What Harvey and Trump have in common

I often used to wonder if the physical dissonance between his personal grossness and his artistic sensibility — which was genuine — made him crazy

It was a common sight outside a Harvey opening party to see one of his publicists trapped in a car on the phone, spinning — spinning the dross of some new outrage into gold.

.. It was startling — and professionally mortifying — to discover how many hacks writing  gossip columns or entertainment coverage were on the Miramax payroll with a “consultancy” or  a “development deal” (one even at The New York Times).

.. Another of his co-opting tactics was to offer a juicy negative nugget about one of the movie stars in his films or people in his media circle (fairly often, me) in a trade to quash a dangerous piece about himself.

..  The real Harvey is fearful, paranoid, and hates being touched (at any rate, when fully dressed).

.. Winning, for him, was a blood sport. Deals never close. They are renegotiated down to the bone after the press release. A business meeting listening to him discuss Miramax deals in progress reminded me of the wire tap transcripts of John Gotti and his inner circle at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Queens. “So just close it fast, then fuck him later with the subsidiary rights.”

.. Like all bullies, he folds when he’s faced down and becomes wheedling and sycophantic. His volcanic rage erupts from raw insecurity.

.. Harvey is an intimidating and ferocious man. Crossing him, even now, is scary. But it’s a different era now. Cosby. Ailes. O‘Reilly, Weinstein. It’s over, except for one — the serial sexual harasser in the White House.

Weinstein and Our Culture of Enablers

The enablers were of all sorts.

Corporate board members who declined to investigate allegations of his sexual behavior and now claim the news comes as “an utter surprise.”

Assistants who acted as “honeypots,” joining meetings between Mr. Weinstein and his intended victims to give them a sense of security — and then leaving the predator to his prey.

Reporters who paid him tribute with awards, did his bidding with fawning coverage, or went after his enemies with hit pieces.

A lavishly paid Italian studio executive whose real job, according to former Times reporter Sharon Waxman, was “to take care of Weinstein’s women needs.” (A lawyer for the executive reportedly denies the allegation.)

.. Mr. Weinstein’s depredations were an open film industry secret, the subject of an onstage joke by Seth MacFarlane at the 2013 Oscar nomination announcement. Everyone laughed because everyone got it.

Some of his victims, such as Gwyneth Paltrow, became Hollywood powers in their own right but never publicly rang an alarm until this week.

The actor Ben Affleck, who owes his start to Mr. Weinstein, is an overnight laughingstock because he acts surprised by the producer’s behavior. He won’t be the only celebrity doing his best Claude Rains “shocked, shocked” impression.

.. Irwin Reiter, a top Weinstein Company executive, sought to console one of the office assistants harassed by Mr. Weinstein by saying the “mistreatment of women” was a longstanding company issue and that “if you were my daughter he would not have made out so well.” But Reiter never went public.

.. In recent years, notes New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister, Weinstein has “lost power in the movie industry” and is no longer “the indie mogul who could make or break an actor’s Oscar chances.” Lame horses get shot.

.. he was just another libidinous cad in a libertine culture that long ago dispensed with most notions of personal restraint and gentlemanly behavior. “I came of age in the ’60s and ’70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different,” Weinstein wrote in his mea culpa to The Times last week. “That was the culture then.”

.. That line was roundly mocked, but it contains its truth. Like those other libidinous cads — Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — Weinstein benefited from a culture that often celebrated, constantly depicted, sometimes enabled, seldom confronted, and all-too frequently forgave the behavior they so often indulged in.

.. The old saw that all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing was never truer than it was in Weinstein’s case.

Rose McGowan Attacks Ben Affleck Over Harvey Weinstein: ‘You Lie’

actress Rose McGowan accused Ben Affleck of lying on Tuesday about his knowledge of Mr. Weinstein’s alleged sexual harassment and assaults of women.

.. Ms. McGowan, in a tweet and a subsequent email exchange with The New York Times on Tuesday night, said she had told Mr. Affleck that Mr. Weinstein had behaved inappropriately with her.

.. Mr. Affleck has not responded to Ms. McGowan’s tweet. He did not respond to requests for further comment.

The Times emailed Ms. McGowan to confirm that she was asserting that Mr. Affleck knew about Mr. Weinstein’s mistreatment of her because she had told him, and that she was accusing Mr. Affleck of lying because his statement did not acknowledge awareness of Mr. Weinstein’s behavior.

“I am saying exactly that,” she replied to The Times. She wrote nothing further.

.. Mr. Affleck, in his statement posted to Twitter Tuesday, wrote that he was “saddened and angry” and that new reports of more serious assaults — which include accounts of forced oral sex — “made me sick.”

.. While several prominent actresses spoke out on Monday against Mr. Weinstein, Mr. Affleck was one of a small cadre of prominent male figures in Hollywood with ties to Mr. Weinstein who criticized him on Tuesday after the new reports in The Times and The New Yorker.

Matt Damon, Mr. Affleck’s longtime friend and film collaborator, said in an interview with Deadline on Tuesday that he “never saw” Mr. Weinstein harass or abuse women and that he would have put an end to it if he had.

.. Several directors with close ties to Mr. Weinstein, such as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, have not responded to requests asking them to comment about what it was like to work with him.

.. Mr. Affleck later dated Ms. Paltrow, though it is not known whether she relayed news of the incident to him.

.. George Clooney has also weighed in on the controversy, telling The Daily Beast in an interview that was published Monday night that while he was aware of rumors that young actresses had slept with Mr. Weinstein to get roles, he had been unaware of any misconduct or the settlements Mr. Weinstein had reached with women.