Silenced by Hollywood

In 2012, actor, writer and producer Naomi McDougall Jones set out to make her first feature film, Imagine I’m Beautiful, a psychological drama about the friendship between “two interesting, complex female characters,” in her words. She and her female co-producer began having conversations with investors and producers—primarily though not entirely male—who would often make comments like “Well, girls, you know you’re going to have to get a male producer onboard at some point just so people will trust you with their money.”

“Literally, it was this never-ending refrain of ‘Yeah, but nobody wants to see movies about women,’ ” recalls McDougall Jones, whose book, The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood, was published in February. “ ‘You really have to think about making something else.’ Or ‘Is there a lesbian angle you could explore?’ or ‘Could you have more blood?’ I was like, Oh, my God, what the fuck is happening?”

Around that time, Stacy Smith, a professor and researcher at the University of Southern California who had been tracking gender and diversity in top-grossing films since 2007, noted in a Hollywood Reporter article that of the top 100 films of 2013, two of them—two!—were directed by women and that women claimed less than a third of all speaking parts.

The numbers were shocking, but they didn’t surprise me. Living in an overwhelmingly male neighborhood in Malibu (one populated by single men, divorced men, consummate bachelors and retirees—many of them Hollywood veterans), I regularly heard men talk in ways I hadn’t anywhere else: about “chicks” they’d fucked, about “unfortunate” episodes with strippers, about preferences for disturbingly young women.

I’d begun to form a picture of Hollywood as one of the most retrograde places on earth—“the last extant stable society,” as Joan Didion wrote, referring to its status-quo conservatism—one where women are treated as fungible, dispensable beauties, where female directors aren’t given work and actresses are rarely given lines. I often wondered what equality might look like. As I set out to write this article, five and a half years after my time in Malibu and more than two after the second coming of MeToo, I still didn’t have an answer.

In October 2017, three months after Smith released her 2016 findings—“The needle is not moving onscreen for females in film,” she wrote—The New York Times and The New Yorker both published articles in which numerous women recounted being harassed, abused and assaulted by Harvey Weinstein, the godfather of contemporary independent film. Among the first women to speak out were four well-known actresses—Rosanna Arquette, Ashley Judd, Asia Argento and Mira Sorvino—in addition to many lesser-known others. (Models and assistants also made statements.) Their stories were remarkably similar in their horrifying contours: tales of being summoned to hotel rooms for meetings where Weinstein would undress, don a bathrobe, demand massages, take showers in front of the women, touch them inappropriately, offer work for sex, assault and sometimes rape them.

“I’ve always been an outspoken woman. The MeToo stuff isn’t new for me,” says Arquette, referring to the movement started by Tarana Burke in 2006 and reignited by Alyssa Milano on Twitter, when we speak on the phone one afternoon. “But to come out and tell the truth, about a man who sexually assaulted and abused and threatened and bullied many, many women—probably the most powerful man in Hollywood, as we’re seeing from the lengths he went to disrupt, destroy and discredit everyone—has been a lot.”

Why hadn’t these women spoken out earlier? In the New York Times article, reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey wrote about the “code of silence” enforced by Weinstein at his company. At least eight women had received settlements, and most who accepted payment signed nondisclosure agreements that muzzled them; some had finally decided to break those provisos. Others were afraid of all the usual things women fear: retribution and ruined careers, reputations and lives. But by late in the second decade of the 21st century Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes had fallen, and the world was beginning to change. “Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time,” Ashley Judd told the Times, “and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.”

The Weinstein stories poured forth. Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie reported their own run-ins with him, their fame acting as a kind of ballast for the other accounts—more than 100 to date. Actress Annabella Sciorra excavated a cache of frightening memories, including being raped by Weinstein in her own apartment. As I write this, she’s testifying against him at his criminal trial in Manhattan.

Women in entertainment began to open up not only about sexual misconduct—there were so many galling stories, from Les Moonves’s intimidation tactics to Matt Lauer’s creepy desk button to R. Kelly’s reported abuse of underage girls, that it was difficult to keep track—but also about formerly taboo subjects such as pay equity, lack of representation and feeling unsafe on set.

“Historically, if you won an acting award, you were allowed to get up and make your speech for whatever your cause was, and hopefully it was something taking place many thousands of miles away from Hollywood,” Richard Rushfield, who writes the industry newsletter The Ankler, tells me. “But as an actor you’re not allowed to complain about the movie business and how it’s done.”

