Where Was the "Resistance" in Hollywood?

Bob Woodward and the man being called
"an idiot" by some members of his own staff

Now if the jaw-dropping New York Times op-ed anonymously written by a senior White House official that was published late Wednesday is to be believed, not only is Trump as dysfunctional, ignorant and delusional as many critics and observers thought he was.

Allegedly, he's also surrounded by a patriotic Republican "resistance" - folks who are bound and determined to do everything they can to "preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

It's unprecedented in American history.

High level members of a sitting president's own staff working inside the White House, actively working to prevent the chaotic narcissist who hired them from doing any more damage to the nation than he's already done.

Like many Americans trying to absorb all this news, I'm equal parts relieved and dumbfounded.

The Times op-ed comes a day after advance copies of journalist Bob Woodward's new book "Fear: Trump In the White House" (a devastating expose on the inner workings of the White House under Trump) were leaked to reporters ahead of it's publication next Tuesday.

The anonymous op-ed backs up the portrayals of a dysfunctional White House and a staff astounded by Trump's idiocy and inability to grasp complex issues or even stay on topic in meetings.

True to form, Trump has only lent credence to these stunning accusations by lashing out in ways that simply reinforce the perception that he's a completely incompetent moron with the attention span of a "fifth or sixth grader" who is totally unqualified to sit in the Oval Office.

Brett Kavanaugh brushes off Fred Guttenberg, whose
daughter was killed in the Parkland, FL mass shooting 

Trump lashed out at Bob Woodward as having "credibility problems" - the same man who (alongside Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein) used dogged investigative journalism to expose widespread corruption within the Nixon administration that led to the Watergate hearings and Nixon's eventual resignation.

Sources tell CNN that Trump also allegedly ordered an internal "West Wing Witch Hunt" to uncover leakers on his own White House staff.

Yet at the same time, according to a Vox.com article by Zack Beauchamp, Trump is trying to claim that Woodward's book is part of a left-wing plot hatched to torpedo Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Unfortunately for Trump, his (latest) conspiracy theory is undermined by that that fact that, as Beauchamp noted, the publication date of Woodward's book on Trump was set well before the Kavanaugh hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee were even scheduled.

One of the things that strikes me as remarkable about all this, is that Trump has only been in office about nineteen months - yet his actions are apparently so reprehensible to his own staff that a number of them have formed this "resistance" within the White House described in the NYT op-ed.

Earlier today I was reading the news that the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office announced that they will not pursue sexual assault charges against actors Steven Segal and Kevin Spacey because the alleged incidents took place back in the 1990's and the statute of limitations to charge them has already expired.

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, when actor Anthony Rapp publicly accused Spacey of trying to initiate sex with him when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26, and Spacey publicly acknowledged the incident had happened, at least ten other accusers made similar claims against the Oscar-winning actor.

I couldn't help but wonder, where was the internal "resistance" movement to confront and stop Spacey's reprehensible behavior?

Or the behavior of any number of high-profile actors, directors, producers and agents in Hollywood for that matter?
 

Actress Rose McGowan (left), her ex-manager Jill
Messick and producer Harvey Weinstein 

As I've mentioned before in this blog, my parents raised my siblings and I with lots of magazines around the house growing up, a habit that's carried over into my adulthood.

One of the problems with having a magazine habit in todays multimedia, digital-heavy world is that they can (literally) stack up when you're busy.

So it wasn't until last week that I finally got to read Chris Gardner's interview with actress/ activist Rose McGowan published in the May 9th issue of the Hollywood Reporter.

McGowan has become one of the central figures in the #MeToo movement that emerged in the wake of the downfall of producer Harvey Weinstein after she became one of the first of many well known actresses to go public with accusations of sexual assault against the one-time Hollywood mogul.

A role for which she's been alternately praised and vilified by members of the entertainment industry.

Gardner's THR article is definitely worth a read if you're interested in getting a more in-depth understanding how McGowan's public accusations against one of most powerful figures in Hollywood have changed her life and career.

