Everyone is caught up in lambasting the unforgiveable actions and proclivities of Harvey Weinstein. Awards are being recalled, membership is prestigious organizations are being withdrawn, political contributions rejected or redirected, and serious legal consequences loom everywhere for Mr. Weinstein. Why are we shocked? I’m in the Hollywood industry, and I have always hated pervasive, pernicious and degrading assumptions about how “men in power” treat women trying to become part of the industry, most particularly focused on “actresses, models and whatever.” There’s enough about Harvey out there, so I thought I would make this blog short and (bitter) sweet, relating two experiences that occurred in my own Hollywood career.
Long before I was married, I was invited to a cocktail party by an agent friend of mine, a reception for young rising stars in agencies, law firms and entertainment companies. When I arrived at the soiree, I noticed that all the invitees were young men… and that the sponsor, a high-profile modeling agency, had brought most of their female client base, all dressed to kill. I was told, and this is an exact quote that I will never forget, “Go ahead. Pick one. They all know why they are here.” I was instantly outraged, left the event immediately and complained bitterly to the agent who invited me and that modeling agency. Nothing happened.
A few years later, I was having lunch with a senior executive at the Screen Actors Guild, a gentlemen with the power to make a difference. I asked him why his union had never mounted a campaign to shame and put down male film executives and powerful creatives – perhaps banning union actors from even working with them – who relied on a coercive casting couch. His response staggered me, since that casting couch was pervasive everywhere. This is as close to recreating his actual words as I can recall: “That not a SAG problem. Our female members are already in the industry and working. They don’t need to resort to that. It’s only a problem for the actress-wannabees who are not members yet. It’s definitely not a SAG priority.”
90% of SAG actors have not worked in years or work very sporadically. The casting couch was standard operating procedure, and everybody knew it. The situation got so bad that young attractive actresses often didn’t even wait for the harassment; they just offered themselves in exchange for a coveted role without the slightest menacing move from the men in charge. Harassment moved on into young male actors (and a few females) who were offered a gay casting couch alternative. On my travels across the United States, I cannot tell you how many parents were pushing their daughters to become actresses… if they only knew the price that would be demanded… or cared.
The practice has always disgusted me, and yes, women have made overtures to me that if I helped their careers, there was more than a legal fee in it for me. I always said no and even fired clients who came on strongly to me… long before legal ethics formally addressed the issue.
Until I was 12 when my mother remarried, I was raised by a single mom, a professional who worked really hard as a State Department analyst. My parents divorced before I was born, and my father was not particularly interested in parenting at any level. He soon moved away. All I saw in those early years was a smart woman working at a professional job. She raised me as best she could, torn between work and her latch-key kid. That was my image of women, carried with me throughout the rest of my life.
So my son married an academic superstar, a neonatal pediatrician who graduated at the top of her class as an undergrad and in med school. A really smart and accomplished woman, an equal if not even a little better (OK, my son ain’t chopped liver!). The buck stops with us as parents, how we teach our children in a world filled with contradictory images and events. We just have to figure it out and pass those values on to our kids.
I’m Peter Dekom, and parenting is particularly complex in a world of a “pussy-grabbing” President, where rudeness, crass language and behavior, lying and predatory sexual practices are dismissed and even admired.
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