Accusations against Harvey Weinstein — famously thanked more than God in Oscar acceptance speeches—have led to a socio-sexual reorganization without modern precedent.
Whereas before a simple denial or apology would have been enough to allow a man to return to public life relatively unscathed, now there are real consequences for accusations of mistreating women.
Donald Trump, who was accused by 19 women of varying degrees of sexual misconduct, is almost assuredly the cause of this moment of reckoning. Horizontal action is the name for a concept that can be seen in oppressive authoritarian regimes. If people realize they can’t do anything about criminals in positions of major power—like a dictator—they begin to redirect their anger and sense of injustice toward those in their own lives. Since Trump was elected president, American women have been angrier than ever. Thus, #MeToo—started in 2006 by activist Taran Burke as a movement seeking “empowerment through empathy” among women of color who have survived sexual abuse—was reinvigorated by celebrity feminists.
#MeToo scandals are a lot like snowflakes. Some dissolve quickly on wagging tongues and others join their fellows, gathering mass and momentum until they wipe out an entire village. Just like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike. But the difference is seemingly at random. Why do some fade away and others gain momentum?
Enter the Elements of Scandal. This comprehensive, scientific, and completely accurate theory can predict with 100 percent surety whether public accusations will ruin a man’s reputation. Note: The man’s reputation will almost certainly be ruined by any accusation, but this system will allow us to figure out exactly how ruined that reputation will be.
Here are the categories in which you can score:
- Multiple Accusers (MA): One allegation is usually all it takes, but when more people get into the mix is when things get really real. Al Franken might have been able to survive a single allegation of groping a woman, but definitely could not survive the steady drip-drip-drip of allegations after Leeann Tweeden came forward with her initial allegation.
- Famous Accusers (FA): The Harvey Weinstein scandal really only took off after some of his most famous alleged victims—Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan among them—told their stories. The reason this is key is that we are conditioned to believe famous people and because famous people are seen as having less to gain by coming forward with their stories. They’re already famous, the thinking goes, so they don’t have the traditionally ascribed motivation to women coming forward: That they’re only in it for the fame.
- Perceived Hypocrisy (PH): These scandals have been particularly bad when it seems like the man has taken strong feminist positions in the past. Obviously, nobody was going onstage in mid-2017 saying, “I think rape is actually good, and I’m proud to say that I would totally do it.” But especially bad are the people that had previously made names as feminist champions, like Aziz Ansari.
- Strong Imagery (SI): Matt Lauer seems like a run-of-the-mill creepy boss. Sure, he liked to bang interns and put people in uncomfortable situations with insistent advances. That’s bad, and it’s obviously bad to do when young women are trying to learn how to work in television. But the thing that made his scandal really pop was the now-infamous button that closed and locked his office door. Of course, it’s now common knowledge that every executive office at NBC had that button and that it didn’t lock the door from the inside, but people hear “rape button” and something breaks in their brains.
- Leaving a Trail (LT): There’s nothing people love more than playing detective. Whenever a celebrity is accused, the first move is always to comb through their past work to find hints or clues that the accused celebrity had a guilty conscience and was trying to tell us all along—through their art. This happened to Louis CK. Louie dealt explicitly with non-consensual masturbation in the “Pamela” arc and with consent in several other episodes. His I Love You, Daddy was recast as a sick attempt by Louis to explore his deviant fetishes, while we all paid money for the privilege.
- Open Secret (OS): If people are telling jokes about your accusations before they appear in the New Yorker, then you have an Open Secret. Think about Seth Meyers’ joke about Harvey Weinstein at the Oscars or the Family Guy joke about Stewie running naked through a mall yelling that he had just escaped from Kevin Spacey’s basement.
- Cover Up (CO): Any effort made by the celebrity to stop people finding out about his alleged crimes means that the Cover-Up multiplier comes into play. Think about Harvey Weinstein hiring ex-Israeli intelligence through Black Cube to spy on potential accusers. Creepy, right? The old saw is true: The cover-up is (almost) always worse than the crime.
Confused? Don’t be! We will walk you through some scandals and show you how all of these categories apply.