Aside from Weinstein's criminal sexual appetites and his employing Israeli security agencies to spy on, intimidate and professionally discredit some of the actresses who accused him of rape and assault, one of the most disturbing claims McGowan made in the article involves her former manager Jill Messick.

As Gardner's article reports, after what many consider her breakout on-screen role as Tatum in the successful 1996 horror film Scream, McGowan attended the premiere of Going All the Way at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival (which also starred Ben Affleck and Rachel Weisz).

Rose McGowan, Jeremy Davies and Ben Affleck
in a scene from Going All the Way (1997)

According to Gardner's THR article:

"Harvey attended the premiere of...Going All the Way, in which she [McGowan] has a topless scene. After it came onscreen, McGown claims, she saw her then-manager Jill Messick turn and nod to the mogul. 

It was Messick who set up the meeting the next morning between Weinstein and McGowan at the Stein Eriksen Lodge that McGowan says ended with her being sexually assaulted in a hot tub."

As a former actor I have no illusions about the kinds of things people will do, or the depths to which they will sink, to achieve fame, money or power in the entertainment industry.

But the idea that a professional adult talent manager who gets paid to help manage an artist's career would knowingly send a young, 24-year-old actress to a meeting in a hotel room with a Hollywood producer with a reputation for demanding sex from young women, disturbed me.

In all fairness, Messick (who took her own life back in February) publicly denied McGowan's accusations that she knowingly sent the actress into the meeting with Harvey Weinstein knowing he would rape her.

But yet as Gardner reports, in 1998, a year AFTER McGown was raped by Weinstein and paid $100,000 as part of a settlement agreement, Messick took a job with Weinstein's company Miramax.

Call me a cynic but I don't believe in coincidence when it comes to things like that, and McGowan claimed that Messick protected Weinstein in exchange for her job at Miramax.

By the way, after taking the position with Weinstein at Miramx in 1998, Messick went on to produce a number of films including She's All That (1999), Frida (2002) and later Mean Girls (2004) - (after she'd left Miramax in 2003).

Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Steven Segal and Jill Messick are just a handful of the high-profile figures in the entertainment industry who allegedly (by their actions, non-actions or silence) were part of the rampant culture of sexual abuse that's come to light in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

Again, members of Trump's top staff formed a "resistance" to stop his behavior after only nineteen months in office - so where was the "resistance" in Hollywood and the entertainment community when the kind of sexual abuse suffered by actors like Anthony Rapp or Rose McGown has been going on since the early part of the 20th century?

Was Trump's behavior just that bad?

Or was Hollywood just that complacent with an abusive status quo?

Self-Reflection & The Walk-Back

Brett Ratner, Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman

Back in November of 2017, as a growing number of well-known entertainment industry figures were publicly revealed to have engaged in serious acts of sexual harassment or worse, journalists Tatiana Siegel and Ashley Cullins wrote an article in The Hollywood Reporter about the slew of actors, directors, producers, agents and entertainment industry execs quietly contacting PR agencies and lawyers.

Not in reaction to having been publicly outed for inappropriate or illegal behavior.

But out of fear that a past incident, or some behavior that they engaged in back in the past might possibly expose them to the kind of legal action or unwanted negative media publicity that has torpedoed the careers and reputations of men like director / producer Brett Ratner, and actors Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman (pictured above).

In my view, justice for victims of sexual harassment or assault, discouraging / preventing such behavior from taking place, and holding perpetrators accountable for their actions lies at the heart of the #MeToo movement - as does the chance for victims to begin to heal from past emotional, psychological or physical trauma.

But one of the most fascinating aspects of this emerging era of #MeToo is the almost unprecedented amount of self-reflection that it has sparked on the part of perpetrators and victims alike.

As the well-known Los Angeles attorney and former LA County public defender Shawn Holley observed in the above-mentioned Hollywood Reporter article:

Hollywood attorney Shawn Holley (right) in court
with her former client, actress Lindsey Lohan  

"Almost all of the women I've spoken with are still trying to figure out what, if anything they want to do. 

