[Continuing the reflections on the accusation against Kevin Spacey and its aftermath…Part One is here.]
I have always assumed that Spacey had endured some kind of serious trauma that explained his aversion to confirming that he was gay, since, really, it was so, so obvious. Many actors become actors because of familial abuse and self-loathing: if you think about it, it makes sense. They don’t like who they are and what real life has been, so they seek the fantasy life of being someone else on stage, films and TV. Maybe Spacey’s long obsession with performer Bobby Darrin provided a clue. (Spacey eventually played Darrin in his own vanity film project. “Beyond the Sea.”) You have to be really unhappy with yourself to fantasize being in the shoes of Darrin, the talented, troubled heterosexual actor-singer who died before he turned 40. Thus I was not surprised when Spacey’s brother Randall Fowler, 62, a limo driver and professional Rod Stewart impersonator, described the home in which he, Kevin and their sister were raised as resembling the plot a horror movie.
- Fowler says he and his brother were both sexually abused by their father, Thomas Geoffrey Fowler (whom the children called “The Creature”), and that their mother knew about their treatment at his hands. Their older sister, Julie, was also abused before she fled home when she was 18. In a 2004 interview, Spacey’s brother described how their ultra-right-wing father was a member of the American Nazi Party. He was so enamored with Adolf Hitler, Fowler claimed, that he trimmed his mustache to resemble Der Fuehrer’s.
“I grew up in a living hell. There was so much darkness in our home it was beyond belief. It was absolutely miserable,” Spacey’s brother said then. “Years later, our mother actually wrote a letter to all three of us, trying to justify what had gone on by saying she was abused as a child and so was our father. Kevin tried to avoid what was going on by wrapping himself in an emotional bubble….He was so determined to try to avoid the whippings that he just minded his Ps and Qs until there was nothing inside. He had no feelings.”
Fowler described his younger brother was an “empty vessel” who had never been in a real relationship with anyone. “Neither of us had a chance growing up with two such damaged parents, ” he concluded.
No, I don’t know that what a Rod Stewart imitator and publicity-seeking sibling of a famous actor says is completely true, exaggerated, or a fabrication. But it fits. Spacey should be given the benefit of the doubt, and accorded some compassion. We all deserve that.
- It is clear, however, that Spacey is going to get none. The conservative news media and blogs are lumping him in with Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton and the Hollywood and D.C. hypocrites and enablers. The gay community, which dominate Spacey’s profession, is condemning him too. Desperate to distance themselves from Weinstein, the Hollywood Left is piling Spacey, who is virtually without supporters or defenders.
The focus on Spacey by the news media is providing a welcome respite for celebrities like Ben Affleck and George Clooney, whose claims of being shocked—shocked!—that Weinstein had been harassing, molesting and raping actresses for four decades have raised eyebrows. Look over there! Kevin Spacey once tried to rape a teenaged BOY, and he’s blaming it on being gay! He’s the one you really want to destroy! Let’s GET HIM!
- Among the mob aligning to destroy Spacey is the gay advocacy organization GLAAD. “Coming-out stories should not be used to deflect from allegations of sexual assault,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD. “This is not a coming-out story about Kevin Spacey, but a story of survivorship by Anthony Rapp and all those who bravely speak out against unwanted sexual advances. The media and public should not gloss over that.” Explain to us, Sarah Kate, exactly how Spacey could acknowledge that the story told by his accuser was plausible but continue to deny he was gay, as he has his entire career.
I’ll wait.
- The International Academy announced that “in light of recent events”—weasel words allowing them to avoid explaining exactly how their action is justified, the equivalent of winking and saying saying, “you know”—it will not honor Kevin Spacey with the 2017 International Emmy Founders Award. Spacey had been previously announced as the recipient of the honor at the International Emmy Awards Gala on November 20. The Academy announced the award in June, earned by the Oscar winner because he was “an individual who crosses cultural boundaries to touch humanity.”
I’m confused. Did Spacey do something to justify the award? If he did, how does an alleged incident based on the claims of one individual cancel out what Spacey had done for humanity since that incident?
Boy, it’s a good thing there are no statues of Spacey…
- The most despicable virtue-signalling stunt was Netflix issuing a press release yesterday announcing that the sixth season of the Spacey’s hit series “House of Cards.” currently filming, would be its last. It was always going to be the last, apparently, but by sending out the official word yesterday, Netflix could pretend that it too was disgusted with whatever it was Spacey did thirty years ago. Today, Netflix announced that it is suspending the shooting of “House of Cards” “until further notice, to give us time to review the current situation and to address any concerns of our cast and crew.”
