By Sharanya Gopinathan
And so it begins. Amazon Studios head Roy Price has been suspended from Amazon after the Hollywood Reporter published details of accusations of sexual harassment made against him. In 2015. A producer named Isa Hacket said that at Comic-Con 2015, Price told Hacket, “You will love my dick” and said “anal sex!” in her ear. Amazon, of course, has been fully aware of the accusations since that time, but only chose to act now that the Hollywood Reporter made it public in the aftermath of the numerous allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Harvey Weinstein.
By the way, Robert (“Bob”) Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein’s younger brother, has also just been accused of persistent sexual harassment by an executive producer of the show Mist. During the production of the show, he would persistently make romantic overtures over her , until her lawyer informed authorities at The Weinstein Company that she would leave the show if he didn’t stop.
The Weinsteins’ buddies, Ben and Casey Affleck, also must not be feeling too great right now. After the allegations against Weinstein broke, the Affleck brothers have come under the spotlight for their own pasts: Casey Affleck was accused by two women actors of sexual harassment on the sets of their rockumentary I’m Still Here. It also made everyone suddenly remember that Ben Affleck had been filmed groping women, like when he grabbed Hilarie Burton’s breast on live TV show TRL.
I remember seeing a comment in an early article on Harvey Weinstein that said the collective femme PTSD meter is off the charts this week. And indeed it was a sombre week for many of us, being continually reminded and shown the details of the abuse all our friends have gone through, and thinking long and hard about a lot of memories that you ordinarily don’t get into this deep.
This conversation also brought some light to other truly horrifying industry practices, allegations of which have gone so under-reported that it all begins to feel a bit horrifying. Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence said that when she was starting out, a female producer forced her to be photographed in a “nude line-up” with five other women, and was told to look at the photographs as motivation to lose weight. She said didn’t speak up because she was afraid for her career. “I didn’t want to be a whistleblower. I just wanted to work.”
Still, all of this conversation has surely resulted in a lot of men feeling pretty worried now, and I think that’s exciting times. We’re currently seeing headlines like Here’s a look at 27 newsmakers accused of sexual harassment and assault, and people on the list come from a staggering variety of disciplines: USC medical school dean Rohit Varma, Uber’s senior vice president of engineering, Amit Singhal, Ain’t It Cool News founder Harry Knowles, R Kelly, former Congressman Anthony Weiner, Mike Tyson, and USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar all feature on the list.