Harvey Weinstein Is 'God' But Hollywood Is 'Killing' Him For Sexual Harassment
JAKARTA - "God", as Meryl Streep described the figure of Harvey Weinstein in a light joke. Weinstein is so big. He is one of the most successful film producers of the last few decades. But is Weinstein still God when his sexual abuse case comes to light? No. Weinstein was finished. Even by the world's largest entertainment industry, Hollywood.
It is impossible to deny the greatness of the films produced by Weinstein. He is the founder of Miramax Films. He founded the company with his younger brother Bob in 1979. Prior to founding Miramax, Weinstein, who was born in Queens, New York on March 19, 1952, started his career as a music producer after graduating from Buffalo University.
Weinstein produced major titles, such as The English Patient (1997), which was Weinstein's first Best Picture. Weinstein's brilliance continued, even after Miramax was sold to Disney in 1993. The Weinstein duo then left the company in 2005.
The Weinstein brothers then continued the business by establishing the Weinstein Company. The Weinstein Company films recorded over 300 nominations and 81 Oscars. What Weinstein films won Oscars? Reported by Forbes, this is a list of 81 Oscar wins in Weinstein's career:
1990: My Left Foot (Best Actor—Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Supporting Actress—Brenda Fricker) 1991: Journey of Hope (Best Foreign Language Film) 1992: Mediterraneo (Best Foreign Language Film) 1993: The Crying Game (Best Original Screenplay) —Neil Jordan) 1994: The Piano (Best Original Screenplay—Jane Campion, Best Actress—Holly Hunter, Best Supporting Actress—Anna Paquin) 1995: Pulp Fiction (Best Original Screenplay—Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary) 1996: Restoration (Best Costume Design—James Acheson, Best Production Design—Eugenio Zanetti); The Postman (Best Original Score—Luis Enríquez Bacalov) 1997: The English Patient (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress—Juliette Binoche, Best Art Direction—Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan, Best Cinematography—John Seale, Best Costume Design—Anne Roth, Best Director—Anthony Minghella, Best Film Editing—Walter Murch, Best Original Score—Gabriel Yared, Best Sound —Walter Murch, Mark Berger, David Parker and Christopher Newman), Sling Blade (Best Adapted Screenplay—Billy Bob Thornton), Emma ( Best Original Score—Rachel Portman) 1998: Good Will Hunting (Best Supporting Actor—Robin Williams, Best Original Screenplay—Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) 1999: Shakespeare in Love (Best Picture, Best Actress—Gwyneth Paltrow, Best Supporting Actress—Judi Dench, Best Art Direction—Martin Childs and Jill Quertier, Best Costume Design—Sandy Powell, Best Original Musical or Comedy Score—Stephen Warbeck, Best Original Screenplay—Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard), Life Is Beautiful (Best Actor—Roberto Benigni , Best Foreign Language Film, Best Music, Original Dramatic Score—Nicola Piovani) 2000: Cider House Rules (Best Actor in a Supporting Role—Michael Caine, Best Adapted Screenplay—John Irving) 2002: Iris (Best Actor in a Supporting Role— Jim Broadbent) 2003: Chicago (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress—Catherine Zeta-Jones, Best Art Direction—John Myhre, Gordon Sim, Best Costume Design—Colleen Atwood, Best Film Editing—Martin Walsh, Best Sound—Michael Minkler, Dominick Tavella and David Lee), The Hours (Best Actress—Nicole Kidman), Frida (Best Makeup—John E. Jackson and Beatrice De Alba, Best Original Score—Elliot Goldenthal) 2004: Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Best Makeup: Peter Owen and Richard Taylor, Best Original Score: Howard Shore), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Best Cinematography—Russell Boyd, Best Sound Editing—Richard King), Cold Mountain (Best Supporting Actress—Renée Zellweger), Finding Neverland 2005: The Aviator (Best Supporting Actress—Cate Blanchett, Best Art Direction—Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo, Best Cinematography—Robert Richardson, Best Costume Design—Sandy Powell, Best Film Editing—Thelma Schoonmaker, Finding Neverland (Best Original Score—Jan AP Kaczmarek) 2009: The Reader (Best Actress) —Kate Winslet), Vicky Christina Barcelona (Best Supporting Actress—Penélope Cruz) 2010: Inglourious Basterds (Best Supporting Actor—Christoph Waltz) 2011: The King's Speech (Best Picture, Best Actor—Colin Firth, Best Director—Tom Hooper, Best Original Screenplay—David Seidler), The Fighter (Best Supporting Actor—Christian Bale, Best Supporting Actress—Melissa Leo) 2012: The Artist (Best Picture, Best Director—Michel Hazanavicius, Best Actor—Jean Dujardin, Best Costume Design—Mark Bridges , Best Original Score—Ludovic Bource), The Iron Lady (Best Actress—Meryl Streep, Best Makeup—Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland), Undefeated (Best Documentary Feature) 2013: Django Unchained (Best Original Screenplay—Quentin Tarantino, Best Support Actor—Christoph Waltz), Silver Linings Playbook (Best Actress—Jennifer Lawrence) 2015: Imitation Game (Best Adapted Screenplay—Graham Moore), CitizenFour (Best Documentary Feature) 2016: Hateful Eight (Best Original Score—Ennio Morricone). Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment caseWeinstein's sexual harassment case is being handled by the New York City Court. Weinstein was found guilty of rape and carries a maximum prison sentence of 29 years. The verdict was handed down on February 24, 2020.