What “concerns”? Is the cast and crew concerned that the distinguished actor who has allowed their meal ticket to flourish for five years is unfit to play a President of the United States who is a murderer and sociopath because of what he almost did three decades ago? Because he inadvertently gave the Right another club to bludgeon Hollywood with? Because he breached the Gay Pride rules? What?
- In fairness, proportion and common sense, there should be a distinction made between someone like Spacey, whom we only know did something unprovable and terrible in a possible attempt to do something worse long ago and before he was famous and powerful, and the Cosbys, Clintons, Weinsteins and O’Reillys, serial abusers who engaged in offenses against women regularly and over many years after they had attained fame. Does it not matter if Spacey has been a model citizen and an ethical human being since that fateful party thirty years ago that Anthony Rapp says shadowed his life? Sure it does.
Or at least it should.
Ethics Alarms 
If they drive Spacey to kill himself in shame and despair, will everyone be satisfied? I wonder. I also wonder how Spacey can be subjected to this degree of pariah-hood when Woody Allen’s own adopted daughter accused him of molesting her, and he is married to another adopted daughter whom he courted while in a committed relationship with her adoptive mother, and the man is still treated as an icon. How can that be?
…and let us not forget the near endless queues of Hollywood glitterati able to compartmentalise their morality for the chance to appear in a Polanski movie.
In answer to the “how can that be?”, we are witnessing what it is like when the media can turn on a gay man who has never had the support of the “gay community” and where there is nobody left to support him. As a gay man myself, I learned a long time ago that few types are more bitterly and spitefully homophobic than that regrettable homonazis of the Church of “How to be a True Queer” who believe that anyone who strays from their ideal should be cast out. Woebetide a gay man who has “bred”, shame on the gay man who chooses not to come out or for whom it feels like a death, not a “beautiful rebirth”, cast out the gay man who thinks that corporate-sponsored Gay Pride events are nothing to celebrate, and turn your back on the gay man who feels that same-sex marriage is no advance but just be given a seat at the table.
Spacey is a gay man and deserves support…he too has suffered as most gay men have suffered. This whole business disgusts me.
Yet few articulate what you just did. And it needs to be said.
”regrettable homonazis of the Church of ‘How to be a True Queer’ ”
Is this the same group Bill Maher called/calls the “Gay Mafia?”
In a 04/04/2014 show: “I think there is a gay mafia, I think if you cross them, you do get whacked.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/tvshowbiz/video-1124982/Bill-Maher-sparks-controversies-claims-gay-mafia-talk-show.html
I agree, Jack.
I have no background in law (although the topic interests me), so I am a bit fuzzy about all of this.
My understanding was that the word ‘pedophilia’ applied to pre-pubescent children. Rapp was 14, but this is being called pedophilia. The definition of ‘child’ seems to have been broadened to include all minors. At 14, I was already babysitting and earning money to buy my own clothes and records (that dates me!) . I would not have considered myself a child. Is it a new legal stance, or is it a shift in public opinion?
By Rapp’s own account, Spacey made an advance, and didn’t push it when Rapp said he was going home. It’s being called sexual assault in many accounts. Is it?
This came along at the right time. I think that’s part of it. The other aspect is what I was talking about the other day, one mistake and you’re shunned, no proof needed. This is what I think is behind Rapp’s reasoning…Spacey made an advance on him, therefore he is a bad person, no matter what else he has done in his life, he does not deserve the career he has. Black and white thinking, like ‘that person was in a Walmart commercial, so I will never watch anything he’s in again!’ This ‘one strike and you’re no longer worthy of respect’ way of thinking is what makes the internet mobs so vicious and thorough. The object of their fury is no longer a human being worth of any kind of respect, or restraint. However, if you’re one of the right people, you can be excused, like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski…I’ll never understand it.
This situation is a chance to virtue signal, and distract everyone from the pressure on others over Weinstein. Prove that Spacey sexually assaulted a boy, and I’ll agree that it’s horrible and should be dealt with. Until there’s some clarity about the situation, it’s early for torches and pitchforks.
