"The two-time Oscar winner went on to compare his exile from Hollywood to the blacklisting of screenwriters under Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunt in the 1940s and 1950s. “There are times when one has to stand up for principle,” Spacey said. “I have learnt a lot from history: it very often repeats itself. The blacklist was a terrible time in our industry, but we must learn from it so that it never happens again.”
Said Kevin Spacey, accepting a lifetime achievement award at Cannes, quoted in "Kevin Spacey won at Cannes — but Hollywood’s ‘sharia court’ finds him guilty/Industry insiders are conflicted as the Oscar winner, acquitted twice for sexual misconduct, plots a comeback" (London Times).
Also: "One senior producer said Spacey... deserved a second chance, but judgmental studios were still 'performing as a sort of odd sharia court, outside of judicial jurisdiction, pretending to be judge and jury on a hearsay whim.... So many lives have been ruined for no reason. Kevin Spacey received a not-guilty verdict.'"
28 comments:
I feel morally certain he didn't say "learnt." I have no opinion about his guilt or innocence. It's obvious that MeToo functioned as a star chamber at the least (I wouldn't have thought of the "sharia court" analogy, but then I don't live in England anymore).
Kevin Spacey - guilty of attempted seduction of younger homosexuals, clearly breaking millennia of abstinence practiced by adult homosexuals. Meanwhile, there is probably a gay scandal lurking out in Hollywood that makes Sean Combs look like a Boy Scout.
Not guilty in a court of law does not equal moral innocence or even exoneration for actions that are evil. For instance, OJ was found not guilty in a criminal court. Examples abound.
Kevin Spacey is a very talented actor. While I don't know what happened with anything I suspect it is far closer to older gay man having a romantic fling with a younger gay man than anything non-consensual. That being said saying exonerated feels too strong a word here. It is like when the media says something is debunked when really the strongest word they should have been using is unproven or unsubstantiated.
is this "sharia court" the one responsible for the Complete Lack of hilarious comedies about Mohamed and his 11 year old bride?
Yeah, he lost me when he started associating his 'troubles' with the McCarthy era. Nice try, maybe even some decent acting, but the screenwriting sucks.
Hearsay? I thought the victims terrified. Isn't that direct evidence? It is hearsay just things someone said.
Testified! Gee thanks, autocorrect!
He did enough creepy somethings with that underage kid, son of the Boston news lady or whoever. Boy, emphasis on boy, that thing went away quickly, Clintonesque quickly. Hopefully he takes his award and does a Kazan, just fade away…
Gay guys are going to make gay passes at gay men. Sometimes, less often, that includes straight men. It's been.my experience as a straight man that these passes (if not alcohol or drug fueled) are generally, and for the most part, circumspect. No big deal. Get over it. I found gay male friends invaluable in dishing off their attendant "fag hags" (now there's a 70's idiom) to me. But that was a long time ago now...
Just glancing at the headline, I assumed the article would be about Woody Allen.
Spacey was also found not liable in a civil trial.
It is hard to feel sympathy for these people, the performers who have come under fire in the "Me Too" era.
Did you see the face the interviewer made when Tim Dillon brought up Louis CK's name, when asked about left-wing comedians? Hilarious.
For his first film as a producer, the former A-list agent Freddie Fields produced Glory, which deserved the win the Oscar that year (1989?) for Best Picture. But the man was so hated that no one could vote for it. I’ve been told that multiple times.
Similarly, Kevin Spacey is loathed for how awful he is on set to almost everyone. Carl Franklin, who directed episodes of House of Cards between movies, told me there is no amount of money that would get him to direct more episodes (this was back when the show was hot) entirely because of Spacey.
Mccarthy "witch hunt" did not take place in the 40s.that would have been the House (not senate) un-American activities committee (HUAC)
They investigated regular American citizens for their political beliefs. (illegitimate IMHO)
McCarthy investigated govt employees for violating their security clearance (wholly legit IMHO) we have since found that virtually every govt employee he accused of spying WAS spying.
The Hollywood Blacklist was a private plot by the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter Billy Henderson to get back at studio heads who would not let him in their club.
