Article:
× 
  
 The Rotten Appl.es is a searchable database that lets you know whether or not a film or television show is tied to a person who has been accused of sexual misconduct. 
  
 In the case of this website, the ‘person’ is defined as a cast-member, screenwriter, executive producer or director. 
  
 The goal of this site is to further drive awareness of just how pervasive sexual misconduct in film and television is and to help make ethical media consumption easier. 
  
 By no means is this site meant to serve as a condemnation of an entire project. 
  
 This database is not perfect, nor are the results meant to be taken as fact. Each link is sourced from an existing article and is not a reflection of our own opinions. 
  
 If you believe there is an error or a missing name, please let us know by clicking here and we’ll fix it as soon as possible. 
  
 For more information, email us at info@therottenappl.es 
  
 #RottenApples / @RottenApplessss ||||| Billy Bush penned a sobering op-ed published in the New York Times Sunday night, in which the former “Access Hollywood” host said he believed the women accusing President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. 
  
 He also slammed the president for engaging in “revisionist history” after reports indicated that Trump has been questioning the authenticity of the “Access Hollywood” tape in recent months. The tape, which features Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, derailed Bush’s career but had no bearing on Trump being elected president. 
  
 “He said it,” Bush wrote. ”‘Grab ’em by the pussy.’ Of course he said it.” 
  
 Bush added that he recently went back to an October 2016 article that detailed the personal accounts of 20 women accusing Trump of sexual harassment and misconduct, including groping, unwanted advances and kissing them without their permission. 
  
 The Washington Post via Getty Images NBC fired Bush due to his involvement in the crass recording. America went on to elect Trump president. 
  
 “To these women: I will never know the fear you felt or the frustration of being summarily dismissed and called a liar, but I do know a lot about the anguish of being inexorably linked to Donald Trump,” he wrote. “You have my respect and admiration. You are culture warriors at the forefront of necessary change.” 
  
 Bush, the nephew of former President George H.W. Bush and cousin of former President George W. Bush, was suspended and then fired in October 2016 after the Washington Post published the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that showed the former NBC star ingratiating Trump as he bragged about sexually assaulting women. ||||| In this biblical wreck of a year, no plague seems more constant than the ongoing sexual misconduct accusations in Hollywood. Every other day brings grotesque new claims about a powerful person allegedly abusing their post, which has given way to a much-needed reckoning throughout the industry. Though it’s difficult to keep track of the never-ending flow of headlines, one site is making it easier for movie and TV fans to wade through the morass. Meet Rotten Apples. 
  
 The site, which launched earlier this week and quickly went viral, is essentially an online database that pinpoints which films and TV shows are associated with people who have been accused of sexual misconduct. Type a title into its clean, user-friendly interface, and Rotten Apples will instantly tell you whether a given film is “fresh” or “rotten.” If it’s rotten, it’ll highlight the names of people involved in the project who have been accused of sexual misconduct, and will include a link to a credible report about that person. 
  
 For example: search for any major movie associated with Miramax or the Weinstein Company, and you’ll be directed to this New Yorker story about Harvey Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women (he has denied the claims). 
  
 The site isn’t perfect, mostly because it can hardly keep up with the ongoing revelations that keep cropping up. Mere hours ago, documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock confessed that he has been accused of rape and sexual harassment. As of now, his film Supersize Me is still fresh on Rotten Apples, a rating that will surely soon change. 
  
 The site is the brainchild of Tal Wagman, Annie Johnston, Justice Erolin, and Bekah Nutt, four Los Angeles-based advertising professionals. They conceived it in the thick of the Weinstein controversy in October, when bombshell reports were being dropped at a furious clip. Wagman, an associate creative director and writer, says they were discussing the scandal when they realized it would be useful to have an IMDb–esque resource that could help moviegoers keep track of the figures with allegations against them. 
  
 “I think the tool serves as a commentary on how pervasive the problem is,” Johnston, the site’s creative director, tells Vanity Fair. “We’re trying to empower people with information.” 
  
 Ideally, it could serve as a resource that also keeps alleged abusers in check, Wagman notes—because if there’s anything we’ve learned from this reckoning, it’s that Hollywood previously had precious few checks and balances to stop people from abusing their power. 
  
 To create the site, the team of four looped into an online database that has “all relevant movies and television shows,” Erolin says, including the names of at least 19,000 actors, actresses, producers, directors, and more. They spent about 15 hours doing research on a medley of accusations in order to supplement the data with credible resources, then merged the two datasets together. Voilà, Rotten Apples was born. It was launched on Monday, then quickly swept across the Internet. 
  
 “The first day, we had about 2,000 unique users,” Erolin says. “Tuesday, it bumped up to about 38,000. Today, we’re on track to hit 100,000 unique users . . . out of those 100,000 users, we have about half a million searches.” 
  
 “I didn’t even know that,” Wagman responds with a laugh. 
  
 They’ve also already received several e-mails, tweets, and more from users feeding them new information and suggesting various corrections. As of now, they fund the site themselves, and want to ward off any concerns that they created it in order to capitalize and cash in on a topical issue. “That’s not our intention,” Nutt says firmly. 
  
 “We are not putting any advertising on it—even though we’re in the advertising industry,” Erolin says with a laugh. “We’re not making money off of this. If anything, we’re paying to put this up because it’s our own hosting servers that we‘re using for this.” 
  
 “It’s painful, so it’s been really interesting and maybe even a little cathartic to just sort of put this together and put it out there and just have it be a resource,” Nutt adds. 
  
 If there is one silver lining to this ongoing catastrophe, it’s that not all movies and TV shows are tainted—though it certainly feels that way sometimes. When Erolin went through the data, he discovered that only about 23 percent of searches show up as rotten, while 77 percent show up as fresh. Though the numbers might fluctuate, and new allegations are surfacing every other day, it is a balm to know that not everything you once loved is corrupt. 
  
 “Most importantly,” Wagman adds, “Lady Bird is fresh.” 
  
 Get Vanity Fair’s HWD Newsletter Sign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood. E-mail Address Subscribe |||||Summary:

– There have been so many allegations of sexual misconduct in Hollywood since the Harvey Weinstein story broke that it's been hard to keep track. Now one group is trying to do just that, with a site Vanity Fair is calling "Rotten Tomatoes with a post-Weinstein twist." The now-viral site, launched Monday, is Rotten Apples, a database that allows you to plug in the name of a TV show or movie to see if it gets a rating of either "fresh apples" (meaning no big players involved with the project have had any accusations hurled their way) or "rotten apples." If "rotten" pops up, it will list the person or persons who've been making headlines, and a link to those headlines. Per the site, which was started and is being funded by four Los Angeles ad professionals, the ratings scan for anyone who was a "cast member, screenwriter, executive producer, or director" on the project. Type in Stranger Things, for example, and you'll get a "fresh" and the message that "this TV show has no known affiliation to anyone with allegations of sexual misconduct against them." (If you think a squeaky-clean rating is in error, you can enter an article link about iffy participants). Enter Home Alone 2, though, and Donald Trump's name pops up (he had a cameo), with a link to a HuffPost article on accusations against him. The founders insist the site isn't "meant to serve as a condemnation of an entire project," adding that the information shouldn't even necessarily be seen as fact—simply links to existing reports. "I think the tool serves as a commentary on how pervasive the problem is," Annie Johnston, the site's creative director, tells VF. Per their data, less than a quarter of searches are turning up "rotten." "Most importantly, Lady Bird is fresh," one of the other co-founders notes.