I hope Rapp’s suffers some blowback for this. He could have talked to Spacey personally, and not done it in the media. It’s just really low to wait 30 years. It’s really underhanded.
If the event happened as Rapp described, it was a sexual assault. Minors cannot consent.
Consent to what? There was a sexual advance that included physical contact but no sex.
You answered your own question. Minors can’t consent to sex, ergo, a sexual advance at a minor that includes physical contact is a sexual assault.
Bloody well said. **stands up and applauds**
I don’t believe Rapp’s accusations deserve any attention…the timing of them, the age of the supposed incident, and the existence of many plausible scenarios that would cast Rapp, at best, as just plain wrong about what happened, show that we have stopped to the age of mob rule by the Twitterati. This is all so utterly appalling. The #MeToo era is dawning and the mob are out, destroying lives and careers with isolated, old, uncorroborated, indefensible accusations. The intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is profound, and the fame junkies lap up the vomit and crave more of it.
The power to destroy is often intoxicating.
I’m still troubled by this.
So, once Rapp came to the decision that something needed to be done about what happened to him, what should he have done? Go to the police to report an attempted sexual assault of him when he was a minor by an adult, who also served him alcohol. The police would have taken down the information, filed a report and forwarded it to a prosecutor. The prosecutor would have looked at it and said, “the statute ran a long time ago. Sorry, we can’t charge this guy. Don’t bother investigating further.” Then what does Rapp do? He hires a lawyer to represent him in some sort of action against Spacey. Any sort of tort would have occurred well before the statute ran. Does the lawyer say, “what the hell, let’s send a letter to Spacey and his people. Maybe I’ll just say I represent Mr. Rapp and we want to meet to discuss a situation involving Mr. Spacey. We’ll see what they do.” Spacey’s lawyer writes a “Fuck you and horse you rode in on” letter in response. What does Rapp do now? Does he go public? Or does he just continue to try to deal with his demons, the demons le Sylphide so eloquently described. Or, Spacey screams “Holy Shit! I remember that kid! How much will it cost to make him go away?” Rapp gets some money and signs an NDA and continues to stew in his juices and wonders how many other kids Spacey has molested and continues to molest?
Frankly, I think Rapp is getting a bum rap here.
And of course it’s a tough deal for Spacey. This stuff runs in families from one generation to the next. The most heartbreaking people are the mothers who for various awful reasons are unable and/or unwilling to protect their children from the spouse or otherwise related abusers.
But Spacey was twenty six when this alleged incident occurred. He was an adult and should have gotten himself to a psychologist or a psychiatrist. He could have avoided the whole damned situation with ease.
You assume that the incident DID occur, or at least as Rapp describes it. I remain totally unconvinced of that. His accusation has almost zero weight. What point is there is using social media to destroy a man of Spacey’s standing with a flimsy and completely unprovable accusation? It was utterly unethical and pathetic of him to do so and has only harmed the cause he believed he was supporting.
What’s his objective, as they say in acting class? To get revenge? To highlight the importance of reporting abuses in a timely fashion, when he didn’t? To destroy Kevin Spacey? His manner of raising this only accomplishes the latter. Spacey doesn’t fit the mold of the ongoing abuser allowed to be a predator by a conspiracy of silence, based on what we know and what Rapp knows.
He should have met with Spacey privately. Not go to Buzzfeed.
I can imagine Rapp being egged on by his theatre pals to buzzfeed his tale and grab a bit of the Weinstein Limelight. Whatever the veracity of his claims, and my own feeling is that 30 years ago Rapp may have completely misunderstood a crass drunken incident, he has done something terrible. I’m sure we’ve all met people who have utterly misconstrued something we have done and chosen to think the worst of us. People with Aspergers, for instance, have been suffering these sort of accusations from the mouths of neurotypicals for centuries. Cut Spacey some slack ffs…the man has no chance to defend himself. Oh how people love to kick a dig when it’s down.
I wasn’t addressing that at you, btw…just to the aether!
You wrote a great piece there. Well done.
I Am The Aether.
Goo Goo Ka Joob.
The Beatles !?
I’m really uncomfortable with the idea that victims of sexual assault have an ethical duty to confront their attackers. As OB points out, the potential for worsening the abuse in the form of gaslighting is very high in such situations.
Reporting any crime involves courage and risks. Not reporting it is bad citizenship and enables the abuser.