Harvey Weinstein: 7 Harveys
There’s a reason Harvey is the one to kick-start the #MeToo movement. He was exacting with the filmmakers that worked for him and held himself to equally high standards when it came to becoming the most notorious alleged sexual predator in modern American history. Weinstein hit all seven categories about as hard as it’s possible to hit them: MA, Weinstein ended up with more than 80 accusers when all was said and done; FA, the New York Times’s initial report started with an accusation by Ashley Judd and he was later accused of misconduct by Uma Thurman, Penélope Cruz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rose McGowan, and others; PH, Weinstein won humanitarian awards and was an outspoken advocate for Hillary Clinton; SI, we are left with the indelible image of Weinstein chasing actresses around the Beverly Hills Peninsula Hotel wearing only a towel; LT, on-the-record stories of Weinstein’s anger were legion, though often presented as indicative of his exacting standards; OS, “Congratulations,” Seth Meyers joked while presenting the list of Best Actress nominees at the 2013 Oscars, “you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.”; CO, when you hire something called Black Cube to investigate your accusers, and that comes out, you are fucked. Weinstein was such a perfect spark to light the tinderbox of public allegations because he hit every category possible. Congratulations on your win, Mr. Weinstein.
James Toback: 2 Harveys
Why did director and writer James Toback not reach the same heights of scandal as did Weinstein? The answer is simple: He didn’t score nearly as many points. Though Toback was accused by 310 women of misconduct (MA) and featured Selma Blair, Rachel McAdams, and Julianne Moore among his accusers (FA), he didn’t leave as much of a lasting impression. There was no PH, his alleged MO was seemingly standardly creepy casting-couch fare, so there wasn’t any SI and he didn’t go to nearly the same lengths as did Weinstein to cover up his alleged crimes. So although he was debatably four times as prolific a creeper as Weinstein, we mostly forget about him in the story of the #MeToo year.
Louis CK: 6 Harveys
My wish for you is that you one day love anything as much as Louis CK allegedly loved beating off in front of uncomfortable women. Though Louis’ alleged crimes are orders of magnitude less severe than Harvey Weinstein’s, he’s often mentioned in the same sentence. Why? Well, because Louis scored a shocking 6 Harveys. The first reports about him included five women, notching him an MA. Though none of them were famous, they described Louis masturbating, which he often pantomimed in his comedy, scoring him an SI. He presented himself as a champion of women, including an executive producer credit on feminist comedy series Better Things and Tig Notaro’s Amazon series—PH. He also scored in LT and OS, with constant references to semi-consensual situations in his comedy and writing career. His manager, Dave Becky, reportedly threatened legal action against some of his accusers, which counts in the CO category.
Aziz Ansari: 1 Harvey
There’s a reason that this is often described as a tipping point in the #MeToo movement—he only scores a couple of Harveys. Feminists were upset at his perceived hypocrisy, but he only ever had one accuser and seemed to immediately take responsibility both in texts to her and after the allegations surfaced. It was easy to dismiss Ansari’s behavior as a one-time mistake, and he didn’t really lose any gigs. His name pops up in these discussions because the allegations are such a flashpoint, but he will definitely be able to bounce back.
Matt Lauer: 5 Harveys
Lauer earned his place on this list because of alleged long-running predatory behavior at NBC. Though there seemed to be little in the way of a cover-up, Lauer’s case checked boxes for SI, PH, MA, LT, and OS. The “rape button,” though it turned out to be a normal feature of NBC executive offices, left such a strong impression that his office was straight up demolished rather than gotten a new occupant. Video also surfaced of Katie Couric telling Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live that Lauer would regularly pinch her ass. Lauer scored hypocrite points for grilling Bill O’Reilly on-air about sexual harassment, all while allegedly doing much the same himself.
Asia Argento: 4 Harveys
The list’s only dual entry comes as Argento became both the accuser and the accused during the #MeToo moment. She accused Weinstein of raping her, though acknowledging they subsequently had a long consensual sexual relationship. She took her place at the vanguard of the #MeToo movement until August, when the New York Times published news of a settlement she had reached with her own accuser, Jimmy Bennett, who said she had sex with him when he was just 17 and she was 37. Argento met Bennett when he was 7 and they filmed The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, which she also directed and helped write—that’s LT, especially since he plays his mother in the movie. Her major PH was buttressed by the SI of a photograph of the pair in bed on the night of the alleged assault. The $380,000 payment to Bennett in exchange for copyright of the image qualifies her for CO. That’s a 4-Harvey total, which puts her in the middle of the pack of #MeToo celebs.
Kevin Spacey: 4 Harveys
Though the fall from grace was swift and severe, Spacey’s scandal wasn’t as spectacular as some of the others on this list. His FA, Anthony Rapp, accused him of attempted sexual assault when Rapp was just 14. Subsequently, the Old Vic theater in London received 20 additional complaints of sexual misconduct (MA). Spacey’s statement, which focused mainly on the actor’s closeted gay sexuality, was close enough to PH that it only fanned the flames.
Design by Camile Mariet
