Over the past week, nearly three dozen women from Hollywood royalty came out against a seemingly untouchable titan, inspiring a ripe and nuanced conversation across the industry about accountability, complicity and the cultural expectations of working in film.
With respect to many Oscar acceptances giving lip-service to the children or the whales, the Weinstein scandal to me seems to be an authentically political moment. Watching the Queens of Hollywood unite against this maniac after decades of isolated silence and shame, as one after another they recounted Harvey Weinstein’s horrific transgressions — breathtaking and reminiscent of the 50-plus women who came out against Bill Cosby, but with the notable advantage of celebrity — it felt like watching a lioness awake and stretch.
There is a reality that pussy-grabbing dinosaurs like Weinstein insist we must inhabit, one in which women are expected to live and work in zero-sum competition with each other, and in deference to the whims of powerful, entitled men. Instead, we are watching Hollywood finally model an alternative — one of sorority. To quote Gwyneth Paltrow, which I don’t think I’ve ever been compelled to do before, this way of treating women ends now.
It’s got me thinking about community.
When I arrived in Utah a year ago, with a Subaru full of clothes, hard drives and a pissed-off cat, I was an outsider from another planet called New York City, and in desperate need of community.
Back in New York, I had been involved in a collective of female-identifying filmmakers called the Film Fatales, who met regularly to share resources and support for each other’s work. It has since grown into an international network of vetted directors, united under the implied philosophy that women in this industry can thrive without permission from the Good Old Boys — in Hollywood and beyond — who continue to draft on the momentum of bullies and predators like Weinstein.
With the support of the Utah Film Commission, we initiated a chapter in Salt Lake. Over the past year, the group of primarily documentary directors has grown into a tight-knit circle committed to helping each other make and distribute our films, and generally have each other’s backs, artistically and otherwise. I’d like to think if any one of us got attacked on the job, the group would be a place of recourse.
Anyone en route to the Hollywood dream has encountered unreasonable dues they are expected to pay, ranging from moguls suddenly in bathrobes, to unwarranted screaming fits to unreasonable free labor. For the most part, this abuse in myriad forms is tolerated by the victim, out of fear in or in the name of ambition; justified by the perp, in the name of tradition; and overlooked by the bystander, in the name of dodging the bullet. For women, the problem is so systemic, it almost feels like a revelation that there could be a higher standard.
While Hollywood soul-searches, content makers on the ground form tribes that take authorship of the narrative and bypass the too-big-to-fail norms we were told were de facto. We can demand equal pay, corroborate and believe each others experiences, and vote with our dollar, so to speak, regarding the Woody Allens and Polanskis who made it under the wire, before Weinstein. We can hire each other and work with men who understand alliance.
We are not Meryl Streep, but we are many. We add to the collective voice, saying “me too,” increasingly amplified and — after a doozy of a year — increasingly enraged, exposing the bullies and gatekeepers who are counterproductive to art.
Diana Whitten
Diana Whitten, Salt Lake City, writes, makes art and directs films.