‘The Deuce’ Might Have Been Dismissed If Show Premiered After Weinstein Scandal

“The Deuce” co-creator David Simon said that his HBO series about sexual commodification might have been snubbed by many if it premiered in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

“We knew we hadn’t made something that was exploitative,” Simon told The Hollywood Reporter. “The fact that it has nudity and shows exploitative nature on the part of men doesn’t in any way make it exploitative. But can you imagine if we had followed the revelations about Harvey? I guarantee you half of the people, without even waiting to see it, would have taken in the headlines and said, ‘See, this is the kind of stuff Hollywood makes.’”

“The Deuce” premiered on HBO in September, while accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape against Weinstein started to surface in October. But even before the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, Simon and his frequent collaborator George Pelecanos already wanted to make sure that the show’s portrayal of women was right, so they enlisted three female directors and two female writers to keep the balance of power in check during the entire Season 1 of “The Deuce.”

Those female directors were Michelle MacLaren, Uta Briesewitz, and Roxann Dawson, while the two female writers were Megan Abbott and Lisa Lutz.

“I think they’re very aware that they don’t see things from a woman’s point of view,” Lutz told the Los Angeles Times when asked why she thinks Simon and Pelecanos added her and Abbott to the team.

“Women are trained to watch, read and think about everything from both a male and female point of view, added Abbott. “When we started, their impulse was to focus on the victimization of these women instead of giving them agency. So [we’d say], ‘All prostitutes are not all the same. They don’t all respond to their sex work in the same way.’ We were trying to be sure to get a range of experiences among the women and have some of the stories be driven by them instead of them just being the victim in the storyline.”

“That meant showing them as being aggressive — even if that just means being passive-aggressive, sabotaging their pimps in some ways,” explained Lutz.

“The Deuce,” which ended its eight-episode freshman run last month, is already renewed for Season 2. The production for the new season is set to start in February next year.