We don't hear much about MeToo these days, do we? Last I heard it was in SNL jokes.
When actress Asia Argento openly threatened powerful men in Hollywood, the series of events that followed could be viewed in different ways. One way is to think that everything was accidental, from the death of her boyfriend to her degrading downfall that coincided with Metoo losing all momentum and luster - at least in the mainstream media where she was considered one of the movement's leaders.
Asia Argento was openly out for revenge during her speech at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017. She was fighting power with power. When I saw all the admiring posts, I was not on board - I thought it was unwise at best - and was curious as to what would follow, since I thought what she did was to serve up a raw challenge for the network.
Most people in the film industry are too caught up in the power trap themselves to represent the MeToo movement, which was grassroots, made up of a vast amount of primarily women who had quietly suffered sexual harassment, molestation or rape, who were inspired to finally break their silence and share their stories, mostly through social media posts on their own accounts. Argento is clearly caught up in the power system, which is itself trauma-based. That is to say that her desire for revenge expressed in her speech at Cannes was likely already a projection coming out of her own unresolved trauma.
The network records the crime of pedophilia as its main tool to blackmail its own members, in case the insiders ever threaten to reveal network secrets or break some other internal rules that upset the more powerful members. We have cases in which those who challenged some aspect of network were faced with charges of sexual abuse of minors. There is a tendency to believe such charges are false per se, as if the act of challenging a facet of the power machine from within automatically makes a person innocent. Sometimes charges may be trumped up against whistleblowers, but inside the network and its entertainment branch, children are abused and pushed to perpetrate from a very young age. Why would such charges be invented, if the entire system is built specifically around that particular form of blackmail?
In 2020, Harvey Weinstein was the “sacrificial lamb” to protect the greater, darker secrets of the network. However, he may also still be protected. Without relieving the accused of any guilt, those cases that made it to the courts and the mainstream spotlight have some questionable elements. Some of the details indicate consensus and potential casting couch situations which could be challenged. If and when Weinstein appeals his conviction he could possibly be released at a much earlier date then the 23-year verdict that was blasted across news channels would suggest. Once the attention has been successfully diverted from the deeper, darker, more pervasive and more prevalent truth, once Weinstein is no longer the key media figure representing Hollywood sexual predators, anything can happen.
The network also likes to create hopelessness and helplessness in both survivors and those who are aware of the darker truth behind the power system by allowing Hollywood figures to be awarded for their work or otherwise celebrated and featured in the media as if sexual scandals attached to their name never meant anything, as if we should all just pretend nothing ever happened or that the sex crimes were not important.
It is still a question whether in any of the publicized cases, the network sought to punish or humiliate those perpetrators that were outed for some other, inside purpose. Usually exploitation operates on multiple levels at once. Either way, the charges most widely featured in the news outlets are still an extremely watered-down version of what actually happens in the network circles of Hollywood, the music industry or among billionaires.
Jimmy Bennett, the young man who accused Argento of rape when he was a minor was six years old when Argento played his mother in a film she co-wrote. When he was 17, they ended up in bed together, and he took a photo. While the idea of an adult woman sleeping with a minor she has known in his early childhood is disgusting, sex with a 17 year old is not frowned upon in Hollywood at all - it would only ever become a thing when it needs to be used to destroy someone’s reputation, because they have publicly challenged a secret of the industry.
Argento’s public insistence that she was the 17-year old's victim is a classic pedo gaslighting move. But also, why did the 17-year old take a selfie in bed with her? It is possible that, as she says, he insisted on them getting together, and I would add maybe even to take the photo to complete an assignment in creating material against her - as children in the network are trained to do. For her, her behavior - of sleeping with a minor and then acting like the victim - points again to how symbolic repetitions of unresolved trauma are played out unconsciously, unless one focuses on healing instead of on power. Most of the time, those unconscious repetitions that lead to child abuse are not only acceptable, they are strongly encouraged inside the network’s culture. Again, the fact that they are illegal would only serve to defend the network’s secrets, never to bring truth to light.
In all of this, Anthony Bourdain's untimely death has been the most conveniently timed suicide in the history of MeToo’s media demise. Who knows what other reasons there could have been for his death, because, I repeat, exploitation usually operates on multiple levels, combining multiple nefarious purposes, but as Argento's ardent supporter, it would have been far more difficult to destroy her public image with him alive. After she was outed as a perpetrator, the entire movement was thrown under the bus by the press, who centered the validity of a powerful public sharing of sexual crimes entirely on a public argument between two actresses.
Next, you may have noticed how mainstream and alternative media have stopped publishing MeToo stories and maybe how SNL started joking about women complaining about anything through MeToo statements. The media and Hollywood are trying to render MeToo powerless, ridiculous and hypocritical.
Meanwhile people keep getting inspired to speak out and create change. Through the countless women who have come forward, big and subtle changes are happening, rippling effects we don’t yet know how they will change the culture. We don't need the media and power-addicted actresses to lead us in this movement - it belongs to us.
