It’s been a rough week, we know, but if there’s a silver lining to the now daily disclosures from Harvey Weinstein’s victims, it’s that the flood gates really seem to be open now. What was dismissed as innuendo, overlooked because it didn’t “cross the rape line”—though, as is now being reported, it did—or horribly reframed as some kind of quid pro quo is now being called what it actually is: sexual harassment and sexual assault.
People in Hollywood are finally openly denouncing the culture that fosters that entitlement and abuse, whether it’s Ben Affleck thinking he can cop a feel while on TRL with Hilarie Burton (he’s apologized… 14 years later), or industry players grabbing at actors like Terry Crews, who recently shared his own story of sexual harassment. It’s a bell that (hopefully) can’t be unrung, especially as people continue to come forward. James Van Der Beek has stepped forward with his own tale of being harassed by “older, powerful men” when he was younger, and how the “power dynamic” kept him from talking about it.
Obviously, not everyone is fully supportive of this growing movement—Twitter has suspended Rose McGowan’s account for 12 hours. McGowan, despite having her hands tied by an NDA, has been trying to tell this truth about Weinstein for years, and now that it’s mostly out in the open, she’s called out the industry that kept this a secret, as well as Weinstein’s collaborators. That’s either been too much for the social media platform’s guidelines, or for users who are flagging her posts.