Blu Yoshimi holds a #MeToo sign while walking a red carpet for Stronger during the 12th Rome Film Fest at Auditorium Parco Della Musica in Rome on Oct. 28, 2017.Vittorio Zunino Celotto
Women are talking, but is anyone listening any more? In 2022, three high-profile, #MeToo-related films seemed poised to shine in this awards season: Tar, about a high-flying conductor (Cate Blanchett) felled by her inappropriate relationships; She Said, about The New York Times reporters who broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults; and Women Talking, inspired by true incidents of systemic sexual assault in a Mennonite community.
Critics’ organizations lauded the trio. Nominations followed for BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit and various guild awards. But as we strut from red carpet to red carpet, only one of those three, Tar, is living up to its initial promise, amassing wins for Blanchett and writer-director Todd Field. (Of course the big fish, the Academy Awards, have yet to be caught. On March 12, Tar will vie for six Oscars, Women Talking for two. She Said was shut out.)
Beyond collecting statuettes, however, the #MeToo filmmakers hoped to spark conversations. That requires a wide audience, which has proved elusive: Tar has earned US$16.8-million worldwide; She Said US$13.8-million; and Women Talking just US$6.2-million. It seems that moviegoers prefer women screaming (Cocaine Bear grossed US$28-million in its first weekend), whoo-hooing (80 for Brady has earned US$37-million), gyrating with strippers (Magic Mike’s Last Dance, US$48-million), or as a murderous doll (M3GAN, US$172-million).
Instead of the trio of films being conversation engines, the conversation has moved on. This is painful for me. Like all movements, #MeToo was messy and flawed. But what it exposed was undeniable: Sexual violence has affected way too many people, especially women. It damages psyches and careers. The entertainment business, like many businesses, was built on systemic inequities, supported by scaffoldings of enablers. Les Moonves, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly have all been accused of causing staggering pain through serial abuse.
When #MeToo took off in October, 2017, it had a momentum that created positive change. Studios and production companies hired more women and marginalized people as directors and department heads. Underheard voices were finally being heard in more films and series. Intimacy co-ordinators made sex scenes safer. Non-disclosure agreements, which kept abusive behaviour under wraps, were being dismantled.
How quickly that sputtered. In May, 2018, a poll conducted by Morning Consult revealed that for most North Americans, knowing that an actor was accused of sexual misconduct would not change their viewing habits. Fifty-seven per cent of respondents cared as much about the impact on an accused man as on an accuser. The New York Times kept a list of accused men – it reached 201 – but suspended it at the end of 2018. Vox kept its list, which reached 262, only a year longer. In February, 2020, Forbes ran a piece titled, “The Dark Side of #MeToo: What Happens When Men Are Falsely Accused?” That’s the dark side? Not the eye-popping number of abused women who put their hands up via the hashtag, nor the heart-wrenching number of women who can’t even dare to?
So we got two years? It’s over? The answer seems to be yes. Many men accused of sexual misconduct are the opposite of cancelled. Donald Trump came close to winning a second term as U.S. president, despite numerous allegations. Brett Kavanaugh is on the U.S. Supreme Court. Louis C.K. won a Grammy. Bill Cosby got out of prison on a technicality. The internet lauded Johnny Depp and villainized Amber Heard. Chris Brown and Tony Robbins are doing fine. Perhaps most chillingly, Gretchen Carlson, who helped bring down Roger Ailes, couldn’t land another job. Now we hear about a Morgan Freeman or a Ryan Seacrest and we shrug. When R. Kelly and Weinstein were convicted on more charges, it should have been an outrage. Instead it was played as old news.
Another nail in the coffin: At the end of January, the organization behind #TimesUp ceased operations. You remember #TimesUp. It launched in January, 2018, with stars wearing black to the Golden Globes and a legal-defence fund of US$15-million for women pursuing anti-discrimination cases. It referred 4,800 people to lawyers, funded 256 cases, strengthened anti-harassment provisions in many U.S. workplaces and lengthened the statute of limitations for rape.
But from the beginning it was plagued by conflict-of-interest issues. Like this one: Three months into her tenure, Times Up’s first president, Lisa Borders, resigned – her son had been accused of sexual assault.
That gets to the heart of why both movements are fading. Too many #MeToo situations are murky. People disagree about who deserves cancellation vs. rehabilitation. Many hesitate to support rape cases because they don’t want a man’s life to be “ruined by one bad night.” As if a woman’s isn’t. Good men did not join the fight, maybe because they have a borderline night in their own past – maybe they ignored a “no,” or took home a woman they knew was drunk.
So it doesn’t surprise me that of the three #MeToo films, Tar is the one reaping the most cash and prizes. Its message – like the message of the new Prime Video series The Power, about women who develop and soon begin to abuse the ability to electrocute people – is contrarian-#MeToo: Any person, given enough power, can become abusive, gender be damned. I suspect the average person finds that idea more palatable than the message of She Said, which is, a lot of people have to look the other way to sustain serial abusers; or the hard fact in Women Talking, which is that some men abuse the women and even children they are closest to, and then insist their victims are mistaken, or crazy, or brought it on themselves.
I’ll wager that this discomfort is partly why the stars of Women Talking weren’t nominated for Oscars, though their work is exemplary. Pundits argue that the cast was too fused as an ensemble to single out Rooney Mara for lead actress, and Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy and Ben Whishaw in the supporting categories. But that exact scenario happened for not one, but two other films this year: Everything Everywhere All at Once, where Michelle Yeoh was nominated for lead actress, and three people were nominated as supporting; and The Banshees of Inisherin, where Colin Farrell was nominated for lead actor, and three people were nominated as supporting. (Banshees could easily be called Men Talking – which again, may be more palatable than women.)
As a member of the Toronto Film Critics Association, I’m sworn to secrecy about what happened in our awards debate around these films. But I have conversed with critics in similar organizations, and they report there was more support from their women members for Women Talking, and more discomfort around it from their men. Egregiously, the Boston critics split their award for best ensemble cast between Women Talking and Jackass Forever (in which Johnny Knoxville and pals do sicko stunts). Some thought that was funny. But I’m convinced that some members advocated for the latter film to diminish the former. Because I don’t think we’re post-#MeToo. I think too many people are happy to ignore that it ever happened.
Special to The Globe and Mail
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