The Hollywood Commission, an organization dedicated to ending sexual harassment in show business, has released the results of The Hollywood Survey, an anonymous questionnaire analyzing discrimination and bias in the industry — and they are not very encouraging. According to The Hollywood Reporter, less than half of the 9,600 respondents feel that the industry has made progress since the rise of #MeToo in 2017; 64 percent believe that those in power will not be held accountable for sexual harassment; and 70 percent view reporting misconduct as “too risky.”
Still, 91 of those surveyed also indicated a need for a platform designed for anonymously reporting sexual harassment and misconduct as well as identifying predators. “People are clamoring for accountability,” Hill said. And that will be the focus of the Hollywood Commission’s next project. In 2021, the commission and its member orgs will launch an industry-spanning tool that allows users to anonymously report inappropriate behavior and name abusers.
The platform will identify repeat offenders, which, per Hill, is essential in show business, an industry where employees come and go regularly and workplaces are ever-evolving. “People move from job to job,” she explained. “It is very difficult to trace employment history and perhaps history of abuse and inappropriateness. It allows us to see people who may be serial abusers who might not otherwise be found out.”
The commission will not investigate allegations made via the tool and will not offer “enforcement mechanisms.” However, the platform will feature anonymous two-way online messaging so users can ask questions and receive further resources. If an alleged abuser receives multiple accusations, they will be reported to their employer or guild, which will decide on further action.
“The platform will offer two options: An individual will be able to report misconduct, anonymously or not. That person can seek immediate action, in which case the information will be sent — including the name of the alleged offender — to an employer or guild,” the source details. “Another option is to report ‘conditionally,’ meaning a report will be released only if another person reports the same individual. In that case, the employer or the guild will be able to contact the first person who reported — without having access to that person’s identity — to ask if she or he would come forward and participate in an investigation. Should the employer fail to take any action, the commission would not be notified.”
“We work with all our partner organizations to establish standards and protocols for how complaints should be handled,” Hill said. “Every company handles their own investigations and they make their own decisions. That’s consistent with what the workers seem to want. They want to know that the organizations that they are working with and associating with are handling these cases appropriately.”
Attorney and commission co-founder Nina Shaw remarked, “[Productions] are typically funded by major media companies, and if those major media companies have bought into the survey, then they are going to receive this information. This allows a much, much greater ability for a company to have a sense of what exactly is going on.”
A bystander training program designed to “combat the culture of silence” in show biz is among the commission’s upcoming projects. Formed in December 2017, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, the org has called on Hollywood power players for donations and made the protection of freelance workers a priority.
Hill brought workplace sexual harassment into the national spotlight when she testified at Clarence Thomas’ Senate confirmation hearings in 1991. Her story became part of the national conversation once again when Christine Blasey Ford testified about Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual abuse during his confirmation hearings in 2018. “We must make it unequivocally clear that if the government is not prepared to protect women from sexual violence, we in our industry will do it ourselves,” Hill wrote after Kavanaugh was confirmed. “Throughout our industry, there is a profound sense of betrayal and despair among many that the government no longer cares about protecting their basic rights to be heard and to have their pain recognized as a public concern.”
“Scandal” star and #TimesUp supporter Kerry Washington portrayed Hill in HBO’s Emmy-nominated 2016 TV movie “Confirmation.”
