Happily ever after

Me,too.

Perhaps female and minority viewers were once more tolerant of films that offered only caricatures of themselves, or omitted their likenesses altogether. Probably, many always felt short-changed, but Hollywood was too self-involved to notice. Now, however, the studios seem poised to learn from the hits these audiences turn out for, rather than dismissing them as outliers. Meanwhile women writers and directors are beginning to provide actors with more complex female roles—a trend that the scandal has accelerated.

All this matters beyond Hollywood, because its products are not like other industries’. Television and films have vast power to shape the way their audiences see themselves and other people. If the Weinstein episode circuitously leads to more rounded depictions of women on screens around the world, this grim saga might find a sort of happy ending