I’m confused. We’re not talking about reporting the crime, we’re talking about confronting the accused instead of reporting the crime, which is what you said Rapp should have done. (Yes, I know your position is that the crime should be reported right away, but that doesn’t have anything to do with confronting the accused.)
I think that the assault as described would almost never be prosecuted as a crime. He said he said, no physical evidence, at a party, alcohol involved, victim leaves without furthur incident? And in 30 years ago? Very tough case to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Plus the kid doesn’t want to broadcast then that he’s gay.
I’m still lost. How does any of this demonstrate that Rapp should have confronted Spacey in person?
It’s the right thing to do: Golden Rule. If you were Spacey, would you rather have a chance to make amends, apologize, explain, or would you rather have to read about an accusation 30 years later on Buzzfeed?
I get that argument, it’s just a separate one from the one you were making in your earlier replies to me.
Yes, but 30 years…
This was in answer to Other Bill, but it ended up here.
I’ve often thought the author of this blog was crazy wrong, but he’s totally right here.
Gee, thanks.
I just read enough of the Buzzfeed article to ascertain that it could have been a misunderstanding or total misreading by Spacey, if he remembers it at all. No fondling or penetration took place. Just an exuberant reaction to an object of desire seeming to be waiting on his bed. The kid was sitting there alone (I know BF was careful to say he was perched on the edge watching TV) so it could have looked like he was waiting, as if it were an invitation. If he was bored and knew no one, why didn’t he leave much earlier? I’m not saying that Rapp was inviting the advance. I am saying that if he would listen to his own account, he should realize the way he was unintentionally presenting himself for it and be less harsh toward Spacey. By Rapp’s account there was no coercion, no forcing. No meant no, as it should. He made it home unscathed, a lucky thing in NYC at the time. Rapp is right to be concerned for making his parents look bad. We have parents to prevent just such a thing from happening.
I know he was 14 but in the early 80s it was still the sexual revolution. I was in law school at the time and a professor laughed at me when, during a discussion of a child custody claim, I pointed out that the child was the product of statutory rape and the father claiming custody a rapist.
Hearing of Spacey’s family history, he may not have been treated so tenderly by his own father at the age of 14. He may have had no instinct for how young teens should be treated, their innocence guarded by responsible adults. I feel sorry for him and hope he has true friends to help sustain him.
These neopuritan testosterone haters are not going to stop until there are no longer any sexy spontaneous expressions of desire anywhere. The sailor in that famous post WW II kiss photo will be hunted down and arrested. Rhett Butler frog hopped out of Tara. In a purely social (not professional) setting, a single clumsy unwanted advance among adults should be rebuffed and then forgotten about. It should not haunt a recipient (admittedly not an adult here but a colleague behaving as an adult) for a lifetime and it should not be trotted out to destroy the advancer 30 years later.
Just an exuberant reaction to an object of desire seeming to be waiting on his bed. The kid was sitting there alone (I know BF was careful to say he was perched on the edge watching TV) so it could have looked like he was waiting, as if it were an invitation. If he was bored and knew no one, why didn’t he leave much earlier? I’m not saying that Rapp was inviting the advance. I am saying that if he would listen to his own account, he should realize the way he was unintentionally presenting himself for it and be less harsh toward Spacey.
Oh my god…
Respond with substance. Brenda is discussing this from another angle. One that clearly indicates there is ALWAYS more to any passion-tinged episode than we ever want to discuss. She’s willing to discuss it.
Your response?
Empty.
I guess the perception is that I “went there” and blamed the victim? I suspect that no crime took place, no sex took place and Rapp would have done better to decide that he was not a victim but rather the unwitting participant in a misunderstanding and move on. Maybe a double misunderstanding, the first as to whether he was of the age of consent (the difference between 14 and 16) and the second as to whether he remained behind all the other party attendants on the bed because he wanted to have sex.
Is a sexual advance that includes physical contact a sexual assault? I don’t know, I am genuinely asking. I’m not a prosecutor.
I don’t understand the consensus that Spacey’s acts are monstrous. He was 26 years old, it was the early 8os with all of its excesses, his career was headed in the right direction, he had just hosted a party and had some alcohol on board, it is reported that his upbringing may have ill prepared him for interpersonal relations, and he discovers a nubile friend on his bed, who had stayed behind the other party guests. When said nubile friend withdraws, Spacey does not prevent him from leaving.