Following up on the MeToo revelations started by actresses uniting to speak up about sexual harassment, assault and rape by men in their industry: I would like to relate these events to power dynamics in this context:
The road to fame and power is paved with many spoken and unspoken deals, with crucial choices that determine whether a person is going to be big in the industry, or whether they are going to fail.
The actresses that were speaking up all were adult women, who may feel like victims as if they had no choice - but that is just not true. The choice was: have your integrity, and refuse to use the casting couch - and if you were raped or assaulted, speak out loud and clear to prevent other women from meeting the same fate. Or, handle the harassment or assault as best or as terrible as you can, and stay silent.
I'm not saying that I don't have understanding or compassion for these women; the options are often slim. However, the women who have as adults benefited from the very system they are now attacking are not convincing in their role as frail, vulnerable victims. That might have been so when they sexually abused or put through mind control as children, but when little victim parts are perverted in an adult playing a victim role, it is a set up to do harm, to obtain revenge, to regain the power lost during the original abuse.
The entirety of Hollywood and the network is stuck in an endless symbolic repeat of various dissociated aspects of childhood abuse, with certain parts submitting and obeying and other parts rebelling and seeking revenge. Only, inside the trauma-based system of the network, all these repetitions are meaningless. They are fluff to be recycled and create division, to create the illusion of change while setting up to make the entire issue disappear when the time is right.
Someone with a strong sense of self would never fall for the casting couch. Such a person will be sickened by the reality of Hollywood, and refuse to pay that price for any career. There are many such people, and they choose another path. It is those who are not that strong, those who do whatever it takes to be part of this dysfunctional family - perhaps resembling the family of origin - where the prize is the big secret. “I’ll do whatever it takes,” is code in Hollywood, spoken by those who want to belong to the club. Anything really does mean anything, once you realize that the industry is one enormous mind control operation rooted in satanism. Power, money and fame are prizes from the devil. Fame is one of the greatest love-substitutes that fakes self-esteem, hides cowardice, and makes it appear as if you are the strongest woman on earth.
Just like inside incestuous families, those children who remain faithful to the parents and stay silent, reap the rewards of inner family status and inheritance. Actors gain status on the world stage and are rewarded financially. These are perhaps women who were born in a network family, or as girls already experienced sexual or other abuse. While they had no choice in childhood, they can continue to blindly grope for external rewards in exchange for their soul.
I thought the world of Meryl Streep, believing in her powerful off-screen persona, until she gave a standing ovation to convicted child rapist Roman Polanski when he won an Oscar in absentia, and she commented: "I'm very sorry that he's in jail." She made it very clear where her loyalties lie. It also revealed that she is an emotionally immature woman who sides with the abusive power figure (in the name of his art, or whatever justification) at the expense of the child victim. By extension she betrays her own young self and all the girls and women who have ever been sexually assaulted.
Sexual abuse is used on children because it breaks down boundaries. Every child who is sexually or otherwise abused is psychic, which turns their physical vehicle into an easily opened channel. The best actors are extremely mentally pliable, and can, even without make up, appear physically different, depending on the character they inhabit. They are channeling an unintegrated part of themseves that may be shut out of their consciousness, or they may perhaps even channel another entity.
My own example is unusual, because I lacked the self-esteem from the extreme childhood sexual abuse, and was primed for power - yet chose against it at each step of the way. This happened not only in Hollywood but in the yoga world as well. They were clear choices, and in my case painful ones, because I did not have the self-esteem to feel good about myself, while the power addicts around me treated me like a big loser for my unconventional choices based on principles versus power. I experienced ridicule and bullying (yes, in the yoga world, of course) and felt the accompanying humiliation and powerlessness from childhood. I lacked the humility that true self-esteem makes possible. But in feeling the extreme discomfort and pain, I was able to trace back these feelings to their origin, and find healing. Our negative reactions to any circumstances are always there for us to learn from, to overcome, to be able to get to their psychological or spiritual source, so that we can transform ourselves.
I don’t easily name my childhood perpetrators because it is dangerous. Possibly it is more dangerous to name perpetrators in Hollywood, coming from someone who has an established platform and voice. There are many suicides and strange deaths that raise suspicion as to what was really going on behind the scenes. Did Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell not loudly speak out against child exploitation before their recent untimely deaths?
The question of MeToo and Hollywood is how much did you become part of the problem, how much did you enable the abuse? Can the actresses who were silent for decades honestly call themselves feminists? Are we still looking to the stars of Hollywood as role models? And what about politicians? Can we stop the partizan craze for a moment and stop to think that on both sides dangerous criminals are in charge? And that those who have survived these criminals can’t necessarily speak out about what they know, for various valid reasons that may have nothing to do with fear of being killed?
The hierarchy is trauma-based. The belief in authority is the most dangerous superstition. All those who have blindly accepted the good intentions of authorities, have become co-opted in the worst atrocities in the history of humankind.
Empowered human beings rely on their own moral compass to make their own choices, and make themselves accountable. Dysfunctional dependence on hypocritical power structures only serves those at the top, fueling the urge to climb the ranks and become part of the select few. Our numbers are so much larger, we can have the power anytime we want it.
Maybe we all are in need of more healing, and all this turmoil is only part of the collective healing process.