美国国家公共电台 NPR In A New Netflix Documentary, Gloria Allred Looks At Her Career And What's Next

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

If you follow news stories about famous men behaving horribly then you've surely seen Gloria Allred. Long before the Me Too movement caught fire, Gloria Allred was talking about these issues, filing lawsuits² and holding press conferences to allow her clients to share their stories about alleged³ mistreatment by the likes of Bill Cosby, Tiger Woods and, yes, Donald Trump⁴. Her take-no-prisoners attitude combined with her motherly approach toward her clients has made Allred a hero to many and something else entirely⁵ to others. Because of her constant presence in the news, you might be tempted⁶ to think you know her story, but a new documentary out on Netflix this week suggests we actually don't, so it tells Allred's story in her own words.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "SEEING ALLRED")

GLORIA ALLRED: I'm so proud of all of the women who have had the courage to speak out. Rich, famous, powerful men have to understand there are rules. There are boundaries. They must respect those boundaries. This has got to end, and it needs to end right now.

MARTIN: The film is called "Seeing Allred," and we reached the woman herself at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where the documentary had its premiere. Allred told me that she was initially⁷ hesitant to be the subject of the film, but the filmmakers convinced her that audiences might find inspiration from the stories of her clients as well as her own experience as a survivor⁸ of sexual assault.

ALLRED: Ultimately, I did talk about why I do what I do. It's because of my own life experience, which is really very similar to what many, many women have suffered because I didn't learn about injustices⁹ against women in law school or in college. We didn't speak about that. It's because I have a passion for justice. And because of what I have suffered, that I feel that I can't undo¹⁰ what has happened to me, but I can use that to help others, for them to have rights that I didn't feel that I had.

MARTIN: You were saying that you didn't learn about these things in law school, but one of the things that was interesting to me is how far back your advocacy in these particular areas goes. In fact, your law partners were interviewed, and they said that you were like that in law school. And also, for example, let me just play this clip from "The Dinah Shore Show" back in 1974. And you looked like you were about 14 but you weren't. But let me just play that clip. OK. Here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DINAH SHORE SHOW")

DINAH SHORE: Hi, Gloria.

ALLRED: Hi, Dinah.

SHORE: Where are you from?

ALLRED: I'm an attorney in Los Angeles.

SHORE: Oh, welcome. And how would you feel if your husband presented you with a list like that?

ALLRED: Well, Dinah, I think we have a uterus and a brain and they both work. And I think it's very insulting to women.

(APPLAUSE)

SHORE: Listen. I think you ought to be definite about this. Don't just tip-toe around it here.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: You know, you can hear the kind of gasp¹¹ in the audience because you can hear that, for a lot of women, hearing another woman say that was just very shocking because the audience was mostly women. But the film features people literally¹² screaming in your face, like literally inches from your face.

ALLRED: You're talking about opponents? That's right.

MARTIN: Opponents, yes, I'm talking about opponents. But I'm talking about on talk shows going back 30 years, where people - you are literally surrounded by people screaming and hooting¹³ and so forth¹⁴. And you never seemed to get upset or angry or - you know what I mean? And I'm just wondering, how have you been able to do that all these years?

ALLRED: I used to go on these shows in the '70s and the '80s because, you know, the mainstream¹⁵ shows were - for many of them, they were not interested in talking about women's rights. They were more interested in, like, talking about what are the good recipes for women to be making in the kitchen and, you know, what a woman should be wearing when her husband comes home from work at night. But then there were shows that - male-oriented shows that decided¹⁶ that they wanted me to take them on or they wanted to take me on. Men would be hooting at me.

But it was a way to be able to speak about women's rights. It was a way for women to say, wait a minute, we can speak out. We can't confront the sexism, the racism¹⁷, the misogyny, the homophobia. We can confront all that. We don't have to be afraid. So I would take any venue¹⁸ because remember, this was before the Internet. This is before cellphones. And I wanted them to see someone who was not afraid so that they could then say, you know what? I'm going to not let fear be a weapon that's going to keep me down in my life. I'm going to stand up and say, this is wrong.

MARTIN: Bill Cosby is a throughline through this film. And I think people know now that, you know, once a beloved entertainer and pitch man, he's been accused by more than 50 women now saying that he raped¹⁹ and drugged them over decades. You have publicized - or you have represented a number of these women, but there is no legal recourse for many of them at this point. So that, you know, leads to the question of, like, why do you keep publicizing these stories? Now, your critics suggest it's because you just like the publicity²⁰. But if that's not the reason, why do you put people in the public eye when there really is nothing the law can do for them at that point?

ALLRED: Well, I don't put people in the public eye. My clients decide they would like to have a voice. They would like to be heard. And I'm there to support them. But you're right. Many of the accusers have no legal recourse because the statute²¹ of limitations, which is the arbitrary time period set by law, had expired. But they wanted their voices to be heard, so I started doing press conferences with them. And we did this for - I don't know - a year, two years, something like that.

And reporters kept saying, what's the endgame? What's the endgame? And I didn't say because whatever the endgame is, it's important that these women were empowered and wanted to be heard. Ultimately, of course, he was prosecuted²². The criminal trial ended in a deadlock²³. Now he is going to face a second criminal trial in April. I also have filed a civil lawsuit¹ against Mr. Cosby on behalf of one of the accusers, Judy Huth. So all I can say is no, it's not just about women's voices, although had it been only about women's voices, I think that would have been important.

MARTIN: To that end, though, what do you make of the fact that something that, you know, you've been fighting for so long is now, you know, in the news like every day? I mean, what do you make of that? Why do you think that is?

ALLRED: Well, because women have found their voice and minorities. And they've done what Mother Jones has said, which is don't agonize²⁴, organize. And that's a beautiful thing. I think this tsunami²⁵ is going to continue. I don't see us going backwards²⁶. I only see us going forward. And that's so encouraging and so exciting.

MARTIN: That was civil rights attorney Gloria Allred. "Seeing Allred," a new documentary about her life and work, is out on Netflix later this week.