The average conservative voter’s opinion of Hollywood has not been very high in recent years. Grammy and Oscar viewings are mostly a trashing of everything GOP or Trump stand for and ratings for those events are as low as they’ve ever been.
This makes sense in a way. The Democratic party has an overwhelming advantage in an industry that puts out stories about environmental conservation, LGBT rights and the civil rights movement like clockwork.
But when the New York Times published an article which detailed decades, yes decades, of sexual harassment by Hollywood Oscar machine and well known Democratic donor Harvey Weinstein (He made donations to Hillary Clinton, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) this week, Hollywood’s patronizing finger which is normally out at every turn, remained right there in the pocket of liberal opinion makers.
Ms Meryl Streep referred to him in a Golden Globe acceptance speech as “God, Harvey Weinstein”. Strangely enough, we haven’t heard her mentioning him this week and doubt we ever will again.
In fact, the movie industry has been deadly silent ever since the story broke, with Ms Lena Durham’s tweets the only ones so far criticizing him (and she’s hardly got any stellar power outside of New York).
The details are disgusting of course, from forced shower watching to naked massages for aspiring actresses over a very long period of time.
Then again, the glaring hypocrisy in Hollywood as to this behavior is nothing new, and certainly not for Mr Weinstein. Back in 2009, more than 130 Hollywood heavyweights signed a petition to demand that the statutory rape conviction against Mr Roman Polanski be dropped. The most high-profile signatories: Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein.
“We are calling every filmmaker we can to help fix this terrible situation,” Harvey Weinstein said at the time. Mr Roman Polanski was accused for three more rape allegations against teens since then and even the Polish government is considering suing him themselves.
Meanwhile the Democratic party is calling its members to return donations from Mr Weinstein to charity. No word from Ms Clinton or Ms Warren yet on this.
We already wonder what this will mean for Mr Weinstein’s studio or how another civil rights movie blaming Americans for every wrong in the world by his studio will be received as from now. When looking at upcoming movies, it would seem that Mr Weinstein is looking to release this many movies over the next few months: one. There might be some lawyer’s advice in that planning.
Mr Weinstein declared that he would be taking a leave of absence. Perhaps it is time to make that a retirement.
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What does h'wood think?
"Yeah, I'd like to keep my ridiculously lucrative position of power, fame and money. What's my line?"