The men have usually received some correspondence from someone with whom they haven't spoken in many, many, many, many years. The men maintain their innocence but are understandably fearful of what might happen in this charged climate."

Is it just the fear of being exposed that has driven some men to reflect back upon their behavior in the past?

Clearly some men in positions of power or influence are terrified of the loss of power, wealth and status that come with an irreparably-damaged public reputation.

Especially in this era of social media when stories or accusations can become fodder for the 24/7 global media news cycle in minutes.

Just look at the ex-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (pictured below).

Last week he literally resigned his office just hours after a New Yorker article was published that detailed disturbing accusations of his physical abuse of at least four women who went on record.

Ex-NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

And this closet misogynist had the gall to present himself publicly as staunch advocate for women who'd been sexually harassed, abused or assaulted.

If you haven't read the New Yorker article by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow, it contains some pretty horrifying accusations about repeated instances when he intentionally slapped women.

And it certainly didn't sound like Schneiderman's conscience was exactly troubled any more than Harvey Weinstein's was; and both men seemed more troubled about the damage to their careers than they were about the women they abused.

All these highly-publicized cases have made clear that this is (and has been) a problem that's far more extensive and pervasive throughout the layers of our society than has been commonly known or openly acknowledged.

As an African-American, I'm certainly familiar with the concept and reality of institutionalized racism.

But as a man, I confess that until the flood of revelations that came out in what's being called the "post-Harvey Weinstein era", I wasn't aware that institutionalized sexism existed as well.

I mean I understood the history of the struggle for American women to gain the vote, to achieve financial independence and the years-long efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment - the struggle for pay equity is still going on.

As a film buff, I certainly understood the kind of harassment (and worse) that's often reduced to the simplistic and sanitized term "the casting couch".

But I simply didn't fully comprehend the degree to which that kind of behavior extended to other industries and workplaces where women were subjected to that kind of degrading behavior.

MGM head Louis B. Mayer looms over actress
Judy Garland as actor Mickey Rooney looks on

If you're interested, check out Thelma Adams' Variety article about the troubling history of sexual harassment in Hollywood, including anecdotes about former MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer groping the teenaged Judy Garland and holding meetings while he had her sit on his lap.

Or director Alfred Hitchcock's notorious obsession with actress Tippi Hedren (the mother of actress Melanie Griffith), arguably as creepy as any of his films.

It's simply not enough for men or boys to say "I didn't know", or "I had no idea".

I think there's a broader need or mandate for all men to understand how deeply rooted this is in our culture - and to understand how it affected our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, cousins, nieces, co-workers, classmates and friends.

No matter how uncomfortable or awkward that conversation may be.

Like a lot of men I've found myself looking back on my life trying to reexamine incidents that I witnessed or things I heard or said that might be considered sexist or inappropriate to women.

To be clear, in no way am I personally concerned that "the past might catch up with me", my parents raised me to respect women and to treat them fairly and equally - and I always have.

I learned that from my father who went out of his way to promote qualified women in the 1970's and 1980's during his career with the Boy Scouts of America when other executives of his stature and level weren't doing that.

"Old Main" on the campus of Penn State University

One of the things I've come to understand is that sexual harassment isn't always the kind of extreme behavior typified by men like Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby.

It can also be things that might seem small or harmless on the surface, but are none-the-less offensive and possibly traumatizing to those who are subject to it.

The other day I found myself thinking back to my college years at Penn State University.

Specifically I remember when some of my friends (and at times, me) would call girls out publicly for what was often called the "walk of shame" - when we'd see girls walking back towards the dorms in the morning dressed up in evening clothes from the night before.

As football players, we were required to check in for breakfast at training table every morning, regardless of the time of year - so even after a long night out in the bars or at frats we still had to get out of bed and get over to training table and check in or we'd get ripped a new asshole by former head coach Joe Paterno.

