Harvey Weinstein is going down.
The disgraced Hollywood producer has had several credible allegations of sexual assault levied against him, and he’s now facing life in prison if convicted.
But Weinstein isn’t the only one in Hollywood who should be terrified once his case goes to trial.
Harvey Weinstein had a reputation for being one of the best tastemasters in Hollywood. Miramax Studios and the subsequent Weinstein Company produced a plethora of acclaimed films that garnered several Oscar nominations and wins.
But Weinstein also had a reputation for sexual perversion. While he was winning awards for producing great films, he was coercing women into sex, and downright raping them in some instances.
Despite the years of innuendo, the charges were almost too shocking to believe, but one of his victims recorded one of her horrific encounters with Weinstein.
The tape exposed a man with a pathological obsession with controlling women, even to the point of having them followed by ex-spies.
Women who rebuffed him were blacklisted around town, and claims confirmed by director Quentin Tarantino.
Weinstein has already been convicted in the court of public opinion. His criminal trial is merely a formality.
Even if he somehow gets acquitted, he will be a pariah in all areas of polite society. But Weinstein has one card left to play, and it could be devastating for the film industry: revenge.
Weinstein knows he’s finished, and he could be bringing some people down with him, as there are alleged reports his attorney intends to call several Hollywood witnesses to the stand.
This is a lose-lose situation for anyone his lawyer subpoenas. Hollywood is built on reputation, and nobody wants to be embroiled in a lurid rape trial.
Weinstein’s boorish behavior had been rumored for years. Everybody knew, but did nothing. Weinstein has the potential to embarrass a lot of people who enabled him all this time.
He also has the ability to shame actresses who caved in to his debased casting-couch predations.
The damage Weinstein could do is catastrophic, especially when it’s commonly understood that there are other predators out there.
During this year’s Cannes film festival, actress Asia Argento recounted a harrowing story of being raped by Weinstein at the 1997 festival. She also indicted the entire audience, an avatar for the industry as a whole, for their complicity and silence:
asia argento cannes
you know who you are and more importantly, we know who you are.. #rapists #metoo
In the era of #MeToo, allegations can destroy a career. It wouldn’t take much for Argento to detonate the careers of the people who stood by and allowed Weinstein to fester.
The lecherous Hollywood power brokers who ran in the same circles as Weinstein are trembling, praying Weinstein takes a deal.
But he has nothing to lose. He just wants to watch the world burn.
A day of reckoning could be coming for Hollywood, and after all of the moral preening and hypocrisy that radiates from the town, it will be long overdue.