to civil damages claims from those who are alleging either rape or sexual assault. Those making the allegations against Weinstein have a lot more to lose if they are proven to be liars than those making post mortem allegations against Jimmy Savile. The fact that these women have a lot to lose by speaking up, does give them a bit more credibility than those who waited until their own situation is secure by having their alleged attackers safely in the grave where they can’t fight back. I think both the criminal and/or the civil cases over Weinstein will run and run.
The Weinstein case is having a profound impact on how Hollywood is starting to be viewed by those outside of it. It has become a bubble replete with hypocrisy, with morality and political views that are very much divorced from that of the rest of the United States, of which Hollywood is but a part. The American commentator Bill Whittle in a video on his site decries the Hollywood liberal-left bubble, which continually denigrates American values and America itself. It is also this bubble that Weinstein floated in. The edge of the Hollywood red carpet is being lifted, what is underneath appears to be a whole lot of stuff that those who put it there may not like exposed to public view. From watching this Weinstein case pan out, it looks very much to me as if independent journalists and media are going to start digging hard into the lives of other Hollywood personalities, both those in front of the camera and those behind. If Weinstein is as bad as the allegations make him seem to be, then Weinstein may be only the lid covering a very large can of worms. It could taint many other people who work in Hollywood or have worked there during the time of Weinstein’s waxing and triumph. ‘Did you know about Harvey and if so why didn’t you say anything?’ will become the question aimed at many who have benefited from a past association with Weinstein. Weinstein’s fall could also end a number of other careers, both of on-screen talent and back-room movers and shakers, especially those who may have covered for him or were proven to have turned a blind eye to what was said to be going on. It is going to cause a firestorm in Hollywood as accusations against Weinstein and maybe others start to come out. Whether Hollywood can survive this storm is debatable as consumer tastes may changing away from formulaic ‘franchise’ films and technical advances have brought entry-level film making costs down and made film a much more out of the studio medium. Like many others, I’ve no wish to see yet another tired superhero movie. Maybe when Hollywood has cleaned itself up or been cleaned up, then we might get to see more film makers producing movies that are intelligent. We should have less of what Hollywood is currently producing, many of which are merely violence-filled distractions that look ominously evermore like Aldous Huxley’s emotionally manipulative ‘Feelies’ from Brave New World.
But it’s not just Hollywood or a compliant mainstream media, who had chances to make a big splash with a Weinstein reveal story but didn’t take them, who are likely to be impacted by the Weinstein affair. The American political class, or rather the American Left, are cruising for a bruising over this as well. Weinstein donated and channelled massive amounts of money to the Democrat Party and is alleged to have had a close relationship with the Obama White House and with the Clintons. Obviously there will be questions about how much Obama and the Clintons knew about Weinstein’s alleged proclivities and some people may not be inclined to believe any denials. Whether the Obamas or the Clintons knew about Weinstein’s alleged actions towards young actresses will become immaterial, as the association with Weinstein may further taint these already tainted political figures.
Political denials of knowledge of Weinstein’s alleged criminal behaviour will look hollow when made by those who were counted as some of the most powerful people in America and who occupied the highest offices in the land. People will ask: Why, with all the resources at the disposal of the Clintons and the Obamas, was nothing ever discovered about Weinstein’s alleged proclivities? Did they know and say nothing, or did they even bother to look, fixated only on the vast amounts of money that Weinstein could contribute to the Democratic Party? If I was visiting the White House as a guest of a President, I would expect to be vetted to within an inch of my life by White House security staff. The question I have is did this vetting occur with Weinstein, or was he just waved through? At least Margaret Thatcher acted against advice in recommending Savile for a knighthood but Weinstein seems to have been welcomed with open arms by the American Left and in particular the Democratic Party, with no questions asked about Weinstein’s character or actions.
Of course there is the possibility that Weinstein was previously investigated and nothing was found but if he was previously investigated for access to the White House, then it might have concentrated on matters of national security risk, rather than Weinstein’s character in other areas. Also if any character flaw of the sort that is being discussed now was turned up by such an investigation, then it may have been just marked down as ‘womanising’. It could also be that Weinstein may be completely innocent of any crime or misdemeanour, but let’s be realistic here, Weinstein, if not guilty of some or all of the things he has been accused of, is at least going to come away from this scandal looking decidedly seedy and unpleasantly lecherous. The fact that the Hollywood Establishment is doing its level best to shove Harvey Weinstein down the memory hole by expunging the names of him and his company from movie credits may indicate that this scandal is more than ‘run of the mill’.
On the subject of the removal of Weinstein’s name from the public’s eye on things like movie credits, I find this extremely worrying. History is littered with people who were good and bad and sometimes a mixture of both and it bothers me for the sake of future historical records if people can be made into ‘unpersons’ 1984-style, in the manner that is being done to Harvey Weinstein’s name. Weinstein hasn’t yet faced a court of law, yet already the historical record is being tampered with, possibly in order to cover the arses of others and to protect the integrity of movie projects, but with the effect that future film and media historians may find it more difficult to build up an accurate picture of the movie industry in the late 20th and early 21st century. If Weinstein’s name can be removed from public view like this, then who else may suffer the same fate? Will great actors, directors or others who have contributed to humanity but who possess tarnished souls, or political views that are not shared by the political movers and shakers of the future, be removed from the historical record? Judging by the way that history teaching for example, has been corrupted by ideologues, then I would say that this is a distinct possibility.
Weinstein may have had a lot more influence over the Obama White House and the Clinton clan than many people may have thought and it is this influence that is bound to be closely examined over the next few months or years. The Obama administration and the Clinton family are going to be answering a lot of questions about their links to Weinstein for a very long time I predict.
As I said in the opening paragraphs, there are similarities between the Weinstein and Savile cases but also a great deal of differences. Those making the allegations have a lot to lose both financially and by way of reputation if they are proven to be false, simply because Weinstein is still alive. The Hollywood Establishment has also seemingly protected Weinstein far more than the British Establishment allegedly protected Savile. You get the impression from some of the news reports out there that Weinstein’s claimed proclivities were more widely known during Weinstein’s life and career than were any of the allegations against Savile. The BBC may have shafted the public service broadcast ethos Reithans by elevating Savile as the saviour of the teenage audience and making him somewhat untouchable, but that is just one organisation doing bad stuff. With the Weinstein case, we have a whole industry with multiple organisations that seem to have protected him. The political fallout of the Weinstein case also looks likely to be much greater than the Savile case had on the UK. We are not just looking at one Prime Minister making an error of judgement and recommending a knighthood or a few glamour-struck public servants helping an alleged offender, which was the case with Savile. With Weinstein we are seeing what appears to be a large part of the Leftist American political establishment happy to laud and take large amounts of money from a man whose behaviour with women has apparently gone beyond mere pestering but is alleged to be of a much darker and possibly criminal nature. Weinstein was deeply embedded in the Hollywood, media and political Establishments to a far greater extent than Jimmy Savile ever was, so it is likely that when, or rather if, Weinstein falls off the metaphorical cliff, then his splash is likely to drown many of those in the political and entertainment spheres who are seen as too closely associated with Weinstein. The Weinstein Affair may claim a lot more scalps than just that of Weinstein himself.
