Let’s address the velvet elephant in the room straight away, darling readers. Dame Judi Dench the treasured British acting institution whose steely Lady Macbeth glare could silence entire theaters wants us all to go easy on convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein because, well, he’s got walking sticks now.

I wish this paragraph were satire. I wish we lived in a universe where a beloved 90 year old acting legend wasn’t currently doing rhetorical cartwheels to soften the image of a man found guilty of forcing oral sex on a production assistant while she sobbed saying ‘no’ repeatedly. But here we are, choking on our Earl Grey while watching the actress who gave us M from James Bond attempt the most baffling career rehabilitation project since Kevin Spacey’s ill advised Christmas videos.

Dench recently revealed she still texts with Spacey that other disgraced Hollywood heavyweight currently enjoying his own awkward post acquittal press tour. Her reason? The American Beauty star once comforted her after her husband’s death. Noble, I suppose, on paper. But herein lies the rot at the core of Tinseltown morality personal loyalty will forever trump public accountability if the offender once handed you a handkerchief or an Oscar.

The cognitive dissonance required to hold these two thoughts simultaneously fascinates me. On one hand, Dench acknowledges Weinstein’s victims deserve sympathy, a sentence she clearly inserted like legal fine print. On the other, she reduces proven rape to something repayable through prison time like parking tickets she calls it ‘personal forgiveness.’ Since when does an individual get to pardon crimes against other human beings? It’s as morally coherent as me announcing I’ve personally forgiven Ted Bundy because I once saw him hold open a door at a Denny’s.

My first fresh angle arrives like a flaming cannonball across the bow of polite discourse. Weinstein didn’t assault Dench, so her forgiveness means precisely nothing to survivors. That’s not empathy, that’s performative indulgence of a monster she admits championed her career. Let’s name this for what it is transactional kindness preserving her own legacy by maintaining loyalty to a predator who boosted her fame. How utterly convenient that forgiveness arrives decades later when Weinstein can’t help or hurt her Hollywood standing anymore.

Second course on our menu of moral reckoning. When exactly does the clock expire on rape? Dench asserts without evidence that Weinstein ‘did his time,’ but survivors like Miriam Haley who testified about being restrained and violated in his Manhattan apartment must endure lifelong trauma. Are we really taking prison time tips from the woman who played Queen Elizabeth like trauma comes with a punch card? Ten rapes gets one free?

I confess my third perspective comes coated in personal irritation. Like many women who grew up idolizing Dench’s formidable characters from M to Queen Victoria, I once admired how she carved space for complex older women in cinema. Now watching her dismiss criminal sexual assault because ‘he used to make good movies with me’ tastes bitter. It reminds me of hearing a revered professor defend Woody Allen a decade ago with ‘but he made Manhattan!’ as if artistic merit could bleach away moral rot.

That brings us neatly to Dench’s selective amnesia about Weinstein’s actual power structure. During their Shakespeare in Love collaboration where Weinstein famously bullied crews while campaigning for her Oscar she admitted knowing nothing of his misdeeds. Yet even after learning the horrific scope of allegations, she still reduces it to a personal grudge she’s graciously forgiven because time passed and his knees got creaky.

Let’s talk Weinstein’s speedy response to Dench’s remarks. Within hours, he released a statement enthusiastically thanking her while rehashing his tired ‘wrongful conviction’ narrative. Notice how predators turn into eager puppies when celebrities offer them bones of validation. Roman Polanski still photocopies every naive actor who says ‘he served enough time in exile’ for drugging and raping a child, including Dench herself who signed the 2009 petition demanding his release.

This patterns reveal something stomach churning about hierarchy in Hollywood. When Martin Scorsese writes passionate defenses of Polanski, or Sharon Stone insists Weinstein was just ‘flirting awkwardly,’ they reinforce an unspoken caste system where artists receive moral discounts unavailable to Walmart cashiers accused of theft. An industry built on fantasies increasingly treats accountability like a character arc that resolves neatly after a prison montage.

Don’t misunderstand me. Prison reform matters. Rehabilitation should be possible. But when multimillionaire offenders like Weinstein frame incarceration as cosmic injustice while survivors struggle with PTSD and career sabotage, excusing them because ‘they seem frail now’ insults everyone involved. It turns predators into martyrs and justice into a pantomime where standing ovations go to whoever plays the frail grandpa role best.

The entertainment industry must examine why it keeps trusting artists over victims. Might I suggest it’s easier to believe charming liars who make you rich than vulnerable women asking you to dismantle the system benefiting you? Just wild speculation.

Meanwhile Dench keeps working, bless her. She’s set to star in an upcoming adaptation of Romeo and Juliet opposite pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo. How perfectly Shakespearean that our Juliet now argues for clemency towards monstrous men. I suppose if Weinstein ever seeks stage work, Lear’s storm scene awaits with walking sticks and all.

And what of society’s role? I’d argue we enable this cycle by separating art from artist until convenience demands otherwise. We stream Chinatown but boycott Armie Hammer. We quote Spacey’s House of Cards lines at parties then gawk at his courtroom photos. Perhaps Dench’s comments sting so sharply because they reflect our own indecision about when to cancel and when to forgive.

My prescription? Admire the art. Condemn the crimes. Demand consequences proportionate to harm. And maybe don’t let charming old knights decide when rapists have suffered enough.