The Sour Smell of Victory: Harvey Weinstein’s Legal Win and the Message It Sends

The overturn of Harvey Weinstein’s New York rape conviction sent waves of nausea and resignation through the entertainment industry. One film executive who formerly worked with Weinstein viscerally recalls how she felt on the day in March 2020 when the disgraced movie mogul was sentenced to 23 years in prison: “I personally felt a lot of relief, knowing that he was behind bars. I just felt safer moving through the world.” Before the rise of #MeToo, a film producer believed that a powerful man like Weinstein was “unstoppable—he could do anything and break any rules.” The conviction proved to her that, “finally, there were consequences.”

Both women were horrified this week when they woke up to headlines announcing that the disgraced mogul’s New York conviction had been overturned on appeal. It was like having the stitches ripped open on a monstrous wound. “There was a lot of hope and change in the air,” the producer says, “and it kind of feels like we’re backtracking…. It feels to me now like the pendulum is swinging back the other way.”

The 2017 unearthing of Weinstein’s grotesquely predatory behavior helped spark a mass exorcism that became #MeToo, and his New York trial was one of the first major criminal cases to emerge from the reckoning. More than 80 women eventually accused Weinstein of assault or misconduct, but the Manhattan case focused on just two: former aspiring actor Jessica Mann, who alleged that Weinstein raped her in 2013, and former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley, who alleged that he forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006.

Other women also testified during the trial to establish a pattern of bad behavior on Weinstein’s part. They included actor Annabella Sciorra, who accused Weinstein of raping her in the early ’90s and then harassing her for years afterward. (Weinstein has long denied all the allegations the women have made against him.) It was this testimony from additional women that contributed to the decision to overturn the verdict, according to the New York State Court of Appeals. “We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” New York’s highest court declared in the ruling.

“I thought the approach that was taken by the prosecutors in the case really gave some life and meaning to the experiences of victims of sexual violence,” says Anita Hill, who helped educate Americans about sexual harassment back in the day and is currently chair of the Hollywood Commission, which aims to end harassment and abuse in the entertainment industry. “Sexual assault is not a simple crime to prove, and it’s nuanced in terms of the different ways that people respond to sexual violence. And so I thought [bringing in other women to testify] was very helpful—it humanized the people who were bringing the suit and helped explain their behavior and response to the violence of the experience.” Hill says that the testimonies of other women with similar experiences provided important context in this case, because Weinstein was not just another creep—he was powerful enough that he could ensure accusers and those around him would stay silent.

Weinstein’s downfall rattled Hollywood enough to raise consciousness about sexual assault and put in place new systems for avoiding and reporting abuse. Many insiders believe that things have improved since the dawn of #MeToo, but the Hollywood Commission’s 2022–2023 survey of more than 5,200 entertainment-industry workers found that there were still high rates of misconduct and that it was heavily underreported, as only 31% of respondents believed “it is likely that a powerful harasser will be held accountable.” Hill confirms that regardless of respondent demographics, “there was never a category where a majority of people believed that a powerful man would be held responsible.”

I think about something a veteran movie producer told me more than a year ago while discussing what had changed in Hollywood since #MeToo. “Men are afraid to behave badly because there have been enough situations where [they] are now suffering consequences,” she said. “It would be nice if that wasn’t the only motivation for behavior to improve. But I’ll take it, you know?”

So what happens when a landmark case like Weinstein’s goes up in smoke? Does the threat of consequences diminish? Not that the disgraced mogul will be taking off his prison uniform anytime soon. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has vowed to do everything it can to retry the case, and Weinstein still has a 16-year sentence to serve for similar charges in Los Angeles—though he has filed a notice of appeal in California. Could Weinstein, avatar of the shitty media men whom #MeToo vowed to curb, end up walking free?

The former Weinstein Company executive I spoke to is emotionally fried by this turn of events, but she’s mostly disturbed by the idea of victims being made to testify again: “To put all of these women through this all over again is just so traumatizing for them…. I also can speak from experience that once [Weinstein] is out of your life, you want to close that door forever.”

I ask Hill if she thinks the overturn of this landmark case will make victims less likely to come forward in the future. “Every time there’s a setback, we hear the same thing: that people will not come forward now,” she says. “And every time they do.” Hill believes that outrage can help: “Knowing that there is a public out there that actually does believe in justice for victims of sexual violence—that is helpful. [I] really wish that we didn’t have to get the outcry in this particular way, but it can have a positive effect…. This effort to end sexual violence is something that is ongoing, [and] we can’t unsee the things that we’ve seen.”