Yet actors were talking. The Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo spoke about that traditionally forbidden subject, her paycheck—she was astonishingly transparent about the negotiations that led to her $20 million annual salary—and expressed her frustration with ABC for refusing to pay her more than Patrick Dempsey, her former co-star. Olivia Munn successfully lobbied for the deletion of a scene from the film The Predator in which she appeared alongside convicted sex offender Steven Wilder Striegel.

But Munn’s story exemplifies the blow-back a woman in Hollywood experiences if she’s too candid or too vocal. The actress told Vanity Fair that her male co-stars brushed her off and canceled interviews with her; they also gave the film’s director, Shane Black, a tone-deaf standing ovation at the film’s premiere. “I kind of feel like I’m the one going to jail,” Munn said.

I thought of this when I read that Gabrielle Union’s America’s Got Talent contract wasn’t renewed late last year after she’d reported a toxic and racially insensitive work environment at NBCUniversal. (According to one report, she was repeatedly told her hair was “too black.”) “Are you going to assimilate and allow all of this to go on? Or are you going to say something and immediately be othered?” Union said on an empowerment-and-diversity panel shortly after she was fired.

Seeing this, I began to ask: Was Hollywood really changing? If so, for whom? Women might be speaking up more, about injustices personal and professional, but at what cost? Had we witnessed a seismic, lasting shift or a fissure that was already sealing itself up?

“I think it depends on who you are in Hollywood, in terms of your ability to speak out,” Melissa Silverstein, founder and publisher of the site Women and Hollywood, tells me. “Yes, for some people it has changed, but I still think there’s a price you pay when you speak out and you’re a woman, and particularly when you’re a woman of color.”

In October 2015, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began an investigation into Hollywood’s discriminatory hiring practices—a secret as open in the industry as Weinstein’s predatory behavior—after the ACLU notified the agency of ongoing discrimination against female directors. (Less than two years later, the EEOC entered into settlement talks with the major studios; if charges can’t be resolved, a lawsuit will likely be filed.)

The following month, The New York Times Magazine published Maureen Dowd’s landmark article “The Women of Hollywood Speak Out,” for which the writer interviewed more than 100 women and men in film. Citing Smith’s research, she noted the disproportionately small number of women who had directed the top-grossing films of the previous two years—only 1.9 percent of the total. “It’s kind of like the Church,” said Anjelica Huston in the piece. “They don’t want us to be priests. They want us to be obedient nuns.”

Ellen Barkin, whose credits range from Sea of Love to Ocean’s Thirteen, calls herself an “opinionated shit-stirrer.” “Women pay dearly” for speaking out, she tells me. “Men don’t experience any of this.”

Historically, of course, outspoken women in entertainment have been censored, silenced and maligned. In the early 20th century, Mae West, whose racy performances consistently pushed boundaries, was banned from radio, saw her shows shut down and once spent 10 days in jail on obscenity charges. Jane Fonda was branded the treacherous “Hanoi Jane” for her anti-war activism (and for the ill-considered photo she posed for on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun while on a 1972 trip to Hanoi), even though by that time much of America was against the Vietnam war. To be sure, women are labeled difficult or crazy for much less: being too abrasive, too louche, even too old. As Tina Fey once wrote, “The definition of ‘crazy’ in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore.”

Jena Friedman, comedian and former writer for The Late Show With David Letterman, tells me, “Any woman getting on stage, you’re inherently political because you’re occupying a space that you historically haven’t been able to or been encouraged to occupy.”

Many never made it that far. “The history of film is littered with the careers of women who have spoken out,” says McDougall Jones. “The fact is, we don’t know who they all are because they were squashed.” She tells me that when she began talking about the difficulties she had getting her two feature films made, she was “informed, in no uncertain terms, that if I did not shut up, I would destroy my career.”

Arquette knows this all too well: “I was told by close girlfriends of mine, ‘You should be quiet.’ ” She tells me she has been given the cold shoulder by certain figures in the industry, and she recalls the silence of friends in the days before the Weinstein trial. “I didn’t hear from anyone; I still haven’t. I do have the sisters, the sister-survivors—the other women. But I’ve never felt so alone in my life.”

