On the day before news officially broke of alleged sexual harassment stretching back decades, Harvey Weinstein, the 65-year-old movie mogul, offered this comment: “The story sounds so good I want to buy the movie rights.”

In its blend of the glib, the acquisitive and plain braggadocio, it seemed an incredible response to a potentially career-ending exposé. Yet those familiar with the man Meryl Streep called “God” at the 2012 Golden Globes, know that he’s defined by an attitude of infallibility. In 2000, having allegedly assaulted a young reporter at a crowded party, Weinstein is said to have screamed: “It’s good I’m the fucking sheriff of this fucking lawless piece-of-shit town.” (Though several photographers were present, no images surfaced.) With more than 300 Oscar nominations to his name, he is one of the most powerful men in Hollywood,– a formidable, even unrivalled mix of art, celebrity, politics, money and power.

The New York Times story, the result of a far-reaching investigation by two female reporters, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, includes allegations of sexual harrassment and unwanted physical contact and reveals eight previously undisclosed settlements. A statement from Weinstein’s lawyer called the New York Times story “saturated with false and defamatory statements” and Weinstein is suing the paper.

Among the women who spoke on the record to the New York Times is actress Ashley Judd, who commented: “I said no a lot of ways, a lot of times. Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.” The implication that Weinstein’s misconduct was known in Hollywood and beyond has been widely echoed.

In 2015, journalist Jennifer Senior denounced what she called “a despicable open secret”. Last week, Claudia Eller, co-editor in chief of Variety magazine, tweeted her congratulations to the New York Times, calling this “the story we’ve all been trying to get for decades”, while writer Rebecca Traister published a piece beginning: “I have been having conversations about Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual harassment for more than 17 years.”

The lack of surprise greeting the story is not, however, entirely attributable to Weinstein himself, but to the culture in which the word of a young woman tends not to be believed over the word of an older, much more powerful man. Within Hollywood, the casting couch remains a place of dubious transaction. In 2010, a website called Pajiba ran a post titled “Harvey’s Girls”, those starlets whose “instant fame […] comes seemingly out of nowhere and without any justification in terms of resumé or skill set”.

Harvey Weinstein, Gwyneth Paltrow and the producers of Shakespeare in Love celebrate on Oscars night, 1999. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

But the climate may be changing. Traister, writing in New York magazine, noted that “recent years have seen scores of women, finding strength and some kind of power in numbers, come forward and tell their stories about Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Donald Trump. In all of those cases, as in this case, the history of allegations has been an almost wholly open secret, sometimes even having been reported in major outlets, and yet somehow ignored, allowed to pass, unconsidered. But now our consciousness has been raised.”

Unlike the men mentioned above, Weinstein has long presented himself as a supporter of women within liberal Hollywood. He was a major donor to both Obama and Clinton and last year hosted a fundraiser for the latter at his home. Recently, he was instrumental in endowing a faculty chair at Rutgers University in Gloria Steinem’s name. The phenomenon of a predatory, powerful man evading censure for years is clearly not a partisan issue.

When women speak our truth the old order shatters. We slayed the dragon. Never forget this is what we’re capable of Lisa Bloom, civil rights lawyer

Weinstein’s statement to the New York Times included a defensive apology of sorts: “I came of age in the 60s and 70s, when all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.” America’s Civil Rights Act, which under Title VII defines sexual harassment as a criminal act, was passed in 1964. “Culture” and “law”, then, are not always coterminous; perhaps unwittingly, Weinstein demonstrated that what is legally outlawed can remain socially acceptable. He added: “I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office – or out of it. To anyone.”

The actress Rose McGowan is among the eight women with whom Weinstein reportedly reached confidential settlements and on Thursday, McGowan tweeted: “Women fight on. And to the men out there, stand up. We need you as allies.” (In her case, the $100,000 settlement was “not to be construed as an admission” but “to avoid litigation and buy peace”. ) McGovan’s sentiments echo a tweet from earlier this year. In linking to a news story about Bill O’Reilly’s firing due to sexual harassment claims, civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom wrote: “When women speak our truth the old order shatters. We slayed the dragon. Never forget this is what we’re capable of.”

Bloom, who has represented women accusing Bill O’Reilly of sexual misconduct, is now working with the accused: she called Weinstein, her client, “an old dinosaur learning new ways”. Bloom’s mother is Gloria Allred, the attorney famous for representing many of Cosby’s accusers. Bloom told the New York Post in July: “It was just second nature to me that, of course; you have to fight for the underdog”. That term could in no way be applied to Weinstein, whose power is such that journalists have struggled to persuade his associates to speak on the record.

Rebecca Traister wrote last week that “Harvey could spin – or suppress – anything; there were so many journalists on his payroll… ” Notably, Bloom’s statement, as with her client’s, included mention of a future project: “And as we work together on a project bringing my book to the screen… ” This is Suspicion Nation, a planned miniseries that Weinstein is financing.

How did Weinstein, born into an unremarkable family in Queens, reach this stature? He amassed power through his knack for seizing cheap arthouse films and engineering them into the commercially viable mainstream, a formula that not only gave us a pantheon of cultural touchstones – Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, Gangs of New York – but also helped independent cinema itself become a going concern.

His career began in 1979 when Weinstein set up a distribution company with his younger brother, Bob. The two of them conducted operations from a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan and it took almost a decade for them to strike a hit. That was Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the 1989 independent drama that also made Steven Soderbergh’s name. Soon, Miramax, named for their parents Miriam and Max, became a key player in the industry and by 2005, Weinstein left to form the Weinstein Company. Yet his extraordinary cultural force, one recognised in accolades including an honorary CBE from the Queen and the Légion d’honneur from the French consulate, has arguably waned. His last Oscar winning film was The Artist in 2011. His most recent movie, Tulip Fever, has been deemed a critical disaster.

James Ivory once said: “He is a bully who feels that if he screams and yells and punishes you enough, he is going to get his way […] He’s both a genius and an asshole and unfortunately those things seem to go together.”

We are now familiar with the way in which unrepentant bad behaviour can register as “colourful” rather than reprehensible. Trump, who was exposed as having bragged about sexually assaulting women, nevertheless won the election. Weinstein’s physical and verbal aggression has been well documented yet has tended to be met with indifference. He has frequently been described as “larger than life” and has blamed a glucose imbalance for his tirades.

Weinstein’s statement last week included this sentence: “I want a second chance in the community but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it.”

Those who take Cosby and co as bellwethers might be reminded of a line from F Scott Fitzgerald: “There are no second acts in American lives.” Then again, others may look to the president, he of the line “grab them by the pussy”, as an indicator of Weinstein’s professional durability.

THE WEINSTEIN FILE

Born On 19 March 1952, in Queens, New York, the son of Miriam and Max Weinstein, a diamond cutter.

Best of times 1999 brings Weinstein Oscars success with best picture for Shakespeare in Love, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes.

Worst of times On 5 October 2017, the New York Times publishes a story detailing a series of allegations of sexual harassment.

What he says “You’ll get 15 people to say I’m a genius and 15 people to say I’m an asshole.”

What others say “…his eyes also spot zeitgeist long before it comes over the hill. Which is why a city full of incandescent fabulousness pivots around a man who looks like nothing so much as a bean-bag chair with legs.”

Journalist David Carr in a profile in New York magazine