MeToo, phase 2: Documentary shines overdue light on music industry
In one of the most compelling scenes in “On the Record,” a powerful new documentary about sexual violence, former music executive Drew Dixon walks to a coffee shop and buys the New York Times. On the front page is the story in which she and two others accuse the powerful hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, her former boss, of rape. Dixon examines the article, carefully folds the paper back up, puts on a wool cap — and crumples into silent tears.
“On the Record,” by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, provides a searingly intimate portrayal of the agonizing process of calculating whether to go public. Beyond that, it shines an overdue light on the music industry, where sexual harassment is “just baked into the culture,” in the words of Sil Lai Abrams, another Simmons accuser featured in the film.
The project also has been associated with controversy, due to Oprah Winfrey’s well-documented withdrawal as executive producer just before the Sundance Film Festival, scuttling a distribution deal with Apple. Winfrey later acknowledged Simmons had called her and waged a pressure campaign, but said that wasn’t why she bailed.
The film has moved on. It opened at Sundance to cheers and two emotional standing ovations, and was soon picked up by HBO Max, where it premieres Wednesday.
For Dixon, vindication at Sundance was sweet. “Just standing there, on our own, and realizing that we were enough,” she said of the premiere in an interview last week along with Abrams and accuser Sherri Hines. “That our courage was enough. That none of us waffled. None of us buckled. That we were strong enough to defend ourselves and each other.”
Less than two years earlier, Dixon had been plagued by doubt. She’d expected that the film, which began shooting before she decided to go public, would be a general look at #MeToo and the music industry. But then the directors wanted to focus more on her journey. “The idea of being blackballed by the black community was really scary,” she said. “But I also felt this pressure, this responsibility to be brave, to highlight the experience of black women as survivors. The opportunity might never come again.”
Dixon was in her 20s when she got her dream job at Simmons’ Def Jam Recordings. The daughter of two Washington, D.C. politicians — her mother, Sharon Pratt, was mayor — she attended Stanford University, then moved to New York.
As her star rose at Def Jam, she assumed that would immunize her from what she describes as Simmons’ constant harassment: He would come into her office, lock the door and expose himself. Then in 1995, she says, he lured her to his apartment with the excuse of a demo CD she needed to hear. He told her to get it from the bedroom, she says, and then came in wearing only a condom, and raped her.
Simmons has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. “I have never been violent or forced myself on anyone,” he said in a statement issued late Tuesday.
The film weaves together Dixon’s and multiple other accusations against Simmons with key voices of women of color like Tarana Burke, who founded the #MeToo movement, and law professor Kimberle Williams Crenshaw.
