How Weinstein’s survivors came together, again, to tell their stories in ‘She Said’
Updated
The first-person stories that began to emerge out of the Harvey Weinstein scandal over the past year are starting to come together in a book.
So far, more than a dozen women have provided their first-person accounts in the documentary She Said, which was directed by Liz Garbus, the veteran writer of The New Yorker who first made headlines with her bombshell story about sexual harassment in Hollywood in September.
Weinstein himself has emerged as an unlikely star in the documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 18 January and was broadcast in the US by Netflix on 9 March. “I’ve always admired the way Harvey Weinstein has chosen silence as the means to the very public ends of his behavior,” Garbus told BuzzFeed News. “If women had been speaking out when he was first rising to power, he’d still be in this job.”
The Weinstein scandal has provided a rare window into the lives of women in Hollywood, who have largely been written out of Hollywood history as victims and perpetrators of abuse.
More telling is the way the Weinstein scandal has provided rare insight into the workings of the Hollywood business. For instance, there are several instances where sexual harassment is viewed as a business opportunity — and Weinstein has been one of the very few men to ever profit off of this behavior.
As a number of Weinstein’s accusers told BuzzFeed News, this is the first time they have spoken publicly about their experience, and for many, they felt vindicated by the decision to give their stories the attention they received. “Now they have to be the norm, and I’ve been treated like a freak,” one woman told BuzzFeed News.
To be sure, sexual harassment and sexual violence is an issue that exists within the cultural zeitgeist, but it’s been largely absent from Hollywood and the entertainment industry.
While women have been brave enough to speak up before Harvey Weinstein, their stories often have been left on the shelf for decades. While many writers, directors, producers and other men in Hollywood have been accused of sexual violence and
