Question

Case 2-6 The Normalization of Unethical Behavior: The Harvey Weinstein Case On October 5, 2017, New York Times investigative reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the story ‘Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades.’1 Harvey Weinstein was one of the most powerful and influential movie executives in Hollywood. Weinstein co-founded both the Weinstein Company and

Miramax Films. His movies have garnered over 300 Oscar nominations. Ronan Farrow suggests in his article,

‘From Aggressive Overtures To Sexual Assault: Harvey Weintein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories,’ that Weinstein has

been publicly thanked at award ceremonies more than anyone else in movie history (with the exception of Steven

2 sexual assault and rape.

Spielberg and God).

The allegations against Weinstein span three decades and range from sexual harassment to

Kantor’s and Twohey’s report found at least eight women in which Weinstein entered into settlement agreements with to presumably keep from pursuing any further legal action against him. The release of this article resulted in a flood of women coming forward and telling their stories regarding similar encounters with Weinstein. It also led to the resignation of four of the Weinstein Companies Board members and the firing of Weinstein himself. NPR inter-

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On October 10, 2017, The New Yorker published Farrow’s article, which corroborates what is in the report of Kantor and Twohey with three of the thirteen women he interviewed accusing Weinstein of rape. As with the Kantor and Twohey article, Farrow suggests that Weinstein’s exploits were common knowledge throughout the entertainment industry. They point toward a systemic problem in the industry where people turned a blind eye to what was hap- pening and even normalized this behavior in their responses to it. In fact, Seth MacFarlane while announcing the Best Supporting Actress Nomination’s at the 2013 Oscars joked “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.”4

One of the first women to be interviewed was Ashley Judd. The actress was interviewed by ABC News’ Diane Sawyer about her experiences. She expressed regret that she didn’t come forward sooner about her allegations of sex- ual harassment in a hotel room years ago from Weinstein. In the segment that first aired on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Judd said she wished she had a “magic wand” that would allow her to change the past, for her and others. “I wish I could prevent it for anyone, always.” Judd did tell her parents and other people in Hollywood, including agents and actors, but didn’t think she would be believed by going public. “Who was I to tell,” she said. “I knew it was disgusting. Was I going to tell the concierge who sent me up to the room?”5

Emboldened by what had become a scandal of epic proportions in the entertainment industry, dozens of women started to speak out and tell their story. It motivated actress Alyssa Milano to tweet a call-out to victims “so we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” The hashtag #MeToo caught fire and became the rallying cry for all women similarly abused.

The bravery exhibited by these women empowered other women throughout the entertainment industry, media, and politics to step forward and finally tell their stories about gender sexual harassment, bullying, and rape. Time magazine named these brave women the 2017 Person(s) of the Year “Silence Breakers – the voices that launched a movement.” Over the rest of 2017, we witnessed an unprecedented number of men being accused of and fired or being forced to resign because of sexual harassment allegations. These include the firing of CBS Good Morning America’s host Charlie Rose, NBC’s News Anchor Matt Lauer, PBS’s Tavis Smiley, and a host of other high-profile media figures. Congress had its own problems with the resignation of Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI.) and Senator Al Franken (D-MN).

Questions

1. Why do you think this type of behavior was allowed to go on for nearly thirty years?

2. What biases do you think may have played a role in the decisions made by both victims and others who were aware of Weinstein’s crimes but did nothing?

3. What responsibility did the Weinstein board of directors have to the victims? What about agents who contin- ued to send their clients to meetings with him? What about the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) that claims to have a zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment?

4 Is it fair to judge a person on his/her worst act after a lifetime of seemingly doing good things?

Answer 1

Refer the below images for the above mentioned questions, in a detailed way of explanation.

Answer: Requirement : The behaviour went on so long that it became a given almost an expected practice in the entertainment industry, in other words it became normalized . There are a number of factors which led to this behavior becoming normatized including Vickins fearing for their gobs and witnesses thinking others would fix the the problem problem when weinstein when weinstein started first tos - ponishing a man for soch behanor was Practically unheard of Thirty years ago we lived different time when Society did not view such behavior as negative. S time went on, at became so engrained in the culture of the entertainment industry that Challenging it appeared useless. Requirement ® : H no of biases played a role in the deasias made by the victims and others in the know. first, the Victims would have feared for their jobs & Careers if they stepped forward. Second, the person involved was a person in authority (in this case weinstan was a very powerful exective in tollywood that could make cord breake a career) people have a bias toward authority often times suborning thur own judgement to the authorative fegure. In addition when people encounter a conflict between their beliefs about what is right (like not being havasseds and how the world actually works (like harassment is a given in the entertanment industry they often adjust thar own betets to mitigate this Conflict. This is called cognitive dissonance and in this case the victims found ways to accept this behavior. This included them blaming themsewes for what occurred. A number of victims stated they aquestioned whether they did something to cause Welnsteing behaviour as a reason for not stepping to not forward. Stepping

Finally the others that I new about what was going on did not report it due to the bystander effect people have a tendency to not report incidents of Lorong doing they may witness if they believe for hope) Others will report it. which have shown that the greate number of people a are aware of an incident, the flower nomber of people will try ly help - we take our coes from others h in the entairment industry became so pervasive that it was just accepted. The fact that it was joked the Academy Awards is a perfect example of Requirement : The weinstein board effectively enabled Weinstein to Ileep doing what he was doing through their inddrement with the approval of Settlement agreements paid by the company. Their actions were reprehensible and they failed in their duties to ensure that all the Stakeholders of the weinstein group were treated legally, fairly , decently etc. Boards ultimately have control over who rons a company and how it is done in this case, they failed to live up to that responsibilities including ensuring that Weinstein acted with integrity. Their inaction pot many lives in је реч B4 - The agents of the actors who were harassed are also responsible for enabling wernstein. They could have stopped sending clients into calls with him, or at a minimum informed the actors of what was going to happen it they went on a particular call (meeting with wanstein. I would hope that with the press this is getting that many of these agents lost clients as a result of their Praction cor) perhaps are being sued by their former clients.

Finally, the screen Actors Guild farted the entire indostry. They had the power to put an end to winsteins actions. while an individual agent only controls their own clients, the screen Actors Guild covers everyone who work entertaiment industry. They have a fiduciary responsibility to protect all of their members from actions like the Weinstein one should question exactly what this goila does if it fails at soch a basic level. n was a great guy who Requirement 9 : yes, the world is full of examples of seemingly good s decent people who commit horrendous acts. the executives of Enron come to mind as Shining examples of this next door neighbor of ken lay, len was a great sy contributed large soms of money to local charities and supported many things in the community. He was viewed as a very good guy by many in the community. However, those activites do not condone (or) mitigate the accounting froud and devastation his actions resulted in lie Shave holder Losses, the loss of pensions of pu 4E employees, rolling blackouts in CA.) Not all unethical acts have the same weight so how a person I judged (the negative reaction I have to a particular act), Can vary by the act. However, it is fair to judge a person on every act they do. That is a part of life. That does not mean that every unethical act results in damnation or in me writing them off as a bad person.