Hollywood: the home of film, entertainment, and more recently, the #MeToo movement.
There’s a reason the backlash against systemic sexual misconduct started in the hills of Los Angeles: Sex sells, and Hollywood is the most prolific peddler of the stuff.
But the downfall of media mogul Harvey Weinstein, and the many top executives and personalities since, forced Hollywood to look inward and try to fix the problem it helped create. Enter stage right: a return to purity, or at least, a regulatory, mandated form of it.
Hollywood’s overtly sexual strategy, once its greatest strength, now threatens to undo the very ground it stands on. The entertainment industry can no longer afford to give the people what they want because they run the risk of invoking the wrath of the people who prop them up: the left-leaning, social justice-obsessed, coastal elites. This is good. For too long, Hollywood has allowed a sexually hostile environment to flourish. A USA Today investigation last year found that 94% of women surveyed in the entertainment industry had experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault over the course of their careers.
Change might be slow, but it is coming. Just this week, a union representing film and television actors announced it would collaborate with “intimacy coordinators” to develop safe and appropriate standards for sex scenes as a guard against sexual harassment. The guidelines will dictate what is and is not acceptable in regards to on-set nudity and simulated sex, according to the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA.
“At a time when the industry still needs to make great changes, our initiative will ensure the safety and security of SAG-AFTRA members while they work and respects the boundaries of actors,” SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris said in a statement.
#MeToo has inspired legal changes as well. The Time’s Up movement raised more than $22 million last year for its Legal Defense Fund, administered by the National Women’s Law Center, for victims of sexual assault and harassment in the industry. The Los Angeles chapter of Women in Film referred more than 100 women to pro-bono attorneys last year. And California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law in 2018 that prohibits secret settlements and non-disclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases.
Legal change is an important step forward, but it won’t be enough. The culture of the industry must change as well, and for this to happen, Hollywood must reform its money-making strategy. That’s a lot easier said than done. Hollywood is a multi-billion dollar international industry consumed with itself. Quantifying change, or asking the entertainment industry to rid itself of the thing that brings in revenue, is like asking bars to endorse prohibition. But if Hollywood truly cares about #MeToo, it will.
And it must. The most prominent #MeToo cases all had something to do with Hollywood. Look no further than Weinstein, Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, and Al Franken, who had worked with Hollywood throughout his political career and won election, in part, because of the entertainment industry’s endorsement. The list goes on. #MeToo’s connection to Hollywood is deep-rooted, and no wonder! Hollywood encouraged and sold the kind of behavior that resulted in habitual harassment and exploitation.
“People are this way because of habitual behavior,” Morgana McKenzie, a freelance camera operator, told USA Today. “So we can post as many posters and PSAs as we want, but the ultimate problem is getting fully formed and grown adults to break habits, and that’s hard.”
Hollywood’s newfound decency should unite liberals and conservatives. Once decried as prudish religious fanatics, conservatives who argued against publicized sexual flamboyance might have been on to something. Cultural Leftists blasted Vice President Mike Pence for choosing to dine alone only with his wife, but ousted politicians such as Al Franken and Roy Moore serve as a reminder that boundaries are necessary and good. Hollywood has spent decades deriding religious values as out-of-touch, but I wonder how many women could have been spared had the entertainment industry promoted, rather than rejected, dignity, stability, even purity.
Hollywood’s return to decency is a good reminder that conservative sexual morals aren’t antiquated, prudish standards. They’re fundamental norms necessary for a society to operate within the bounds of justice and good faith. Thanks to #MeToo, it seems Hollywood might just reach the same conclusion.
