After five years of MeToo, things have come full circle.

There, where it all began, with two journalists, with actresses and assistants, with an egomaniacal film mogul and a system that protects him called Hollywood;

with rumors and out-of-court settlements, two well-researched articles followed by a hashtag whose impact would reach far beyond Los Angeles.

Now the story is returning to its place of origin: Hollywood.

Caroline O Jebens

Editor in the “Society & Style” department.

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The film "She Said", which has just started in Germany, tells the story of the research that was to lead to the famous article that appeared in the "New York Times" in autumn 2017.

This now fictionalized research had very real consequences: Harvey Weinstein has now been sentenced to 23 years in prison and is now back on trial in Los Angeles.

82 women had accused him of abuse.

However, art products like "She Said" suggest a seclusion that doesn't exist away from the screen.

Because as drastic as the Weinstein case was, the extreme abuse of power that was revealed in it stood for a structural problem: a sense of entitlement that culminated in sexual assault.

MeToo made it clear how widespread this problem was.

This is precisely where the movement has been very successful: there seems to be a consensus among large parts of the population, if not everywhere, that certain things are wrong.

Numerous cases of sexual abuse have ended up in court and in the media.

In the two largest cases of recent years - Jeffrey Epstein and R. Kelly - which involved rape, human trafficking and abuse of minors, the allegations had been known since the mid-1990s without having had far-reaching consequences before MeToo .

The victims were white - and privileged

Nevertheless, one can wonder what has happened up to now, five years after the beginning of the movement.

Is the social media that made MeToo possible still a vehicle to demand justice?

Is there a structural change that goes beyond the prominent individual cases?

And what does the development of the movement say about feminism today?

At the beginning of MeToo, in the Weinstein case, it was initially about sexual harassment in the workplace.

It was no coincidence that this question arose in Hollywood of all places, a place that is far removed from ordinary workplaces.

Firstly, because the number of harassment in the film business, an industry that thrives on the beautiful and powerful, could be more blatant than in other areas of work.

On the other hand, because in Hollywood not only the men but also the women are powerful.

In the film, New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor (played by Zoe Kazan) asks her colleague Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) if she wants to help with her research, and Megan Twohey replies dryly, why?

Aren't there other women who are more in need of protection?

After all, these women (white and privileged) already have a voice.