Harvey Weinstein Is Going to Prison. But That’s Just a Starting Point.

No way to tell how Weinstein's appeals will turn out, but at least he has been convicted in state court. Trump can't pardon him, no matter how much Weinstein pays his campaign.

The ego is a stern taskmaster…

It’s nice to see the NYT finally reporting on the Weinstein story. Thank you Ronan Farrow.

Winestain may have gotten what he deserved, but, we have now witnessed two publicly known figures put in incarceration based on no facts or evidence, just on what people say. Do you realize how far back into the annals of criminal law we would have to go to find when that was acceptable?

I think that Weinstein was devious enough to cultivate his rogue image in order to distract from his actual sex crimes. I remember reading story after story of his abusive behavior towards everyone but women. He and his enablers knew that it was good copy and that it buried his rapes. Lock him up and throw away the key.

Someone needs to play devil's advocate, and please, hear me out. This is not easy to do. I knew "Harvey" in college. He was the overweight, unattractive, modestly endowed guy down the hall (I knew this because I'd seen him in the shower). I liked Harvey; we all did. I often stopped by to see the lovable schmuck who couldn't get a date. The Harvey in the news said he's not guilty, and I know that many of us, and especially when we were boys and young men, did things we wished we hadn't. THIS IS NO EXCUSE, but there is an honest chance that many of the women Harvey abused, and clumsily tried to seduce, were victims of Harvey's loneliness. And especially after the creative "highs" he'd experienced in his remarkable career. Let me go out on a limb: What would it be like to be sexually alone after these kinds of wins? Could it be that Harvey Weinstein wanted someone to be with him, I mean, really be with him? I've known many women, but there have been some who've asked: "Is that it?" A lifelong friend, who wasn't a faux beefcake like me, couldn't find a girl. And yet despite being similar "where it counts," women found me attractive, but not my friend. Why? Men don't talk about it, or women either, at least not in mixed company. AND SIZE DOES NOT EXCUSE WEINSTEIN'S BEHAVIOR. But let's be honest: looks matters, and size too. My friend used to joke there was a reason why we both liked little women. I just figured he was being a schmuck. Maybe he was just being truthful.

Sure it did, but what are we going to do? Stop watching Warner Bros. movies, or MGM movies, or Columbia movies, or 20th Century Fox movies? Jack Warner, L.B. Mayer, Harry Cohen, and Darryl Zanuck were not angels. That's essentially the history of movies. Let's figure out a way forward and stop pretending this is all new. No one excuses Harvey Weinstein's horrendous level of abuse any more than Bernie Madoff's level of financial abuse. But the only real answer is fixing the future.

I'm reminded of the story of Frances Farmer, who was lobotomized rather than allowed to control her own career. I'm also reminded of Bill Cosby, who got away with drugging and raping women for six decades or so, all because he was powerful in the entertainment industry. Have we turned a corner with Weinstein? I suppose that remains to be seen.

There are women victims in this story who happily exchanged favors with HW, then subsequently promoted gossip ascribing their own actions and experiences to their competitors. Gossip is not truth. Power corrupts everything.

One questionable aspect of the #MeToo movement is it's insistence on the feminist "patriarchy" narrative, moderated by the occasional self-serving 'inclusion' within that narrative of acknowledgement that sometimes boys and men also are sexually abused. And yet, feminism has been one of America's primary dominant ideologies for generations - and long dedicated to obscuring the reality that sexual abuse and harassment have historically been characteristically sadistic indulgences of the sort of powerfully connected women who are addicted to malice and abuse of power against boys and against men without power. I was human-trafficked and sexually abused as a toddler. My mother had amused herself in setting it up. My older half-sister told me that my managing to get back home without much help from my parents was very rare - It had been said that if my mother had gone through with her threats to traffic one of my older half-sisters, my father would not deal; he would have only finally intervened after my mother had then trafficked the second of my older half-sisters, and by that point the first would be lost. Years later, three of the four female teachers in my third grade homeroom class decided to publicly smear me as an 'oblate' by making me wear lederhosen in a school performance, threatening to human-traffic me if I refused. They intimidated my best female friend into offering me her little brother's set. The same coven destroyed her. She died. I have always missed her.

Commentary on Weinstein that continues to focus on his alleged ‘physically repulsive’ appearance and attempts to equate his natural body size/appearance, stature, skin conditions, etc. with internal defects of character is irresponsible, harmful, and emblematic of another significant societal prejudice which serves and helps no one. This journalist believes that having what to him is considered a ‘physically repulsive’ appearance means that a person cannot be sexual, desire sexual intimacy, be worthy of relationships and love? And no one makes the connection that perhaps that is also part of a larger issue that plagues our society?

I've worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for many years and it's a highly abusive culture. People use you, lie to you, and try to bully you in every way imaginable and often with impunity. But like that totally impossible boyfriend/girlfriend when it's fun, it's just so much fun. I hope with the Fall of Weinstein more attention will be paid to how we treat each other, but I'm not particularly hopeful. To paraphrase one of the best movie lines of all time, "Forget it, Jake, it's Hollywood."