It bothers me more that folks like Rapp are ” . . . feeling really awake to the moment that we’re living in . . . ” and no one is safe from unsubstantiated claims ruining their reputations and careers.
You are sexualizing a 14-year-old boy and treating it as normal that said 14-year-old would look like an object of desire to a grown man. I actually have to explain why this is fucking gross?
A 46 year old man shouted this story about his 14 year old self from the roof tops because “he feels really awake to the moment we’re living in” therefore, to decide if the alleged perp deserves the public shaming he is receiving, we of the Court of Public Opinion have to sift through the gross details. So I went to the Buzzfeed account and imagined it as if I were the perp and assumed nothing (such as whether he knew the boy’s actual age.) Mens rea is important to me when assigning blame. Facts are important too. If you take Rapp’s Buzzfeed account as true it was a rebuffed advance and no sex act took place. He should have shared it with his therapist. They should have role played it. He could have forgiven Spacey for freaking him out in his own mind and heart and moved on.
If I am a juror in the Court of Public Opinion I vote to acquit. Chris, you would vote to convict based on the say-so of someone you don’t even know from a 32 year old account and that scares me to death. It’s folks like you who cause me to have less confidence in actual juries deciding actual crimes because I don’t think you will dispassionately listen to facts and evidence and consider the credibility of either.
Also, do we really talk to each other with this sort of hostility and foul language on here? I thought this was a classy forum.
So I went to the Buzzfeed account and imagined it as if I were the perp and assumed nothing (such as whether he knew the boy’s actual age.)
If anything, Rapp looked younger than 14 at the time.
hris, you would vote to convict based on the say-so of someone you don’t even know from a 32 year old account and that scares me to death.
This is a complete strawman.
Also, do we really talk to each other with this sort of hostility and foul language on here? I thought this was a classy forum.
And I thought I could come here without hearing kids described as “nubile” “objects of desire,” yet here we are.
I don’t know why you are being this willfully obtuse.
The law may declare a minor a minor, and an adult an adult, the law may set an arbitrary age that delineates the difference.
Biology doesn’t care about the law.
Teenage years are literally defined by the process of non-reproductive humans become reproductive humans. The entire awkward cluster of years are the accelerated sexualizing processes of the human body.
You know this.
It’s completely dishonest to contend that teenagers cannot be described as or considered sexually attractive to some. Yes, as society we are expected to respect the differences that the LAW describes and treat such relationships as taboo, but that doesn’t change biological reality.
Brenda is being nuanced enough to acknowledge that, though wrong was done by Spacey (assuming the report is accurate), there could be and probably is more to the conduct that *just* Spacey behaving badly. There could be 2 bad actors here, but only one would be culpable under the law. There could be 2 completely mistaken actors here, but only one would be culpable under the law. There could be one bad actor and one accidentally miscommunicating intentions.
You know this, Brenda has the courage to consider it.
You just want to virtue signal.
It’s completely dishonest to contend that teenagers cannot be described as or considered sexually attractive to some.
They can be described as however you want to describe them. And I can point out that that’s really fucking gross.
Again, I don’t know why you’re objecting to this so much, other than you feel the need to object to everything I say.
It seems apparent to me that Brenda was doing a great job demonstrating an understanding of what Spacey may have been experiencing, given the general culture and specific context of the time. Your objecting to the terms used is only meant to stifle discussion. I’m not sure why you do this.
I don’t object to everything you say– only to the things you say that are wrong or misguided (which is why it seems like everything).
“And I thought I could come here without hearing kids described as ‘nubile’ ‘objects of desire,’ yet here we are.”
What might the ACLU say?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curley_v._NAMBLA
LOL, first they came for the pederasts . . .
They’d say Brenda has the right to say whatever gross things she wants to say. What is your point?
I think…. I think we have to realize that Rapp’s accusation is still unproven. Jack said a couple posts ago, that he thought that Spacey’s non-apology apology inferred that it COULD have happened, because he didn’t outright deny that it had happened.
I think this fails to take into account the mindset of a progressive.
I don’t think there’s a way Spacey could have said any variation of “Nope, this guy is a liar, this never happened, I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it, fuck off” that would ring true in a progressive ear… They’ve lived in a “listen and believe” soup of toxicity for so long that for one of their number to cast aspersion on an accuser would be anathema.And Spacey knows it because it’s the soup he swam in too.