John Henry
Billy Wilkerson, not Henderson
In 2012,his son, then HR publisher, wrote a lengthy apology for his magazine and father causing the Hollywood Blacklist
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/blacklist-billy-wilkersons-son-apologizes-391977/
John Henry
To be clear, when I say the people mccarthy accused of spying were actually spying, I mean using their top level security clearances to pass top secret info and documents to Russians and Chinese
John Henry
Who IS Kevin spacey? He, like other actors, spends his life in a make believe world both on and off set.
Does he even know who he is?
"who am I this time is a Vonnegut story exploring this. Adapted to a great TV play starring a young Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon in the 70s. Great watch
https://youtu.be/_UtctfUfreU?feature=shared
John Henry
My interpretation of the present scene in DC which is constantly shifting. It's like a neo-square dance is which each one moves around the square changing partners and whirling about with each new partner as usual but with a new move called "musical chairs." When "musical chairs" is called , the music stops and each one must try to find a chair facing in same direction as each is facing at that moment. Then the music resumes, the ones left get up and resume the dance. Nobody wins because of their chosen direction - it's basically random whether one was facing a chair when the music stopped, i.e., when public attention focused.
That's pretty long metaphor but I'm just trying to convey my feeling that too much attention is being paid to momentary states - to one comment, one political stance at one moment - at a time when Trump is moving so fast that he has, so to speak, broken the sound barrier. Not even the 24/7 news cycle can keep up. Yet as a MAGA supporter, I can see that "promises made, promises kept" sums his work up; that the ship of state is tilting over with the rich haul of true reform and reinvestment like the boat of the Apostles when Jesus told them: "Put out to the deep and cast down your nets." And they said: We have fished all night and caught nothing. But then they took him at his word, put out, cast down their nets and caught so many fish their boat nearly tipped over as they hauled in the catch. Anyhow that's how this one MAGA follower feels. It took awhile (meiosis) but this is what I always thought Trump meant by Make America Great Again.
But without that vision people are appalled in an earthquake which has loosed a landslide and so we shouldn't take snapshots of speech and action as proof of enduring identity.
Aggie and John Henry, great comments. McCarthy was right, and more than vindicated by the Venona Records. HUAC did identify a lot of Russian spies embedded in society, like the great tv show, The Americans. I found and slogged through all five books they produced, which was brutal, and moldy enough to give me nosebleeds. And I am not really on the fence, John Henry -- I agree that their tactics exceeded their powers -- but it is still shocking to see their subversive insinuation into school boards, universities, as schoolteachers to the very young. Many, many of these people were real spies and traitors. But innocents merely expressing legitimate political beliefs were indeed caught up too.
As a daily Daily Mail reader, I'm ashamed to say I don't know what Spacey was accused of, acquitted of, or did. I have had several gay male friends, close ones, who described being groomed by older men after they had reached the legal age of consent. They all struggled with their own culpability, and some were quite damaged. Most of them also relayed being molested as children, as do almost all of my lesbian friends. So I believe this is a thing, and a very damaging thing. I imagine it's damaging for young but technically adult heterosexual youth too.
Ironically, child molesters receive among the most lenient sex crime sentences, and they are entirely ignored by the campus feminist #metoo and the feminist movement. That's because they're too politically correct to stare the racial/ethnic realities in the face, preferring to burrow out the rare white lacrosse player instead. Screw those sexually abused minority kids: they don't fit the narrative.
First time I saw Kevin Spacey in "Wiseguy" an 80's television show. The show was divided into arcs of 6 or 8 episodes storylines. Spacey was mesmerizing and fairly creepy. The demons of his character seem similar to what he has manifested in real life.
He's blacklisted because, regardless of what could be proven in court, people in Hollywood know him and don't trust him.
Are Kevin Costner, Kevin Spacey, Kevin James and Kevin bacon different people?
I keep getting them confused and can never remember
John Henry
Somewhere Frank Underwood is laughing at the thought that comparing oneself to Communists is a winning strategy in Europe (and probably in some parts of North America).
Spacey's father was an abuser and a Nazi (or at least a memorabilia collector), so if the "Hollywood Ten" gambit doesn't work for him there's always the victim strategy.
Blacklist? Roman Polanski? Paging Roman Polanski!
John henry said...
"Are Kevin Costner, Kevin Spacey, Kevin James and Kevin bacon different people?
I keep getting them confused and can never remember."
They'll all be played by Kevin Hart in the new Netflix documentary.
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