Documentary On the Record gives the music industry its #MeToo moment

When the #MeToo movement against sexual assault came to widespread attention in 2017, it seemed a reckoning was at hand against some of the most powerful men in entertainment and business. For the first time, many women who were speaking out about their experiences were being believed. Men such as powerful US film executive Harvey Weinstein were finally being held to account.

But it was not a moment of reckoning for everyone. Those who spoke out, and those who were accused, were overwhelmingly white. Many black women did not feel included in the narrative, they were still too scared to speak out and too scared of the consequences.

Drew Dixon's struggle to come forward with allegations of sexual assault against one of the most powerful men in music is covered in On the Record.

That changed in late 2017, when music executive Drew Dixon accused US hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, the man behind the iconic Def Jam Recordings label, of rape in a New York Times exposé. Her struggle with the decision to come forward and reveal her story is captured in this documentary, On the Record, which also reveals the stories of other women who have accused Simmons of assault. (Simmons has denied the accusations and, in an interesting side note, Oprah Winfrey pulled her support and executive producer credit from the documentary in January this year, saying she didn’t agree with the "creative vision" of the Oscar-nominated producer-director team of Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick, who have stood by the film.)

If you haven’t heard of Dixon or Simmons, but can name Weinstein and at least two of his accusers off the top of your head, that only drives home further the point of this documentary. Black women have been reluctant to come forward and detail their experiences for years. As Dixon says, many black women do not want to be responsible for the consequences of simply calling the police on a black man, so they "take one for the team" and stay quiet about their assault. Their stories have not been told.

It’s shocking to hear, yet so obvious. And that’s what makes On the Record such a compelling watch – it lays out in the clearest possible terms the ramifications for black women who dare to stand up. It’s hard enough for any woman to report sexual assault or harassment, but white women – whether they want to acknowledge it or not – do not have the fear of being a labelled a traitor against their race if they do.

Dixon is a clear-eyed witness. Not only does she give a frank account of the alleged assault and the harassment that occurred in the lead-up to it, she also talks with great affection about a music industry she fell in love with and one that ultimately let her down. It shows how hip-hop has changed from a style of street music that gave voice to the people, to one that became increasingly misogynistic.

And that’s one of the biggest tragedies of On the Record – the loss of Dixon’s promising career at Def Jam Recordings. She was talented at her job and it was because of this that she put up with years of harassment. She believed in her ability but, like so many stories of workplace sexual harassment, she was not allowed to do her job because a man saw her as fair game.

On the Record airs Sunday, August 30 at 8.30pm on NITV and SBS On Demand.