Athena Film Festival gives voice to “silence breakers”

Accusers of disgraced entertainment moguls Harvey Weinstein and Russell Simmons feel that justice has been served in Weinstein’s conviction of sex crimes, but the accusers believe that there’s still a long way to go before the entertainment industry and society at large make sweeping changes because of the #MeToo movement. Weinstein accusers Sarah Ann Masse and Jasmine Lobe, along with Simmons accusers Drew Dixon and Sheri Sher, expressed their thoughts on a Feb. 29 panel called “The Silence Breakers” at the 10th annual female-centric Athena Film Festival, held at Barnard College in New York City. The panel, which took place before a capacity crowd of about 250, was moderated by The Hollywood Reporter executive film editor Tatiana Siegel, who covers the #MeToo movement extensively.

On Feb. 24, a New York City jury of seven men and five women convicted Weinstein of a first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape. He was acquitted of the three most serious charges: two counts of predatory sexual assault and one count of first-degree rape. His sentencing is expected on March 11.

Masse is an actress who says that Weinstein sexually harassed her during a job interview in 2008. She shared her reaction to hearing the verdict that made Weinstein a convicted rapist: “I was really relieved. It felt like a weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders for 12 years had been lifted … I was expecting him to get away with it, like he had for decades.” Masse said because trials for rape and other sexual assaults have very low conviction rates, “the fact that [Weinstein] was found guilty is actually extraordinary.”

Writer/actress Lobe, who claims that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 2006, said on the panel: “There was a tremendous sense of victory. We were all preparing for the worst.” Like the other accusers on the panel, Lobe went public and named names in the first few months of the #MeToo resurgence that began in October 2017, when The New York Times and The New Yorker published Pulitzer Prize–winning reports detailing sexual-misconduct allegations against Weinstein.

Dixon, a former A&R executive at Def Jam Records and Arista Records, says that Simmons raped her in 1995. Def Jam/Rush Communications founder Simmons stepped down from his businesses in 2017, shortly after several women came forward with similar allegations. Like Weinstein, Simmons has denied all of the accusations. Unlike Weinstein, Simmons has not been arrested for any of these allegations, although Simmons has been under police investigation for sex crimes and he is being sued in California by a woman who claims he raped her in 1988. Dixon commented on the Weinstein rape conviction: “It is a game-changer, a watershed moment.”

Sher, a founding member of the all-female hip-hop group Mercedes Ladies, claims that Simmons raped her in 1983, at the beginning of her career and when he was a rising star in the music industry. After the Weinstein verdict, there’s a “sense that it’s a new era. It’s time to change. It’s real,” said Sher. Dixon and Sher are among the Simmons accusers featured in the documentary film On the Record (directed by Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick), which HBO Max will begin streaming sometime this year, after executive producer Oprah Winfrey and Apple TV+ backed away from the project.

Even though several alleged sexual predators have been facing legal consequences since the resurgence of the #MeToo movement (which Tarana Burke founded in 2006), all of the panelists say that there’s still a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done to stop the culture of enabling that allows sexual predators to get away with their misdeeds.

Dixon said, “It’s important that we take these conversations and this awareness and translate it into something tangible.” On Feb. 6, Dixon was among the survivors invited by the Democratic Women’s Caucus to testify in Washington, D.C., at the hearing on “Honoring #MeToo Silence Breakers with Action: Ensuring Safe and Dignified Workplaces for All.”

Some states in America have passed laws restricting the use of nondisclosure agreements for settlements involving sexual misconduct. In addition, some states have extended or temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for sex crimes, so that survivors can take legal action. The silence breakers on the Athena Film Festival panel said that these changes should be made in all states, not just a few.

Dixon said that things get complicated when the accused predators are responsible for creating jobs, fame, and wealth for numerous people. In order for real changes to take place, “People have to be ethical and brave in positions of power, with access to capital,” Dixon noted.

Although Masse praised Time’s Up (the nonprofit launched in 2018 to combat sexual misconduct and gender inequality) for helping #MeToo survivors with legal cases, she said Time’s Up and similar organizations could do more to offer job assistance for accusers whose careers were damaged by retaliation.

“I feel like I’ve been screaming into a void about career retaliation,” said Masse, who also shared, “I'm trying to start a survivor-run production company, where the focus will be on producing projects by silence breakers and survivors." She has also launched Hire Survivors Hollywood, an online initiative to encourage the hiring of silence breakers and other survivors in the entertainment industry. She and the other panelists said that people in power need to step up and take similar action.

Accusers invariably experience backlash, and Dixon noted that Black women who accuse Black men are particularly vulnerable, because some members of the Black community will automatically label accusers as traitors to their race. She added that because Black men are often mistreated in the legal system, “there’s this loyalty conundrum that comes up for Black women who are abused by Black men.” However, she added that people who aren’t doing anything wrong shouldn’t be afraid of the #MeToo movement.

Ultimately, sexual misconduct and gender discrimination aren’t just problems in the media and entertainment industries. Everyone has a responsibility to fight these problems, the panelists noted. Dixon said, “If you see something, say something. You call it out. You don’t laugh it off. If you see behavior that’s abusive or crossing a line, I can assure that what you’re not seeing behind closed doors might be worse.”