I had a talk with a progressive over on Barry’s site, fellow named Richard Newman. I think he’s drank the koolaid, and he has a world view I disagree with, but I think that if more feminists were like him, I wouldn’t think the demographic so generally toxic. Irrelevant. The discussion we had surrounded men using #metoo, and how he thought it was…. inappropriate for male victims to hijack a female issue hashtag. We’re going to shelve the bloated sense of importance given to a hashtag in this case, we’re also going to shelve the irony of a progressive telling a victim class to wait their turn to get support…. Because I think Richard’s logic and reason was fighting with his feminist dogma all the way and while he would contradict himself within sentences sometimes, he also recognized some of his inconsistencies, and I at least appreciate his effort to think through it, what we’re going to focus on is something that started to bubble in my mind while I was talking to him, and this whole Rapp/Spacey thing crystallized.
The Big bang Theory has never really explained the logic or uses of Schrodinger’s Cat, they just use it to sound smart. Cole’s notes on the theory is that if you were to put a cat in a sealed box with a toxin that is sealed in a container that has exactly a 50% chance of failing to contain the toxin over the period of an exact amount of time, at that point in time where the failure rate reaches 50%, there’s no reason to assume the cat is either alive or dead, so you assume it is both alive and dead for the purposes of future calculations. Is the cat dead? Yes. Is the cat alive? Yes. It opens up contingency trees and “if x, y” flows.
In the case of a rape, there are two needs: The needs of a victim to receive support, and the need of the process of justice to run it’s course. I think the problem is that people see these two things as inseparably interconnected, that if the rape victim is to be believed and supported, then the rapist per se needs to be punished. But justice doesn’t work that way, it requires proof, and the system errs on the part of the accused. The assumption is that when someone is found not guilty, or the system is otherwise not equipped to deal with the situation that the accuser is discounted.
In cases where there is absolutely no way to ascertain the truth… There is no evidence, the claim is decades old, people don’t remember what happened, there is are no other similar corroborating accounts… these two mutually exclusive paradigms need to be reconciled by assuming that the rape (or abuse, as is the case with the Rapp accusation) both happened and didn’t happen. For the purposes of victim support, Rapp as a victim of abuse should be able to access all the counselling and help he needs. But for the purposes of justice, as a falsely accused person, Spacey needs to be given the benefit of the doubt and move on.
This isn’t like the Weinstein or Cosby accusations, where hundreds of corroborations happened. It’s not like the Clinton or the O’Reilly settlements, where million dollar settlements were paid. This is for cases where I as an uninterested passerby have no evidenciary reason to believe the accuser, but no reason to deprive them of support.
All that written out, it’s a fresh thought, so poke holes in it… And I realize that society will never follow through.
I support your line of thinking.
It makes sense to me, but it would require progressives to let go of their bloodlust, and it would require conservatives to develop empathy. The former I think won’t happen because I’m convinced that a good chunk of progressives aren’t particularly concerned about the victims, they’re in it for the drama, and the latter I think won’t happen because it’s a huge paradigm shift for a lot of people, we’ve been so preoccupies with whether or not the act actually happened, that I think we miss how If this did happen, they probably need help.
“Listen and believe” on it’s own wouldn’t be so toxic if it didn’t also assume guilt. And I think that if we stopped giving false accusers the benefit of destroying their victim, we’d remove an incentive to falsely accuse.
Well, there’s always be the change you need to see in the world.
This is going to get worse before it gets better. Aggrieved people from every walk of life now have carte blanche to hang a scarlet “R” on whoever they please. The more rich and popular their target, the more they have to lose to the mob. Gone are the days of such niceties as evidence and courts – anyone can be run out of town on a rail on a mere whisper, and what is the cost? It’s instant revenge, with no recourse for the accused. It’s dear colleague across a national landscape, without even a show trial before mob shows up. Where’s Atticus when you need him?
I know what others have said about this but I still think that Spacey should sue Rapp for defamation.
What if Rapp is right? Is Spacey getting a pass because he’s a likable, good looking, very competent and professional actor who seems to have a fine sense of decorum while Harvey Weinstein is a producer who’s gluttonously over weight and had bad acne?
I’m assuming, for the sake of argument, that Rapp IS right abut what happened. He still handled it unethically, and Spacey has still been wronged.
