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Oct 05, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Amanda Palmer

One year ago today The New York Times published Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey‘s article that exposed Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and the years of sexual harassment and assault allegations against him. Back in May Amanda Palmer teamed up with Welsh singer/songwriter Jasmine Power for the new song “Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now,” which addressed the situation and the #MeToo movement. Now, on the one-year anniversary of The New York Times article, Palmer and Power have shared a video for the song. Noemie Lafrance directed and choreographed the powerful video, which features several different women in what seems like a hotel suite. Sixty different women worked on the video, either behind or in front of the camera. Be warned, it is NSFW due to some nudity at the end. Watch it below.

Amanda Palmer had this to say about the video in a press release: “For an entire day, a congregation of women worked together to create a collective battle-cry response to this moment in time. Working on this project fundamentally changed me inside. The act of running, sweating, laughing, and filming with this group of powerful, determined, and shamelessly naked women was a stark reminder of what we are capable of doing when we join forces, roll up our sleeves, take off our masks, and create.”

Director Noemie Lafrance had this to say: “How does one talk about rape, or even harder, illustrate it in a music video? It is too painful of a subject, and in many ways a taboo subject. What inspired me about the song is that it dared talking about rape in all of its different shades of grey. There is a line in the song that particularly moved me: ‘...let’s get this over with’ because it explores the fine lines of coercion. I felt that in the context of the Weinstein story it encapsulated the real sadness in this for all parties. I wanted the video to reflect that and be about the sadness, rather than the atrocity.”

The video was funded by Palmer’s 11,000 Patreon supporters. Palmer comments on this: “The fact that this video was essentially crowdfunded through my Patreon is no coincidence. Female artists are grabbing back creative control by going straight to the people who want to hear their stories and voices. My old major label would have never, EVER signed onto this idea. I can just imagine going into their offices and saying ‘Hey, I want to make a strange, operatic duet about sexual assault and just release it to the Internet next week, for free to the public. Oh and the video - which will also make no profit and be totally unplayable on most channels because it’ll be nude and graphic - will cost about $40k that you’ll never see again.’ They would have laughed me out of the room. That is why crowdfunding and patronage are becoming so insanely powerful right now: feminist art and expressions like this are essential, and cannot be about making a profit. We need to be able to create powerful artistic statements without having to appease a toxic and corrosive marketplace.”

Jasmine Power also had this to say about the video in the press release: “As we directed the chorus members through our song chorus, I felt this overwhelming emotion come over me as I gazed into the eyes of each and every woman singing along. There were moments while watching the monitors where I felt shudders of pain and sparks of excitement run through my entire body. The day felt powerful, dark, fearless and then light when I would respond to a grateful smile of another woman on set, as she would say ‘thank you for writing this.’ I hope my children will watch this video one day and be relieved that times have changed.”

Finally, Palmer had this to add: “We rented the space from an Episcopalian church - which felt poetic to me, having been raised as a little choir girl in that lineage. We were worried for a minute that the minister - who was a woman - was about to shut down the production, because she was looking at our outdoor warm-up from across the street and looking concerned. Then she came over to the set, watched what we were filming, and asked if we would please come back to screen the finished video for all the women of her congregation. Women are rising up, everywhere. Change is happening at every level.”

Palmer and Power met at a dinner party and despite never hearing each other’s music before, they entered the studio only three days later to create new music, partly inspired by the #MeToo movement. British film-music arranger Sketch & Dodds later added strings and orchestration.

Read our 2016 interview with Palmer.

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