Years ago in a small
Texas town, members of the high school football team, fresh from practice,
pumped about what might be a championship season, and eager for a bit of fun,
broke into a mom-and-pop hamburger joint.
They threw frozen burgers and fries at each other, littering the parking
lot with food worth hundreds of dollars.
They opened pop cans, drank a few gulps and tossed them aside. Thrown to the evening wind, paper napkins resembled
drunken doves flitting across the Panhandle sky. Further damage was forestalled
when the local police arrived. Small
town law takes exception to trespass and vandalism. Usually.
No criminal
charges were brought. No stories in the local newspaper shamed the miscreants. No one was suspended from school. No one was booted off the team.
Parents and
supporters quietly paid the damages and the Friday-night lights shined as
brightly as ever.
“Celebrity”—even
with a small “c”—carries a lot of weight.
During last
year’s presidential campaign, a 2005 recording of Donald Trump surfaced. The so-called “locker-room tape” featured the
future president boasting of the kinds of things a man could get away with if
he was rich and famous.
Though not
multimillionaire TV moguls, those football players discovered what Trump had
discovered. If you’re famous—even small
town famous—you can get away with things.
The president of the chess club might be stripped of her position and
given community service but not the star quarterback.
If the tape
hurt Trump, it didn’t hurt him enough to keep him out of The White House. Many people refused to vote for him after hearing
the tape; others gritted their teeth and voted for him; others weren’t bothered
at all by his statements. Imagine what his
margin of victory might have been had we never heard the tapes and the things
he talked about. Crude and reprehensible
things.
The kind of
things we are learning rich and famous men, both straight and homosexual, have
apparently been getting away with for decades.
Nearly a year
later, we are again hearing about acts rich and famous men have committed with
impunity. Harvey Weinstein, Ben Affleck,
and Kevin Spacey are those being talked about today. Tomorrow we will almost certainly hear of
others who abused their celebrity to force their attention on young women or
young men—dreamers trying to make it big in a city where “all the stars that
never were are parking cars and pumping gas.”
Who could blame these young people for convincing themselves that if
they want the fame and the name, the touch of unwelcome hands is the cost of
doing business? Who would be surprised
if these same people, a few years later, concluded they had been exploited and
abused?
Those who have
never toured Hollywood or stood by a favorite performer’s star on the walk of
fame have heard of “the casting couch.” We may have been told the stories were
myth but often those denying the stories did so with a wink and a nudge.
But, now it
seems a few women—and some men—have said enough is enough. No more.
Big screen legends are saying, “No other ingénue should go through what
I went through.” Collectively, Hollywood
seems to be saying, “No more.”
That being
said, how far will this indignation go?
Will the reverberations change things in the business world, the sports
world, the political world?
Ben Zimmer,
writing in a recent issue of The Atlantic,
explains the term “casting couch” originated with the Shubert brothers of
Broadway fame and then migrated across the country to America’s burgeoning
film-capital, Hollywood. There the couch
became a fixture in producers’ offices, directors’ offices, agents’ offices and
wherever else men dictated the future of aspiring actors and actresses.
Now, here are questions worth pondering while you mute the political screeds during the next
Tony Awards: Should the Tony Awards apologize for using the Shubert Theatre so
often as a venue? While we are still taking down the statues of Confederate
generals, should we send a crew over to take down the marquee of that historic
venue? Since Radio City Music Hall, the
most recent venue for the awards show, is sometimes vilified by feminists (the
Rockettes, you know) maybe the next Tony Awards be held at Columbus’s Value
City Arena—a little humility couldn’t hurt some of those folk?
Do not
misunderstand. Sexual harassment is not
a joking matter. But just as those
high-school football players (who were “famous” for a brief time in a small
town) got away with destroying so much food, rich and famous men may continue
to get away with harassing powerless women. Unless there are real and substantial changes.
Sexual
harassment has been with us a long time.
Remember, the Biblical story of Joseph.
Sold by his brothers into slavery, Joseph found himself a servant in the
household of an Egyptian official named Potiphar. Joseph was did good work but was cursed—with
good looks. Potiphar’s wife
noticed. She propositioned Joseph. He
refused. As happens today, she didn’t
stop. Again and again she propositioned the young man; again and again he
refused. Finally, angered at being
rebuffed, she cried, “Rape.” Joseph was
unceremoniously thrown into prison. That he didn’t face execution has prompted
some to suggest Potiphar knew the kind of women his wife was. Interestingly, one mantra frequently heard
after the Weinstein story broke was “we all knew.”
Except in rare
cases, those who sexually harass women (or men) today cannot send those who
refuse their advances to jail; they can, however, make life tougher. Harvey Weinstein could end a hopeful
actress’s career before it started; a department head at a local business can
make sure a woman never is considered for promotion.
Because we live
in a broken world (I’m a theologian, I think in such terms), humans will continue
to abuse, misuse, and otherwise exploit one another no matter how enlightened
we claim to be. Sexual harassment, like
racism, will continue to be part of the human experience until the Eschaton
(theologian!?). But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do something about
it.
It does mean it
won’t be easy.
In The Place Accorded
of Old (available as an e-book from Amazon), I suggest the hostility
between men and women is rooted in the Fall.
Though we sometimes joke about this hostility, it has serious
expressions, including sexism and abuse.
Genesis 3:16 underscored this reality when God says to Eve, “Your desire
shall be for (or against) your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
Some translations indicated the word “desire,” implies “a desire to
control.” (Expanded Bible, translators’ note) As one conservative commentary explains:
The word desire (Heb. tesh
ûg
â)
can also mean
“an attempt to usurp or control
”
as in 4:7.
