Hollywood is known as a liberal community. Many of the power moguls donate millions upon millions of dollars to Democratic candidates. But for many women working in Hollywood, both on-screen and behind the scenes, the reality is far from a progressive, liberal dream. Their everyday working lives are more like the 2005 video where Donald Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. These women have to deal with entitled — and sometimes predatory — men on a regular basis.
I’ve been doing this work for nine years now, and I’ve heard countless stories from women in all different positions — most whom will never go on the record — describing behavior that is sexist and behavior that includes sexual assault. Stories about showrunners who watch porn in the writers room, stories about directors who can’t tell financiers they are pregnant because no one will trust them to direct, and oh so much more. And let’s remember that sexual assault, rape, and dismembering women are common plot points in TV shows and movies, and these storylines are often used simply as a catalyst to spur male characters into action.
This past week has been very hard for the women in the U.S. Like our brilliant First Lady Michelle Obama said, these revelations have shaken us to our core. Women do everything in our power to avoid being sexually assaulted, though of course the onus should be on men not to assault. Still, we walk on the other side of the street, we don’t go certain places, and we wear our battle armor everywhere — we all know how exhausting it is to always be on guard. It doesn’t matter how you look or how you dress — you are vulnerable, and some girls and women, such as transgender women and Native American women, are even more vulnerable than others.
But let’s look at Hollywood for a moment. For decades there has been this thing known as the casting couch. We’ve all heard the term. That’s what it’s called when women — and it is mostly women — are expected to perform sexual favors in exchange for parts. It’s always been something people tossed off or joked about. But let’s not pretend it isn’t real. Hollywood has always valued women on their fuckability. Sometimes whether or not a woman gets a part comes down to whether the man in charge thinks she’s hot enough to sleep with, and believe that other men and boys will want to sleep with her too.
No wonder that the amount of parts for women falls off a cliff after 40 — that’s when Hollywood deems that you are no longer fuckable. You’ve lived your last fuckable day (thank you Amy Schumer).
Women in Hollywood don’t discuss this in public because it’s not safe, and because they want to work while they can, particularly with their career’s expiration date looming on the horizon. And no one wants to be seen as a “troublemaker,” “bitch,” or “crazy.” Those words — and many others —are used to sideline and demean women who speak out against sexism, misogyny, and an array of Hollywood bullshit.
But this week the world has changed.
We are having an another Anita Hill moment. The #notokay hashtag has evoked millions of responses. Women everywhere are speaking out. Women in Hollywood started speaking more openly about issues related to pay inequality in 2015. It felt like a watershed moment. This feels like another. This past week saw several women, including Minnie Driver, Amber Tamblyn, and Rose McGowan, speak out about their sexual assaults. Others will likely follow suit. There are many women — too many — with stories to tell.
Like it or not, many people take their cues from Hollywood films and celebrities. The industry needs to find ways to address these long-standing problems and to set an example for the rest of the country. It can’t be the norm that a woman expects to have to constantly deal with misogyny and potential assault. Hollywood needs to change. The world needs to change.