Allegations of sexual harassment by Weinstein were first published by the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine in 2017. Since then the allegations against Weinstein have continued to snowball.
Big names actresses, such as Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie, as well as 90s others have spoken out about Weinstein's obscene behavior for 40 years. Before the verdict was handed down, Weinstein had created a polemic.
At that time he refused to express regret in an interview in the New York Post. Weinstein even called himself the person who contributed to abolishing patriarchy in the film industry through the involvement of women in important positions, including directors.
"I made more films directed by women and about women than any other producer. And this happened about 30 years ago," he said, Weinstein said in the interview.
Two years before the verdict, on May 25, 2018, the court charged Weinstein with sexual harassment. Weinstein at that time said all the sex he lived was done with consent. Like like.
Even so, months later Weinstein was found guilty. He was proven to have forced a former assistant named Mimi Haley to perform oral sex. Weinstein was also convicted of raping Jessica Mann in 2013.
Even so the decision left the debate. In the verdict, 12 jurors found Weinstein not guilty of the most serious charge, sexual assault, which carries a life sentence.
Many consider the 29-year sentence too low for Weinstein. On April 5, Weinstein just filed an appeal against his legal case. Weinstein called judge James Burke, who sentenced him to many wrongdoings.
The collapse of Harvey Weinstein's reputationHowever, the court's decision undermined Weinstein's reputation. A collective movement took place in Hollywood, in response to Weinstein's low-key behavior. Harvey Weinstein's name turned into disgrace as his reputation collapsed.
Weinstein, who is also a prominent donor to the Democratic Party, soon disappeared from the public spotlight. Weinstein only appears occasionally in the news about his therapy for treating sex addiction.
As a result, Weinstein's membership in the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences was revoked. This is a blemish on the face of Hollywood's de facto governing body, the party that organizes the Oscars. Weinstein was deemed to have violated the organization's 90-year precedent.
At least 54 members of the academy's board of governors made the decision at an emergency session following investigations by The New York Times and The New Yorker. The vote far exceeded the majority or two-thirds of the votes required.
The academy said in a statement that the organization took this step to separate itself from Weinstein, a person they called "unworthy of respect from his peers."
The organization, in the statement, also reiterated their ignorance of Weinstein's sexual predatory side. They also sent a message of ignorance on the issue of sexual harassment in the industrial field.
The academy also said it would "work to establish ethical standards of behavior that all members of the academy hope to emulate." While largely symbolic, Weinstein's expulsion among the other 8,400 members of the academy remains surprising.
This step seems to have never been carried out by the academy. Even when the director, Roman Polanski, who is also a member of another academy, was involved in a sexual crime case involving a 13-year-old girl. Not even in the case of Bill Cosby's sexual assault.
Scott Feinberg, a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter called this "the beginning of a very difficult chapter for the academy. The next thing that will happen, rightly or wrongly, is that the various constituencies will demand that the academy deal with other troubled members in the same way."
Feinberg said, apart from Weinstein, there was only one person who was permanently expelled from the academy. It is Carmine Caridi, an actor. And it's not about sexual harassment.
Caridi was stripped of membership in 2004 for violating academy rules on Oscar voting. Caridi was caught lending out DVD screeners from films competing at the Oscars.
Not only organization. Weinstein was also kicked out of his film and television studio, the Weinstein Company. The Weinstein Company denies the allegations of rape. They also expressed a stance against Weinstein.
"His behavior caused a lot of pain," the company said in a statement.
The growth of cancel culture through the #MeToo movementThe rape case of Harvey Weinstein is believed to be the beginning of the growth of cancel culture in the United States (US). Referring to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, by definition cancel culture is a movement to stop supporting certain people who violate social norms by boycotting their work.
Indeed, the #MeToo movement started long before Weinstein. The movement was started by activist, Tarana Burke. In 2006 she created a social media campaign with the hashtag #MeToo aimed at inspiring many women to be more courageous in revealing the sexual harassment they experienced.
The person who sparked the #MeToo movement in the Weinstein case was Alyssa Milano, one of the women who claimed to have harassed Weinstein. Milano's tweet went viral on a global scale. Interviewed by Radio 1 Newsbeat, which was quoted by the BBC, Tarana called the Weinstein case a symbol of resistance to sexual harassment.
"Harvey Weinstein is a symbolic case. To see a wealthy white man convicted of a crime in general is always astonishing," Tarana said.
"What we need to talk about are women, men, transgender people, children and the disabled. All the people who aren't rich, white and famous, who are dealing with sexual violence on a daily basis. We need to talk about the systems that are still in place that allow it happened."
Tarana praises what Milano is doing. He realized that without a Hollywood actress tweeting about #MeToo in the Weinstein case, the movement she was building would not be global. "It's not just social media, but who brings it to social media, and how it's brought to social media," Tarana said.
"People don't know who I am, and people still don't know who I am. What do you do with a 46-year-old black woman from the Bronx, unpolished, who doesn't look like a black woman in Hollywood."
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