Last night, while watching the Academy Awards, three words kept popping through my skull.
They were: I fucked her.
The memory dates back, oh, six or seven years. I was in Los Angeles, being wined and dined at the Soho House by a man who wanted to sign me as a client. We were talking when he pulled out his iPhone and started to show me pictures of all the women he’d been having sex with of late. Many were naked. Some were half naked. They were all photos he said he took, and now—because, why not?—he was showing them to me.
“I fucked her, man.”
Pause.
“Fucked her, too.”
Pause.
“Check out her.”
Pause.
Needless to say, I didn’t sign with him (I also didn’t speak up enough, besides showing my disinterest. Which, in hindsight, sucks. Because silence is approval, isn’t it?). But I can say, in the years that have followed, I’ve met one disgusting Hollywood exec after another after another. They are, almost without fail, between the ages of 30 and, oh, 55. They’re all short. Most are Jewish. They all speak of women as if they were objects. And they all aspire (truly, all) to wind up with the hot 20-something off-the-bus blonde, big-breasted aspiring model. Or, put different, they all aspire to use their positions of power and authority to get laid.
Is this too harsh? No. I’ve had this conversation with others, and the typecast and stereotype holds true. And, sincerely, this is why the whole #metoo thing at last night’s Academy Awards made me shrug. Because while the women are 100-percent righteous and sincere and legit, I suspect many (if not most) of the men standing and applauding for Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino and the others could care less. To them, I believe, this is pure PR. You clap because everyone is clapping. You stand because everyone is standing. But do you actually want things to change? Do you want powerful women calling the shots?
Of course not. You want the hot 20-something off-the-bus blonde, big-breasted aspiring model.
That’s why you’re here.
Oh, and to make movies.
