This week the rest of the world found out what his victims in show business already knew, which is that movie and TV mogul Harvey Weinstein is an atrocious beast of a man, a cad and a tyrant whose prominence in his industry is brilliantly instructive as to the reason why it turns out such rot as a work product and contributes so heartily to our cultural decline.
Weinstein is under fire for decades of existence as a walking cliché — the rich, powerful and grossly unattractive film executive making use of the casting couch and the carnal favors it yields to enhance a sex life his physical attractiveness and personality would disqualify him from, and, recognizing the yawning distance between the perquisites of his power and just deserts of his conduct, seeking solace and atonement in leftist politics.
And it’s that shameful existence, publicized through a New York Times exposé printed Thursday, that Weinstein sought to address in a statement which only cemented the only rational impression one can have of this putrid glutton of a man.
Let’s just have at this statement with the spirit it deserves, shall we?
I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.
Perhaps that was the culture in Hollywood then. It has never been considered acceptable, Mr. Weinstein, to act as you did when, for example, a young actress named Ashley Judd arrived at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills for a business meeting, whereupon, as the New York Times report indicated…
Instead, he had her sent up to his room, where he appeared in a bathrobe and asked if he could give her a massage or she could watch him shower, she recalled in an interview.
“How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?” Ms. Judd said she remembers thinking.
Even in the 1960s there was a word for a man who would engage in that sort of conduct with women in disadvantaged professional positions: a creep. That the conduct with Judd took place in the 1990s, not the 1960’s, belies Weinstein’s rationalization — it was his character, not his culture, which was at fault.
I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office — or out of it. To anyone.
It’s not like this was complicated. He’s learned because he’s settled no less than eight different legal claims for sexual misconduct. He didn’t learn his lesson at four? Five?
I realized some time ago that I needed to be a better person and my interactions with the people I work with have changed. I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.
Back to the New York Times piece…
In 2014, Mr. Weinstein invited Emily Nestor, who had worked just one day as a temporary employee, to the same hotel and made another offer: If she accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career, according to accounts she provided to colleagues who sent them to Weinstein Company executives. The following year, once again at the Peninsula, a female assistant said Mr. Weinstein badgered her into giving him a massage while he was naked, leaving her “crying and very distraught,” wrote a colleague, Lauren O’Connor, in a searing memo asserting sexual harassment and other misconduct by their boss.”
Yes, they’ve changed. Two years ago Weinstein was still abusing women…because he could. He was 63 years old in 2015.
Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go. That is my commitment.
He’s eligible for Medicare. This feature is ready for Turner Classic Movies, no?
My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons. Over the last year I’ve asked Lisa Bloom to tutor me and she’s put together a team of people. I’ve brought on therapists and I plan to take a leave of absence from my company and to deal with this issue head on. I so respect all women and regret what happened. I hope that my actions will speak louder than words and that one day we will all be able to earn their trust and sit down together with Lisa to learn more. Jay Z wrote in 4:44 “I’m not the man I thought I was and I better be that man for my children.” The same is true for me. I want a second chance in the community but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it. I have goals that are now priorities. Trust me, this isn’t an overnight process. I’ve been trying to do this for 10 years and this is a wake-up call. I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt and I plan to do right by all of them.
Translation: my juridical exposure from the claims sure to come as the publicity is mounting over my conduct will divest me of my fortune, and I’ve hired Lisa Bloom to put together a public-relations and legal strategy that I hope will allow me to salvage as much of my treasure and stature in Hollywood as possible. She tells me if I show remorse that maybe the juries in L.A., who are full of prospective screenwriters and character actors, might go easy on me.
And now for the part which makes us want this cretin to burn for eternity…
I am going to need a place to channel that anger so I’ve decided that I’m going to give the NRA my full attention. I hope Wayne LaPierre will enjoy his retirement party. I’m going to do it at the same place I had my Bar Mitzvah. I’m making a movie about our President, perhaps we can make it a joint retirement party. One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC. While this might seem coincidental, it has been in the works for a year. It will be named after my mom and I won’t disappoint her.
It’s the NRA’s fault that Harvey Weinstein did everything but (which is a generous assumption) rape women for decades in Hollywood? Engaging in political activism against the Second Amendment right of one of those women to defend herself against his advances somehow redeems his character?
And now he’ll offer us a feature film attacking Donald Trump… for what? His antics around the fairer sex? And a foundation for scholarships for female movie directors? Who can then come to the Peninsula and offer him massages and more in exchange for greenlights for their projects at The Weinstein Company?
This is an atrocious human being. Harvey Weinstein is such a toxic mix of moneyed entitlement, phony moral superiority, transactional virtue, sexual effrontery, boundless hypocrisy and repulsive appetite to be larger than life. If Pat Robertson is the toxic representative of the out-of-control social conservative surely Weinstein is the personification of the Limousine Liberal, in all his porcine glory.
He is the very definition of the whitened sepulcher that is Hollywood, and that his peers have tolerated him this long while Democrat politicians — Hillary Clinton, most notably — have whored themselves out for campaign checks from him and his friends while accusing their enemies of the very conduct they’ve sanctioned in him, exposes them as his equal on the American political stage.