If you watched the Golden Globes, held the night before Weinstein’s trial began in early January, you likely noticed that no one mentioned the famous predator or his trial—other than the much-maligned Ricky Gervais. (“Our next presenter starred in Netflix’s Bird Box,” he said of Sandra Bullock, “a movie where people survive by acting like they don’t see a thing—sort of like working for Harvey Weinstein.”) Similarly, at the 2018 Golden Globes, which were held a mere three months after the allegations broke, actresses wore all black on the red carpet in a rather tepid act of protest. None of the silence-breakers were present, with the exception of Ashley Judd.

Nearly everyone I interviewed mentioned the initially anemic response of the Hollywood establishment, particularly that of Time’s Up, the anti-harassment initiative that boasts many high-profile founders (among them Reese Witherspoon, Eva Longoria and Natalie Portman) and a great deal of money ($24 million) but few concrete achievements anyone could point to.

“In Hollywood, everyone wants to wear the pins and walk down the red carpet and say how concerned they are,” says Rushfield, referring to the Time’s Up lapel pins attendees wore to the 2018 Golden Globes. “But getting into details is not what actors do.” Arquette, however, emphasizes that the group has been more vocal in support of survivors since lawyer and former Michelle Obama aide Tina Tchen took the helm in November. Recently the organization issued a statement critical of NBCUniversal for dismissing Union and “protecting the careers of powerful men at the expense of women who speak out.” Tchen also told me they have funded PR and legal support for more than 200 harassment and discrimination cases.

Still, Rushfield suggests that the movement is backsliding: “MeToo sort of became a net. It’s like the narrative became, ‘Well, that solves that. That’s dealt with now.’ So people who have continued are raining on the parade. It’s like, ‘Hey, remember when we solved sexual harassment?’ ”

“A lot of men are waiting for this ‘episode’ to go away,” Arquette says. “They’re doing everything they can to shut it down and shut it up, and there are many predators still in power in Hollywood.”

She goes momentarily quiet. I can hear traffic noises in the distance. “There are so many good men, and we want them to be our allies,” she continues. “This isn’t a takedown of men. It’s about holding bad people accountable.”

Everyone I spoke with also emphasized that what keeps women—and trans and nonbinary people—silent isn’t only men but a deeply entrenched system. Women also enforce the patriarchy, as anyone who has read bell hooks knows.

“We’re working in a system set up by a bunch of white guys, 55 and over, who have put in place a few white women, 55 and over,” says Barkin. “I believe that if you’re an outspoken woman in Hollywood, if you’re a woman who overtly protects herself in Hollywood, and if you’re lucky enough to work as an artist, the price you will pay”—she raises her famously gravelly voice—“will be your art. Your very reason for being is the price you will pay, one way or another. They don’t have to not employ you—they can employ you forever—but you won’t get the opportunities to be who you are, to fill up your own well. And opportunity is everything.”

In 2020 opportunity is everything, because the scarcity of jobs makes people reluctant to speak out for fear they won’t work. In 2018 only five of the 112 directors who worked on the 100 top-grossing films were women, and female actors still played only 33.1 percent of characters with lines. Opportunity is everything, because the people who tell our stories, and the actors who embody them, shape our culture, our reality. If all the storytellers are men, society will continue to believe that only men are entitled to speak; we’ll continue to live in a world that believes only men’s subjectivity matters. The lack of jobs and the collective consciousness are not unconnected.

“Something like 95 percent of all the images you’ve ever seen in films were directed by men, and overwhelmingly white, straight, cis men,” says McDougall Jones. “Eighty to 90 percent of all the leading characters you’ve ever seen in movies were white men, and 55 percent of the time you’ve seen a woman character on screen in a film, she was naked or scantily clad. Draw a line between that and the studies showing that the films and media content we watch generally affect everything from our career choices to our hobbies to our relationships to our sense of identity to literally our brain chemistry. If you hold those two facts beside each other, you have to think about the enormity of what that has done to us.”

What’s frustrating is that the solution remains remarkably straightforward, attainable even. “The problem in Hollywood is that you actually have to give people jobs for it to change,” says Silverstein. “The people in power actually have to hire women. And that’s really simple: Just hire them!”

As the old guard dies out, Barkin is hopeful. “The change is coming,” she says. “It’s just a waiting game now.”