The power that men like Weinstein amassed in Hollywood and abused, now criminally adjudicated, will merely devolve into another type of power and control. It might go unnoticed for a while, subtle and incremental, like the proverbial frog in increasingly warmer water, but it will happen. Take Wall Street, for example. How many C-suite titans were criminally charged and convicted after the financial crisis in 2007-2008? None. How many times have we heard about corporations agreeing to settlements over outright fraud and criminal conduct only to read that these cases were "settled without admitting guilt," allowing the titans to continue wielding their power. As long as there's a potential Oscar statuette, a start-up with unicorn aspirations or a plus sign in front of the Dow Jones Industrial Average to be had, power will be there, with its smattering of abuse, corruption and criminality.

The single problem I have with the Weinstein case is the apparent transactional relationship between women and him. Apparently the fame and money (and sex in the case of Weinstein) are so important to some that they are willing to debase themselves in this quest. I really can't square this. Are these individuals so valueless that they are willing to do almost anything to achieve that fame and wealth (and sex)? Something is fundamentally wrong with this.

With the Weinstein conviction the casting couch ceases to be a thing and a new era dawns for Hollywood. Weinstein's films were good. And now that actresses will have to learn lines and go to casting calls (thank you for putting it so well, Blanche Gardin!), this can only result in the quality of films asymptotically ascending to the stars! I can't wait till next year. See you at the movies!

Thank you for mentioning Burke, the #Metoo founder. I think it’s a crucial movement but sadden how white Hollywood women have taken it over, pushing out the women and girls of colour who founded it. It has become synonymous with the Hollywood elite and I wonder how the movement is going for those not part of that world.

People tend to lose sight of what the movie business does: they create made up stories. Their stock in trade is image, even when they attempt to capture some slice of reality. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the power of story. It is a central feature of human existence, a crucial means of communication by which we try to make at least some sense of the meaning of existence. Yet, as important as stories are, at the end of the day they are make believe, and when we lose sight of that fact we also lose sight of the message that the story was intended to convey. Stories in books are created in isolation–a writer alone with the task of creation. Movies (and TV) are different because they are group creations, requiring large teams of talented individuals working toward a common creative act. In that space the potential for a monster like Weinstein creates the opportunity to pervert the process by satisfying personal demons. As we all have learned, power like he had is fertile ground for those demons to emerge. Yet his failings ought not to diminish what the creative process is capable of producing. Stories always have the capacity to enlighten and enlarge life, though they mostly don’t achieve that height. In the end, they are a human effort, fraught with all of the limits of human existence, limits which are actually part of what enables a great story. Every story is not, in fact great, but they have the potential to be, which is reason enough to make the effort.

Hollywood manufactures a product - escapism for the masses. Yes, it needs to get its house in order. But suborning Hollywood's output to contemporary feminist activism or any other from of activism will be the end of Hollywood.

next in line is Mr. Trump enough!

Good riddance. Also, I can't help but remember a story about Matt Lauer and the hidden button he had in his desk for remotely locking his office door. And Fox? Don't get me started.

It is possible that Weinstein believes that the sex as consensual, that a woman giving into his demands in return for a role or job in the industry is consent. Such is the culture that is present both on and off screen. Just as the racism in Gone With the Wind is disgusting, even if many believe it is true based on the stories created and perpetuated by the plantation culture, Weinstein's possible belief is not a defense to was is criminal behavior. May Hollywood learn a lesson, and use its power in ways that benefit society. And I hope Facebook and Google pay attention as well about weighing public good along with profits.

Psst. He's not in jail. His celebrity status and his $$$$ have bought him a Bellevue Hospital reprieve that would be denied to any other convict. Plenty of folks have had full blown panic attacks when faced with actually going to the can, but they get shipped there, trembles and all. Rikder's has a medical wing; why isn't he there ? $$$$$ Strong verdict but ineffective until he is in the cell and the key has turned the lock.

Much of the film industry’s appeal and profit (glamour, they term it) relies on selling images of flesh onscreen. It is not only predictable and endemic to the film industry that women would be exploited as if they were nothing more than pieces of flesh; it is inherent to the film industry. The industry needs to be blown up indeed.

“New York’s Appellate Division ruled last year that the second defamation suit against Mr. Trump, which was filed by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Mr. Trump’s television show, “The Apprentice,” could proceed. The Appellate Division later said that the Court of Appeals should determine whether Mr. Trump was entitled to the immunity he has asserted. Like Ms. Carroll, Ms. Zervos has accused Mr. Trump of assaulting her before he became president, and of defaming her by branding her a liar. If Mr. Trump fails in his effort to suspend Ms. Carroll’s suit until Ms. Zervos’s suit is resolved, he may be required to submit a DNA sample, according to court filings. In a letter to Mr. Trump’s lawyers last month, Ms. Carroll said that she believed Mr. Trump’s DNA could match genetic material found on the dress that she says she was wearing the day of the alleged attack and has kept since then.” Is anyone listening to E. Jean Carroll or Summer Zervos?

The entire industry, and music, and many pro sports are based on exploitation. Thousands of starry eyed kids enter the system only to be used, abused and then tossed aside. Then 10 more step up to take that person's place. As long as there is a seemingly never ending line of people screaming "Pick Me!" change is going to be difficult.