Neverending #MeToo

So, Reese Witherspoon has come out with the fact that she was raped by a director at age 16, and felt pressured to remain silent about it otherwise her career would be ruined. Which is horrible. Before the proverbial ink was even dry on that story, though, Jennifer Lawrence shared the humiliation of being forced to participate in a nude line-up lest her career be derailed before it began. And then came word of Carrie Fisher's brutal takedown of an Oscar-winning Hollywood executive who tried to sexually assault her friend, Heather Ross, back in 2000. What do these horrible cases have in common?

The women have bravely come forward to share their stories. The male predators remain safely anonymous.

One thing I find problematic about the #MeToo movement--laudable though it is--is that the predators are still, by and large, being shielded. Witherspoon shared that she was first assaulted as a 16-year-old, "and other times" since then. Which is difficult and traumatic for her, to relive such pain in the retelling. But she only identifies her attacker as "that director." Who is presumably still working, and still preying on young, aspiring actresses. And that's what I'm seeing, over and over, women (and on rare occasion, men) coming forward as victims of sexual assault and harassment. The predators still anonymously lurk in the shadows, waiting for the current outrage to blow over, as it inevitably does. So guess what? I'm going to do what the Hollywood Reporter and every other media outlet worth its salt should've done as soon as these claims came to life:

Andy Tennant directed her in Desperate Choices: To Save My Child (1992)
Mikael Salomon directed her in A Far Off Place (1993)
Marshall Herskovitz directed her in Jack the Bear (1993)
Mike Robe directed her in Return to Lonesome Dove (1993)
Jefery Levy directed her in S.W.F. (1994)

From what I can deduce from the IMDB listings, these are all the productions she took part in around the time she was 16. It's REALLY pissing me off that the Hollywood Reporter and other media outlets are running with Witherspoon's quotes without doing one iota of additional work on the story. It took me five minutes to compile that list. Let me be clear: Do your damn jobs! Investigate! Every single one of those directors should've been contacted by now for an on-the-record comment. Did one of them sexually assault a 16-year-old girl? Possibly. Did more than one of them do so? Possibly. Are some or most or all of them innocent of the claims? Possibly. See? You don't cut-and-paste such a salacious story then simply move on to your next click-bait headline. As a journalist, you work the story! You go through IMDB and contact every woman who worked with them to find corroboration. You follow up with Witherspoon. You narrow the list of names. You find other victims. YOu get your facts straight and build a rock-solid story. Then publish it. Again, this is called doing your damn job!

Harvey Weinstein and Ben Affleck aren't enough. There's a vast number of pots calling a few kettles black right now--Affleck was Exhibit A on that count, until he got called out for his vile behavior. All of them need to be outed for what they are.

Are many women silent because they fear for their acting careers? Yes. Most certainly yes. That's how Harvey Weinstein was able to get away with his little rape-a-thon for so long. But Witherspoon and the other big names speaking out now aren't 16-year-olds desperate for a career. They have wealth and power. They have Voice and Agency. Telling young actresses "we have your back" means nothing if they're not putting those words into action and holding those predators who victimized them in the past accountable (Except Rose McGowan. She broke a non-disclosure agreement to take on Weinstein. That's badass. We need more badass in this cruel world).

I'm not blaming the victims. The person responsible for harassing and/or assaulting them is the person who harassed/assaulted them. I want the predators to be held accountable. The sad fact of the matter is that second-hand accounts--otherwise known as rumors--count for nothing. Even suspecting something untowards is going on isn't enough to open a police investigation without actual evidence. If these predators are going to be exposed and taken down, the victims are pretty much the ones with the power to do it. We can support them. We can encourage them. We can back them up all the way. But there is nothing I can do, personally, to stop whichever of those five directors listed above raped Reese Witherspoon.

I understand it's difficult and painful. But these women speaking out are 3/4 there already. If they can't bring themselves to out their attackers publicly, then find an LA Times reporter in private. I guarantee they'll take the call. Give the reporter the names. Tell them the enablers. Give them the dates and times and locations and context. Build a damning case, and let the villains be damned. Those who've done this and enabled this in the past aren't going to suddenly see the light. They're circling the wagons. Hollywood's turned on Weinstein so quickly because many of those throwing stones are trying to obfuscate their own sins. Weinstein is the sacrificial lamb. They're willing to see him burn if it preserves the existing testosterone-infused power structure.

If #MeToo is as far as it goes, nothing changes. The bad guys are never going to change their ways, and never going to confess unless their feet are held to the fire. This chronic problem needs to end. Not just in Hollywood, but in every corporate board room and every mom and pop business and every college and high school in the country. That's not going to happen until the predators face real and continuing consequence.

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