openpolitics.com

Nearly 80 years later, that aroma of perversion and maladroit du seigneur clings to Hollywood. Now we are inundated with grotesque tales of Harvey Weinstein pulling out his penis to show to appalled and frightened young women, enlisting the pimping help of agents and assistants to have actresses delivered to his hotel rooms, where he pestered the women to watch him shower or give him a massage or engage in intimate acts.

“The ill will towards him for getting away with it all for so long has unleashed something so primitive,” a prominent male Hollywood producer told me. “If people could rip him apart, they would

.. a man trusted by the Obamas to have their daughter intern at his company.

.. Often the actresses scrambled, trying to figure out how to get out of the room without having their futures shredded by the vindictive satyr, who also threatened to destroy actresses who balked at wearing dresses designed by his wife Georgina Chapman’s fashion label on the red carpet.

.. He relished the nickname “Harvey Scissorhands,” given to him by filmmakers who did not like his domination in the editing room. But the nickname could work just as well for his octopus ways with women, which resulted in lots of hush money being paid out.

.. Others whom Weinstein asked to give him a massage in his hotel suite refused but continued to collaborate, like Gwyneth Paltrow, who put aside qualms to became “the first lady of Miramax.”

.. When David Carr wrote about “The Emperor Miramaximus” in 2001 for New York magazine — several years after the unpleasant experience Paltrow described for the first time this past week to The Times — he quoted her saying: “I think that for every bad story you hear about Harvey, there are three great ones. People are complicated, and nobody’s all good or all bad.”

 .. “If you look at The Hollywood Reporter’s powerful women list,” said Janice Min, the former editor of that publication, “every single one of those women still reports to a man.” (By some estimates, there are only six women who have first-look overhead producing deals at the studios.)

.. Min recalled attending the $400,000 speech Barack Obama made as an ex-president to an A&E Networks advertising upfront at the Pierre hotel in New York in April.

 “Afterwards, amid rapturous applause, he walks right over to Harvey Weinstein and gives Harvey a hug,” Min said. “You can see the optics of it all. It makes your head explode if you think of the inability to explode the male network.”

.. although The Hollywood Reporter tried to get the goods on “that looming, ominous, bellicose force” named Harvey for many years — “we had white boards full of names of women” — he was a master at protecting himself, just as Hugh Hefner was, by the veneer of power he cultivated, by giving to liberal causes and cultivating friends in the media and politics.

.. “There probably needs to be some introspection about how certain people who engage in horrendous mistreatment of women can co-opt the media,” she mused. “The fundamental predatory nature of Hollywood is young, attractive people — largely females — putting themselves in front of men to be judged and appraised and chosen.

.. In Hollywood, unlike at other Fortune 500 companies, the one-on-one meetings take place in hotel suites and bars. It’s an exploitative and oddly personal process.”

.. Harvey had proven time and again he could get you the Oscar that could make your career. It’s the difference between being in the reboot of ‘Saved by the Bell’ or getting 15 million for your next role.”

Hollywood is a culture that runs on fear. And it is not like other professions, one top entertainment executive said, because “no one comes with a résumé. It’s about what you look like and who sent you.”

.. There was resentment against Weinstein in Hollywood, not only for the stories bubbling around about women, but the way he humiliated men who worked with him. He even berated a 15-year-old girl at a screening because her parents supported a political candidate he opposed.

.. Like Trump, that other self-professed predator, there were complaints that in business deals he stiffed people on bills (advertising and public relations payments), and he had a reputation for lying, cheating, taking advantage, acting like a thug. Many in the film community felt he besmirched the Oscars by turning it into a marketing race rather than a contest of quality.

.. Women in Hollywood say social media, plus the anger about Trump getting into the Oval Office instead of Hillary, were propelling forces in the fire raining down on Weinstein.

“I hope it’s a witch hunt,” said a top Hollywood woman. “I hope it’s a purge. There are people we have to get rid of in our business. Everyone knows them.”