More women come forward with sexual assault and harassment allegations against Harry Knowles
Four more women from the Austin film scene have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Harry Knowles, the influential founder of film site Ain’t It Cool News. Per IndieWire, the women’s stories line up with that of former Alamo Drafthouse employee Jasmine Baker, who last week recounted multiple incidents in which Knowles rubbed himself against her and put his hand in her shirt without her consent.
The accounts range from incidents—complete with screenshots—of Knowles taking private online discussions of film history into sudden, sexual directions, to moments in which he casually grabbed women’s bodies as they moved near him, laughing them off each time. And through them all, there’s the sense that everybody in power in the Austin film community knew that Knowles was a predator, and simply expected the women around them to get wise to his actions and keep their distance on their own.
Most of the women said they came forward because of Baker’s account—itself spurred by the controversy surrounding Devin Faraci’s brief rehiring by Drafthouse to write material for this week’s Fantastic Fest, an event Knowles co-founded. “The best thing that you can hope for is that this really changes, and that women are not sexually harassed or assaulted anymore,” said ScreenCrush associate editor Britt Hayes, who says Knowles once sent her a message demanding that she show him her breasts. “I think we still have a really long way to go, but this is a very good first step… Even the people with the best intentions make mistakes, all of us have blind spots.”