Review:Stark, Patient Doc 'On The Record' Focuses on Effects of Sexual Assault

When a woman is raped, not only is her body violated, but also her psyche, and her sense of safety and peace are forever bruised. A woman's potential is a casualty too, as is noted in the stark, patient documentary "On the Record" on HBO Max.

Director/producers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering have plumbed the impact of sexual violence before, on college campuses in "The Hunting Ground." The focus here for 90 minutes on the multiple credible sexual assault allegations against hip-hop music mogul Russell Simmons.

This film, and Lifetime's six-part January 2019 series "Surviving R. Kelly," also explore how the first wave of #MeToo moments marginalized female African-American rape survivors, how the movement didn't acknowledge Black women's pain or amplify their calls for justice.

"On the Record" carefully shares the story of dynamic Drew Dixon, daughter of former DC Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon, graduate of Stanford and Harvard, music mogul in her own right, and survivor of Russell Simmons' ongoing harassment and rape. The doc documents her New York Times interviews before, during and after publication.

Her lifelong love of music took her from the Nation's Capital to Brooklyn at the dawn of hip-hop. She had booked the bands for her mother's inauguration and decided to work in A&R, Artists and Repertoire, to seek out and nurture new artists in the burgeoning genre. She produced and won awards for Tupac, Method Man, Mary J. Blige and many more.

However, "sexual harassment was baked into the culture," says an interviewee, with women being called "ho" and men being called "Daddy." Remaining silent about misogyny – "over dope beats" – and tolerant of abuse was "the price of admission." The use of light-skinned, straight-haired women in videos also seemed to denigrate Black women. (Women were reduced to sex objects by white acts as well, from the Rolling Stones to Guns N' Roses.)

Dixon says she worked to "manage" around Simmons' coming to her office and exposing his penis on a regular basis, because she was successful at what she loved. She thought she was too valuable to the Def Jam record label for him to not want to burn that bridge.

After a period of harassment, Simmons lured Dixon to his condo under the premise of listening to a new artist demo, her specialty. He raped her there, as he did to other women interviewed in the documentary.

"I was nothing," Dixon remembers. "I was a physical object, a device, used for his pleasure."

Former model and interviewee Sil Lai Abrams adds that she attempted suicide after Simmons raped her, saying "you're a fuck toy, a chew toy for men of power." She left fashion soon after.

Dixon soon dropped out of her beloved music business, and ponders the potential that was forever lost.

The film allows the space for Dixon to share these memories, and for the audience to try and process the magnitude of what was lost in that moment.

Dixon and the filmmakers dissect race loyalty as well, how the justice system is brutal to Black men, so many women adopt the "ride or die" mentality. If the men aren't defended, the women are considered traitors.

"For 22 years, I took one for the team," Dixon says. "I didn't want to let the culture down."

"I love the culture."

Dixon tried again to hold her rightful place in the music business, and brought the young talents of Kanye West and John Legend to the attention of her later boss L.A. Reid. He wouldn't attend the showcases she arranged because Dixon had rebuffed Reid's advances. There were always professional consequences when she didn't play the sexual quid pro quo.

She ran away from her dreams and passions, cut herself off from her creativity, and didn't listen to the hit songs she made anymore. Dixon decided to speak to the Times about her Simmons experience after acknowledging the bravery of other #MeToo victims. She wanted to be a warrior, not a victim, to remove the deep layer of shame and actually digest what had happened to her.

"He took a piece of me with him, then he carried it with him for three fucking decades," Dixon says. "I'm here to bear witness."

She adds that the experience now is like "pressing play on a movie I paused 22 years ago, in the middle of the scariest scene. That one night of my life shattered me, and I would have been shattered forever without #MeToo."

"If you are the rape survivor, you are the crime scene."

Twenty women have accused Simmons, but no criminal charges have ever been filed. L.A. Reid stepped down as CEO of Sony's Epic Records in 2017 after harassment accusations, but then launched a $75 million new label.

One of the several powerful feminist African-American interviewees laments "We've been robbed by Dixon getting out of music."

"We all lose when brilliant, powerful women go away."