NEW YORK: Mira Sorvino believes the key to eradicating sexual misconduct lies more in preventative education than in “naming and shaming” perpetrators.
The Oscar-winning actress was one of the first to come forward with allegations of abuse against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, and her resilience has not wavered.
She wants to work with students — from younger grades to the end of high school — to make them understand consent and their physical rights.
“So we don’t raise boys — because it’s mostly boys who do this, some girls, but mostly boys — who turn into men who commit these heinous crimes,” Sorvino told The Associated Press during a recent interview while promoting her role on the new season of the Sony Crackle series, “StartUp.”
Sorvino agrees that the culture has changed over the past year, but feels there’s a long way to go, especially when bad behavior is validated in entertainment.
“That was sort of taught to us by like ‘80s movies culture like ‘Sixteen Candles’ or ‘Porky’s’ or ‘Animal House’ which made it OK to commit date rape and it was the women’s fault because she was drunk rather than, ‘That’s date rape.’ How could you possibly take advantage of somebody who can’t even speak?’” she said.
She added: “’That’s not cool. That’s not fun.’ But that’s what my generation of guys were brought up on. I mean I was brought up watching those movies, so we’ve got to change the culture. It can’t just be punishment and naming and shaming, it’s got to be prevention because that’s what we really want. We want no one victimized,” Sorvino said.
Sorvino has found some solace as a prominent voice in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. Advancements by these organizations have become a rallying cry for women victimized over the years by varying degrees of sexual misconduct. On Dec. 1, she will join the Mika Brzezinski-led line-up for the “Know Your Value” event in San Francisco, which is designed to support and empower women.
She’s kept acting, too. In “StartUp,” Sorvino plays a quirky NSA agent with a deadly side that tries to take down a dark-web site to find a terror cell. The series raises questions about online privacy and the government. It’s currently streaming on Sony Crackle.
She also has helped lobby for legislation in California that provides protections and opportunities for women and girls. Three of the bills presented under the proposed #TakeTheLead legislation have been enacted into law after being singed by California Gov. Jerry Brown.
And she has bigger plans in mind, namely a change to the US Constitution guaranteeing equal rights for women.
“This year coming up I really want to see the Equal Rights Amendment passed. It’s nuts that we don’t have explicit equality in the constitution,” Sorvino said.
Mira Sorvino urges #MeToo to do more than ‘name and shame’
Mira Sorvino urges #MeToo to do more than ‘name and shame’
Decoding villains at an Emirates LitFest panel in Dubai
DUBAI: At this year’s Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai, a panel on Saturday titled “The Monster Next Door,” moderated by Shane McGinley, posed a question for the ages: Are villains born or made?
Novelists Annabel Kantaria, Louise Candlish and Ruth Ware, joined by a packed audience, dissected the craft of creating morally ambiguous characters alongside the social science that informs them. “A pure villain,” said Ware, “is chilling to construct … The remorselessness unsettles you — How do you build someone who cannot imagine another’s pain?”
Candlish described character-building as a gradual process of “layering over several edits” until a figure feels human. “You have to build the flesh on the bone or they will remain caricatures,” she added.
The debate moved quickly to the nature-versus-nurture debate. “Do you believe that people are born evil?” asked McGinley, prompting both laughter and loud sighs.
Candlish confessed a failed attempt to write a Tom Ripley–style antihero: “I spent the whole time coming up with reasons why my characters do this … It wasn’t really their fault,” she said, explaining that even when she tried to excise conscience, her character kept expressing “moral scruples” and second thoughts.
“You inevitably fold parts of yourself into your creations,” said Ware. “The spark that makes it come alive is often the little bit of you in there.”
Panelists likened character creation to Frankenstein work. “You take the irritating habit of that co‑worker, the weird couple you saw in a restaurant, bits of friends and enemies, and stitch them together,” said Ware.
But real-world perspective reframed the literary exercise in stark terms. Kantaria recounted teaching a prison writing class and quoting the facility director, who told her, “It’s not full of monsters. It’s normal people who made a bad decision.” She recalled being struck that many inmates were “one silly decision” away from the crimes that put them behind bars. “Any one of us could be one decision away from jail time,” she said.
The panelists also turned to scientific findings through the discussion. Ware cited infant studies showing babies prefer helpers to hinderers in puppet shows, suggesting “we are born with a natural propensity to be attracted to good.”
Candlish referenced twin studies and research on narrative: People who can form a coherent story about trauma often “have much better outcomes,” she explained.
“Both things will end up being super, super neat,” she said of genes and upbringing, before turning to the redemptive power of storytelling: “When we can make sense of what happened to us, we cope better.”
As the session closed, McGinley steered the panel away from tidy answers. Villainy, the authors agreed, is rarely the product of an immutable core; more often, it is assembled from ordinary impulses, missteps and circumstances. For writers like Kantaria, Candlish and Ware, the task is not to excuse cruelty but “to understand the fragile architecture that holds it together,” and to ask readers to inhabit uncomfortable but necessary perspectives.
