Meryl Streep 'truthers' are a distraction from America's Harvey Weinstein problem

It's very possible some people didn't know about Harvey Weinstein's decades of harassment allegations. Here's why.

Meryl Streep backstage
(Image credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Turner)

When Harvey Weinstein, one of Hollywood's biggest movers and shakers, was fired — by the board of his own company, for a predatory pattern of alleged sexual misconduct — America went into one of its periodic paroxysms of blame. How did this happen? Why did it happen?

There are millions of answers, of course: It happened, first and foremost, because of Weinstein. Structural inequality in no way mitigates the predatory cruelty it took for one man to allegedly victimize dozens of women. But there are structural factors too. This happened thanks to toxic cultural scripts that make concepts like "the casting couch" seem sleazy but pragmatic. It happened because we teach men like Weinstein that their worst impulses will be celebrated and defended. It happened because Hollywood is stuffed with cutthroat James Damores who fancy themselves maverick truth-tellers. Impressed by their own "objectivity," these self-described realists secretly believe that sexism is a myth and Hollywood a meritocracy.

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Lili Loofbourow

Lili Loofbourow is the culture critic at TheWeek.com. She's also a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Review of Books and an editor for Beyond Criticism, a Bloomsbury Academic series dedicated to formally experimental criticism. Her writing has appeared in a variety of venues including The Guardian, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Slate.