IT’S BEEN A LONG four years since the emergence of the Access Hollywood tape in the fall of 2016. That gross, utterly dispiriting snippet of video was just one of the starting points of a national nightmare, which has included a raging pandemic, the celebration of white supremacy at the highest levels of government, crimes against humanity at the border, and flagrant, endless corruption.

As demented as it sounds, on the anniversary of that truly crappy event, I’m here to offer you a ray of hope. Before you whisper “Oh, fuck off,” please understand that this sliver of guarded, vulnerable hope is one that I acquired through enormously difficult personal and professional experiences.

One of those very hard things: In the fall of 2014, almost exactly a year after my father’s death, I was sexually assaulted by a TV executive. Months later I reported his actions to his employer and endured more agony when he received zero consequences. Two years after my nightmare evening with that creep, Donald Trump—a man credibly accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women—was a candidate for president, and the Access Hollywood tape dropped.

A cold, gut-churning nausea gripped me when I listened to Billy Bush and Trump laughing it up and talking about women as if they were inanimate objects. My heart broke as I watched them phonily greet an unsuspecting woman after their douche-bro “banter,” and my entire being filled with rage every time I recalled Trump saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”

As I write this, I feel echoes of the PTSD the clip triggered then. I know I’m not the only survivor who spent that weekend in a haze of anxiety and reignited trauma. The friend who turned me on to marijuana edibles as a means of easing full-body panic attacks continues to be one of my heroes. But the waves of reactions—and the terrifying braying from Trump supporters—did not let up all weekend.

The Friday that the tape hit the news, I tweeted, “Do you know how real this is for women? That we never know who talks like this after we leave a room? I feel so sick.” That tweet went viral. The following morning I woke up to an enormous barrage of horrific abuse. By that point in my digital life, I was sort of used to rape threats; I’d lived through Gamergate, and—before and after that trial run of weaponized Trumpist toxicity—I’d watched for years as Black women and other women of color got much worse abuse than I typically did.

But something in my brain hit a wall that Saturday morning. The combination of glee and intensity in those waves of hate had reached a new high (or low). I’d even been sent images of concentration camp ovens. What fresh hell was this?

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TRUMP CAME TO POWER not despite the Access Hollywood tape, but quite possibly because of it—because of his bellicose racism, sexism, and xenophobia; because of the appetite, in some quarters, for his endless ability to encourage the worst actions from the most nightmarish bullies.

I wish Trump had never been elected and that none of the awful events of the last four years had happened. But when the Access Hollywood tape became public, women in all industries and workplaces could point to it as proof of the misogyny and (white) boys club atmosphere they so often faced. Would Hollywood’s embrace of the #MeToo movement have happened if Trump had not been elected? I honestly don’t know. But there’s no denying that it has changed the industry. You know those videos from all over the world of regular citizens pulling down statues of racist oppressors? Hollywood has seen a number of its leading citizens similarly dragged off their lofty perches in recent years.

Not enough of them, though. Because the machinery of the industry, on so many levels, is still too often deployed to keep monstrous people—most of them male, most of them white—from facing the consequences of their actions. Yet every week, in various conversations, I find myself regularly asking the question people outside the industry so often ask me: Has Hollywood really changed?

The answer is yes and no. I’d love it if powerful people in the industry—those with the ability to create and sustain real change—identified, curbed, and prevented abuses of all kinds thanks to unshakable moral convictions. That’s option one.

Option two centers around this truth: Powerful people in Hollywood care enormously about their public images, and they are afraid that the world might hear about the worst abuses they engage in or allow. So, in some cases, some people (and companies) are now trying to avoid major damage to their reputations by curbing or stopping some of the worst violations.

You know who helped take down the MONSTROUS, POWERFUL MEN? Assistants who TOOK NOTES. Allow me to bestow the highest of fives.

In my experience, option two is a lot more prevalent than option one. But whatever forces prevent people from abusing their power, whatever dynamics allow those who deserve to do well to ascend the ladder (ideally with their mental and physical safety protected)—well, I’ll take them. And I won’t forget that without constant pressure for real change, the industry’s standards will slither right back to the usual cowardly “see no evil” mentality.

My opinion on whether any of that is useful, sturdy change varies by the day. But I will say this: Since the Access Hollywood tape, since #MeToo—and now that we’re heading toward the fourth year of at least a few toxic, abusive jerks in Hollywood getting revealed—we have arrived in a change-adjacent environment.

And here’s that shard of hope I promised earlier. You know who helped take down the series of monstrous, powerful men I’ve reported on in the last few years? Assistants. Allow me to bestow the absolute highest of fives to every credible, attentive, and industrious current or former assistant who has my phone number and who took fucking notes. You know who you are, you beautiful badasses.

Of course the stories I’ve done would not have had the same impact if some people with real clout had not helped. There are established folks who have, publicly and privately, put their asses on the line to ensure the truth about certain toxic abusers and their disingenuous enablers came out. The ones often helping the most, though, have been assistants, script coordinators, low- and mid-level writers, journeyman directors, directors of photography, costume designers, and actors you might not have heard of. They are sick of the rampant bullshit, bad management, and ego-driven monstrousness in the industry. Together, these people are powerful. And they know that now.

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THERE’S AN EPISODE of Battlestar Galactica in which the hotshot pilot Starbuck comes across a Cylon raider—a flying craft that is partly alive. Starbuck has to thrust her hands into the guts of the thing in order to fix it and fly home. When she is up to her shoulders in blood and viscera and gross things she can’t name—well, given everything I’ve gone through since the Access Hollywood tape dropped, I think I know what that feels like.

Too many people and entities in Hollywood that have acquired great power guard that power viciously while pretending to be benign and even progressive. The number of fake allies and feminists in the industry, not to mention Trumpian narcissists, is...not small. But within this brutal, awful, incredible, amazing industry that has created so much palpable magic, I know this for a fact: There are far more people who want major change and consistently humane work conditions. The number of folks who find it easier (and maybe cheaper) to keep things toxic is relatively small.

So here’s the advice of someone whose mother died the day after Trump was elected and who has spent a good chunk of the last few years deep in the guts of monstrous machines: Spell each other. Rest up. Do what you can, when you can. If and when you’re able, harness your most efficient rage and model the kind of courage we’ve all been privileged to witness in these dark, hard years. Take care of yourself, because we’re all necessary to all these ongoing fights.

I’ll never forget how that Access Hollywood tape made me feel. But I also know the sources I’ve met in the past few years were just as enraged as I was. And trust me, they’re not done yet.