Stop Congratulating Yourselves, Hollywood. You Hypocritical, Self-Serving Cowards.

An actress showed up on the Golden Globes red carpet last night wearing a sweatshirt with the words “Poverty is Sexist” emblazoned across it. The sweatshirt costs $380. It was a perfect microcosm of the entire night, and the film industry as a whole: vapid, ridiculous, clueless, meaningless, self-serving, self-righteous, self-defeating, hypocritical, phony.

I didn’t watch the event because I decided to stab butter knives into my eye sockets instead, but the media tells me that the ceremony was “inspiring” and “powerful,” as all of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities took turns making theatrical statements in condemnation of their own cowardice and degeneracy. The women wore black dresses in protest against sexual harassment, and the men showed solidarity by boldly wearing the same black tuxedos they would have worn anyway. The slogan of the night was “Time’s Up,” because the fake campaign against sexual harassment didn’t already have enough slogans.

Oprah Winfrey took a break from smooching Harvey Weinstein to deliver a rousing speech about the need to believe and defend women who are abused. The night went on like this, apparently. The viewing audience was subjected to one moralizing lecture after another from people who either participated in, or kept their mouth shut about, Hollywood’s sexual assault problem until they had no choice but to speak against it. Now they want us to applaud their courage. And many people seem more than happy to oblige.

Not me.

Imagine if Penn State had thrown itself a party months after the Sandusky scandal broke, given itself awards, and wagged its finger at everyone else, scolding us for our failure to defend the innocent. I doubt the event would have come to a close before the ballroom was swarmed by an angry mob and the attendees were forced to flee while being pelted with their plates of caviar. Of course I would never wish such a fate upon our illustrious film stars (though it would have been the most entertaining thing to ever happen at an awards show, hands down) but I think such a response from the general public would have been healthy. Healthier, anyway, than falling to our knees in praise and thanksgiving, not only forgiving Hollywood for the evil it has done, but allowing it to reclaim its false position as a moral authority empowered to instruct to common man and harangue him for his ethical failings. But this is precisely how so many in the general public seem to have responded.

While the media spends all week congratulating Hollywood for its moving performance at the Golden Globes, we should keep in mind that none of the people who took the stage or sat in that auditorium — not a single one of them — spoke out against Hollywood’s sex abuse problem prior to October of this past year. What changed in October? The problem became public knowledge, leaving every actor and actress in the business no choice but to finally “take a stand.” The common threads explaining both their silence and their conveniently timed, self-congratulatory protest are these: self-preservation and professional ambition.

These cowards — both the men and the women, equally — not only tolerated the predators in their midst but heaped adulation on them for years. Woody Allen won the lifetime achievement at these same Golden Globes only four years ago. Meryl Streep went on stage at the Golden Globes in 2012 and called Harvey Weinstein a “god.” Roman Polanski, child rapist, received a standing ovation at the Academy Awards in 2002. The list goes on. Natalie Portman is being praised for taking a bratty little swipe at the “all-male” directing award nominees, but she didn’t seem to have much problem with Hollywood’s male predators last year when she wined and dined with Kevin Spacey, a man well known in the industry for his affinity for underage boys.

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