Sentenced on Wednesday to nearly a quarter century of prison time, rapist Harvey Weinstein will likely die behind bars. At long last, the justice system has bent for the righteous, not the ruling class. And still, at just half the length of his tenure of raping his way across Hollywood and Manhattan, it feels like too little, too late.
An old Chinese proverb says that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now. Better late than never that Weinstein finally faced justice, and it was in a manner that might just revolutionize how seriously the justice system takes contemporaneously corroborating witnesses and enforces the rule of law against serial predators.
Even though Weinstein was ultimately sentenced to 23 years in prison, he could have faced as little as five. In its request for sentencing leniency, Weinstein’s defense team argued, “Mr. Weinstein’s commercial success and contribution to the arts and entertainment industry are certainly well known.”
Yes, the monster made or at least contributed to beautiful pieces of art such as Shakespeare In Love and Kill Bill. But what about the question few ever dare to ask: How much art, work, and humanity did he deprive us of in the process?
There’s a New York Times op-ed I haven’t stopped thinking of since October wherein comedian Kelly Bachman confronted Weinstein in the audience of Downtime NYC, where she was performing. Bachman was actually booed by members of the crowd for calling out Weinstein and sharing that she herself was a rape victim. But women around the world made the clip of her performance go viral. Recounting her own rape trauma, Bachman wrote in the New York Times:
I think about that a lot: lost time…
I’ve felt robbed of a decade of my life, because I know that the amount of time I’ve spent thinking about three horrible nights of my life is probably the amount of time I could’ve been laughing with an audience. Now I’m 27 years old, and I finally feel that I have the strength to use my voice. I feel lucky that I’ve found it again this soon. I feel lucky to have found positive communities and support. Not all survivors are so lucky.
Weinstein tried to warn us that we’d lose whatever Scary Movie sequel he’d produce next, but that ignores everything he already took away from us.
How many women lost their voices because of the trauma he inflicted upon them? How many victims, like actress Annabella Sciorra, spent sleepless nights with baseball bats next to their beds? How many, like Rose McGowan and Rosanna Arquette, were actively blackballed by Weinstein, deprived of their craft and depriving us of their art? How many, like his former assistant Rowena Chiu, lived with her demons for so long and so silently that they tried to kill themselves? Or, like Bachman, how many victims simply lost time, wasted on trauma, sorrow, or flailing for faith?
And even the ones who got away paid a price. Shakespeare In Love‘s star Gwyneth Paltrow and Frida‘s Salma Hayek still faced sexual harassment from Weinstein, even if they seem unscathed on the surface.
When we talk about whether news networks should rehabilitate Matt Lauer or if publishers should sign Woody Allen, we need to ask the next question a thousand times over: How much did these monsters in power take away from the world, in time, in art, in dignity, or even in life?
So, we’ll lose Weinstein’s movies. I, for one, couldn’t care less. Instead, I’ll mourn for all that his predation silenced and destroyed.