We can paraphrase the
last two lines of this verse this way:
“You will now have a tendency
to dominate your husband, and he will have the tendency to act as a tyrant over
you.
” The battle of the sexes has
begun. Each strives for control and neither lives in the best interest of the
other (Phil. 2:3, 4). The antidote is in the restoration of mutual respect and
dignity through Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:21
–33).
[1]
While commentators (like the one cited) tend to limit their
application to marriage, there are broader implications. The abusers cannot really respect the young
women they grope and coerce into sex. There is doubtless much truth in the observation:
“Rape is not so much about sexual pleasure as it is about control and power.” We can imagine men like those we’ve been
hearing about keeping mental diaries of their experiences to review whenever a
victim gets a good review or wins an award.
Ideally, if the arrogant disrespect demonstrated in men
sexually assaulting vulnerable young women is a manifestation of the Fall, we
Christians should expect the redemptive work of Christ in reversing that Fall
to establish a new relationship between men and women. But such is the power of
sin that this has not yet happened. Even
professed Christians have sometimes conspired to limit the women’s freedom,
though I know of none who believe women to be legitimate targets of sexual
aggression. Still, we should allow the vision of a better way to shape our laws
and practices.
Producers,
directors, CEOs, athletes, and other celebrities seem to feel entitled to treat
women however they may wish. Doubtless, these same men would react with shock
when reading journalists like Mohammed Hanif who told about “pious men” who
defend “a man’s God-given right to give a woman a little thrashing,” who make
“it impossible for women to prove rape,” and “defended a man’s right to marry a
minor.” Or would they?
In 2009, when admitted
child-molester Roman Polanski was detained in Zurich (at the request of US
authorities hoping he might be extradited), there was a protest among the elite
of the entertainment world.
Long after
he had admitted to unlawful sexual contact with a thirteen-year-old girl and
subsequently skipped bail to avoid sentencing, the filmmaker continued to win
awards.
In fact, Polanski was in
Switzerland to receive a lifetime achievement award.
The complaints against Polanski came from
some of Hollywood’s loudest voices.
Harvey
Weinstein attempted to rally the troops in Polanski’s defense: “We're calling
on every film-maker we can to help fix this terrible situation."
(“Outcry Over Polanski’s Detention,” BBC
News,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8277886.stm.
Accessed 5 November 2017) Wait, Harvey
who?
Ironic, huh?
Every week new
charges are being brought against the rich, famous, and powerful in Hollywood
and elsewhere. Female legislators in
state capitals are reporting being harassed by male legislators. Political ideology doesn’t seem to
matter. Both Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly
and Michael Oreskes, head of NPR News, have been accused of harassment.
The problem is
widespread and won’t go away quickly.
Still, we need
to create structures to protect the vulnerable. Professional organizations should develop
effective ways to police their own members.
Since “everyone knew” about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior, it certainly
seems reasonable some actors’ unions or other organizations could have found
ways to create a more protective environment for their members.
We need to
reevaluate our values. Those high school
football players got away with their vandalism because community leaders knew a
winning team would bring honor to a town otherwise known only for the aroma of
the local feed lot. Harvey Weinstein’s
behavior was tolerated because his movies made money. Established actors and
actresses might refuse to work for a director or producer known to have a casting
couch in the office.
Naïve? Sure.
But over the
years I’ve met a lot of young people who have been bitten by the acting
bug. (It never happened to me though I
have been bitten by bugs while watching them perform.) Most are content to
explore the options available to them in central Ohio, content to keep their
day jobs and do theatre in their spare time.
Still, I’d like to think if they should head off to Hollywood, New York,
Toronto, or elsewhere to pursue greater glory, they will be safe from predators
of all kinds.
I can’t protect
them. But actors and actresses with
courage and integrity might help build a defense around such newcomers. In fact, I suspect only established actors
and actresses can find a way to protect newcomers from notorious predators.
Of course, I
know far more young people preparing for careers in business, education, and
other professions. Wouldn’t it be great
if corporate boards told CEOs down to the lowest level supervisors, “We don’t
care how good you are or how much money you make, cross this line and you’re
out.” Maybe coaches should tell players
they will be off the team if they beat-up a girlfriend or wife. Maybe the same Americans who are tired of
watching NFL games where the flag is disrespected should refuse to watch teams allowing
wife/girlfriend abusers to take the field.
Just saying.
So far as I
know, those young players went on from high school to the ordinary. I don’t know if they boast of their costly
food-fight or pray their children never learn of it.
Donald Trump’s
boast of what a man like him could do without fear of retribution threatened
his presidential bid a decade later. (Some might say it didn’t threaten it
enough.) His words merited the outrage
they engendered. But, looking back, I
wonder if some were outraged not because of what he said but because he said
it. He let the world in on a little
secret—a secret we all knew—about the rich and the famous: they all too often
get away with things. It will be
difficult to change or penalize their behavior in a meaningful way. A poor woman who loses her license for DUI
walks or takes the bus, a rich woman hires a chauffeur. Still we need to try to find a way to
challenge and change things.
For what
happened to the young actresses we are hearing about was not just about sex, it
was about the presumptions made by the rich and the powerful.
[1]Radmacher, Earl D.; Allen,
Ronald Barclay; House, H. Wayne: Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary.
Nashville : T. Nelson Publishers, 1999, S. Ge 3:16
