On Thursday, following a week of revelations that Harvey Weinstein has been the subject of decades of accusations of sexual misconduct and abuse, Emma Thompson told the BBC that she believes the abuse of women by powerful men is "endemic to the system" in Hollywood, due in part to the gender imbalance in the industry.
That system is the product of about a century of economic, business and media history. And, while Hollywood is certainly not the only industry in which those dynamics were in play over the course of the 20th century, it provides a stark window into how those elements can create a toxic culture.
"The idea of promising a role or promoting you for sexual favors is as old as the oldest Hollywood plot,” as Cari Beauchamp, author of Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood and several other books of Hollywood history. However, Beauchamp adds, the power dynamics that allow someone to get away with that kind of quid pro quo are the product of a specific moment in time.
Hollywood in its very early days was not in fact the kind of place in which the infamous “casting couch” culture could flourish the way it later would. Women (like Frances Marion) flourished in early Hollywood and often held positions of great influence in what was then a scrappy, highly diffuse industry. With hundreds of tiny companies experimenting in a new medium, there was lots of room for people who would not otherwise have advanced in more traditional businesses—like women.