Who’s giving Spacey a pass? And he’s not even close to being a fair comp with Weinstein. Weinstein used his power in an employment and business context to exploit and harass women for sex, as well as to assault them over four decades. Kevin Spacey, assuming the account is fair, attempted unconsented sexual contact, with a minor, in a private, non-employment setting, at a time when he was small potatoes in the entertainment industry, and nobody outside of a few critics and Broadway buffs had ever heard of him. There is no evidence that this was a pattern, or planned, or that Spacey has done anything like this again. It is increasingly likely that he didn’t, because since the gay and the entertainment industry now believes that it is a badge of honor to help destroy him, if there was any even arguable incident involving the actor, the alleged victim would be rushing to a mic somewhere.
Maybe there’s more to come on the Spacey front. Maybe gay Hollywood has been better at closing ranks and keeping the ranks closed. Maybe heterosexual abusers make easier, better targets.
fortunately no one cares about that one
Now Dustin Hoffman.
She: “I loved the attention. Until I didn’t.”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/dustin-hoffman-sexually-harassed-me-i-was-17-guest-column-1053466
Anyone care to opine when this “didn’t” epiphany arose?
Explain to us, Sarah Kate, exactly how Spacey could acknowledge that the story told by his accuser was plausible but continue to deny he was gay, as he has his entire career.
I’ll wait.
Straight men sexually assaulting males, and male children, is hardly unheard of.
Unless we are talking about prison, the military or other special circumstances.Like the Catholic Church. (Of course.)
Huh? Abusers don’t need special circumstances to abuse. Yes, males who wouldn’t otherwise sexually assault other males sometimes do under the conditions you describe. But those conditions are not always necessary. Surely you know this.
Does this change the equation at all?
https://www.avclub.com/two-more-actors-accuse-kevin-spacey-of-sexual-assault-a-1820037557
Sure.
Chris wrote, “Does this change the equation at all?”
If it’s true it can show a pattern but we currently have absolutely no idea whether any of the accusations are true yet. Remember, we are innocent until proven guilty not guilty until proven innocent.
Your arguments are eloquent.
I stopped myself from copying some passages of Rapp’s book to the internet, such as House of Cards Reddit. I was tempted to do that out of anger. I wonder how most HOC fans can simply accept allegations as facts. They are interested in political dramas and should know a lot about lies and manipulations. I guess a lot of them do not want to publicly speak against mainstream opinions.
I am sad and frustrated but I need to let go.
The public opinions are set for the moment. The mob mentality is high. What I planed to do would only attract haters. It doesn’t help Spacey and I don’t want to play Rapp’s game-CHARACTER ASSISSINATION
This so called progressive movement is currently bringing out the worst part of human natures.
What a shitty world.
Regarding Spacey’s childhood, this Guardian 2002 in depth interview might of interest to you:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/feb/16/features.weekend
And below is his brother’s interview the next day after Rapp’s story broke:
Someone referred me to Gawker. Gossips but I would give Gawker more credibility than data lounge in Spacey’s case.
I have come to conclusions that 1)Spacey had been behaving very inappropriately at work place. I don’t care what he did at gay bars or with strangers. He let go when resisted. Creepy at gay bar but Not acceptable at all at work. 2) Rumors ran wild a couple of weeks before the story broke and Spacey the busy man probably only noticed then 3) He came out probably to prepare for the other stories he knew were going to hit. He was attempting to take one step ahead but ending up not handling Rapp’s allegation properly. And Rapp’s allegation was unfortunately most damaging. 4) It was possible that he indeed could not remember what happened with Rapp 5) Rapp has been immensely envious of Spacey’s fame.6) In the end, his life style, not separating sex from office life, not coming out earlier (mostly for professional reason), mishandling Rapp’s statement big time and the current social environment. All these combined caused his downfall.
I think that’s a fair assessment.
Thank you
It agonizes me whenever I see people call him paedophile. He is far less than that. He sexually molested people at work.very bad but redeemable.
My heart aches for him. Imagine how he feels.for himself.
I hope he would get back to his feet and can have opportunities with low-mid budget art house films and theatre productions sometime.
That single odd episode that launched his problems is a he-said / he-said, a late hit, and something no one should use to call him that. As with Cosby, all the other stuff that has emerged is damning, but still doesn’t clarify or validate that first allegation.
Thank you.
I hope more and more people can see that.