The purpose of this essay is not to weigh and analyze the implications of the Jerry Sandusky abuse scandal - but suffice to say, if you were a football player, you did NOT miss breakfast.

So even if you just walked in the door, signed your name (and there was a guy sitting by the door with a clipboard who did that each morning) and walked right out, you had to get up and go.

Students walking across the PSU campus

A few of us would often drive over to breakfast together, so on a Saturday or Sunday morning in the off-season when we'd be driving around the campus of Penn State sometimes we'd spot a girl walking home from the direction of where a number of frat houses were located on the western side of campus, clearly wearing the clothes she'd worn the night before.

Like sometimes she'd be carrying her heels if the weather was warm, that kind of thing.


Sometimes one of us would roll down the window and yell "Walk of shame!" as we drove past the poor girl, sometimes we'd all chant it loudly and laugh.

At the time, it seemed innocent enough college-type buffoonery, but in retrospect I feel like it was unnecessarily cruel, judgmental and disrespectful.

We were making a completely arbitrary, superficial and unjustified assumption that because we saw a young woman walking home in clothes from the night before that she'd "hooked up" or had sex with someone.

We were judging her unfairly.

Maybe she'd stayed up late watching a movie, ate some late-night pizza with friends, or stayed up talking about life and just decided to crash because it was late.

Even if she had had sex, we had no right to act that way and reinforce antiquated ideas of needing to publicly "shame" women for expressing their sexuality in ways that are perfectly natural.

What business was it of ours?

A young woman reacts to guys yelling out
"Walk of shame" on a college campus

This kind of thing wasn't something that we did everyday, but it happened more than once and I'm guilty of taking part in it more than once and I feel ashamed of that now - my age was not an excuse.

When I try and put myself in the shoes of the girl who may have been simply walking home across campus in the morning from an evening formal, or spending the night with her boyfriend or girlfriend and to have a group of obnoxious guys drive by yelling or chanting "Walk of shame!" as they drove past in a car?

That's harassment plain and simple.

Even if there was no physical contact or anything, treating a stranger like that was boorish, bullying behavior and looking back and reflecting on all that's been revealed since the Harvey Weinstein story broke, I genuinely feel bad about taking part in that kind of thing.

To be clear, guys calling young women out for the "Walk of shame" isn't limited to the campus of Penn State University either - it's a global thing.

And seriously, if I knew a way to contact any of the women who were subjected to that, I would write and apologize - but as I've come to learn, you can't just walk that behavior back.

In recent weeks I've watched as Donald Trump went from denying having an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels, to admitting that he compensated his former "fixer" Michael Cohen $100,000 for the $130,00 payment Cohen made to her days before the November 2016 presidential elections in order to buy her silence about the affair - part of which took place while Melania Trump was pregnant with their son Baron.

You can't just walk that kind of behavior or those choices back - and those choices stay with you.

Not just for men in high profile positions, but for average guys whose names may never make the evening news because of choices they once made.

Like morally judging a young woman simply for walking back home on the campus of an institution of higher learning.

Self-reflection has helped me to understand why that was wrong, but it doesn't change how I or my friends made someone we didn't know feel - it's not something I'd contact a lawyer or PR firm about.

But it's something that I can never walk back.

Lifting the Veil & 'Broadchurch'

Matt Laurer and Charlie Rose 

Watching the news unfold this week has been an even more surreal experience than usual in the post-inauguration era.

Lately it seems like every time the alert sound on my iPhone pings, another hole gets punched in the fabric of the media-driven reality in which many of us live here in America.

Rape, sexually-related assault, harassment or inappropriate contact against anyone is obviously a heinous violation against one's body, mind and spirit - to say nothing of one's personal rights.

But to me there's something deeply unsettling about watching the fleeting veil of money, power, fame and influence being lifted from the steady parade of American media icons who've wielded such a grip on our mainstream popular culture.

Revealing them to be serial sexual predators who knowingly and repeatedly (over the course of years) used their positions to cajole, intimidate or force women into dubious encounters of a sexualized nature.

These are men, arguably vain to varying degrees, who've made careers and fortunes by being arbiters of taste, popular entertainment, intellectual achievement, political power - and often morality and ethics.

Knowing a little something of the darker side of the Hollywood film industry, the allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein were disturbing, but they weren't "surprising" in the conventional sense.

Los Angeles is rife with sleazy dirtbags who play on the fears and desires of those they perceive to be weaker than they are in order to incorporate sex into a kind of sick power dynamic that functions like a narcotic for some people - Harvey was one of them.

Charlie Rose interviewing Natalie Portman

But the disturbing allegations of serial sexual misconduct with subordinates and co-workers leveled against people like Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose is a deeply troubling look into the extent of the mistreatment of women in the workplace in America.

One that also forces all of us to look at ourselves - and ask how it is that people in positions of power can mistreat others when so many are aware of their actions.

I mean if even half the allegations against Lauer and Rose are true, and this sordid business was going on within large and influential media institutions (NBC and PBS), how bad is it in smaller offices and workplaces across America?

Places where the media spotlight is far less likely to shine the light of truth.

I can't even count the number of quiet evenings that I've tuned into PBS and watched Charlie Rose sit across that dark round table and interview the famous and the influential.

Over the years I've gained genuine insight into so many people and ideas watching Rose use his particular interview style to coax usually elusive people into revealing things about themselves and what they do and think - in part because they are aware of the cache of his show.

But learning about the way he was treating female staffers - or the fact that he surrounded himself with younger female subordinates - it leaves me feeling untethered from reality.

It's not like I thought Rose was some kind of media demigod without personal flaws, but he certainly struck me as an evolved intellectual who respected people.

Olivia Colman & David Tennant in Broadchurch 

It's clear that something of a Pandora's Box has been opened and more people of power and influence are sure to be named.

But too often lost in the public being "shocked" at these revelations and the subsequent toppling of careers and reputations, are the ways in which their behavior affected the lives of the people they mistreated and in some cases abused.

This week I've sought refuge from the news and Trump's incessant tweets by watching season three of the brilliant Netflix series Broadchurch starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman as Detectives Alec Hardy and Ellie Miller.

If you haven't seen it, the show is a detective procedural - mystery set in the fictional town of Broadchurch on the English coast.

The first two seasons focused on the tragic murder of a local boy and the ways in which the killing disrupted the lives of the people who inhabit the small town - and the toll it took on the personal lives of determined detectives Hardy and Miller as they worked to solve the case.

But the third, and sadly, final season focuses on the rape of a local woman and the detectives' efforts to track down a serial rapist.

Jodie Whittaker as the rape counselor and  Julie
Hesmondhalgh as the victim in Broadchurch

The beautiful setting and camera shots contrast with the disturbing nature of the crimes that have taken place in the seemingly tranquil seaside town.

But it's a first class procedural and I was genuinely moved as the first episode literally walks the viewer through the ways the detectives investigate the crime of rape.

Including graphic scenes as the victim goes through treatment at a rape crisis center and the ways in which evidence is carefully cataloged.


While I'm only four episodes in, the storyline has forced me to sit back and view the allegations against people like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose not from the shock of what they did - but to try and view their actions from the perspective of their co-workers and subordinates who were their victims.

Broadchurch, while obviously just a fictional TV show, has helped me, as a man, gain some degree of insight into just how devastating the crime of sexual assault is and how it impacts the lives of those who are affected by it.

And during a time when people like the delusional Republican "activist" James O'Keefe has the temerity to pay a woman to go to the Washington Post to lie about being sexually assaulted just to undermine the credibility of women who've come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Republican senate candidate Roy Moore, I think that's important. 

The scope of the crime, and the shock of learning who allegedly committed it, should not overshadow the victims of their behavior - nor should their suffering be used as some kind of political tool.

Rape isn't Republican or Democrat, it's just rape.

And as the veil is lifted on people once viewed as media icons, the truth of just how extensive sexual assault is, is finally being revealed - and there's nothing political about it.