Are actors like Spacey in it for the money?
He probably could have had another 10-20 years of career, so I imagine he’ll be pretty torn up if he never acts again. Even if he does have a nice nest egg.
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It’s interesting I most often see sympathy for perps in internet comment sections when the perp is a sexual predator.
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Meh, with the money that people like Weinstein, Spacey, Woody Allen, etc can throw around, they could set up their own shadow movie making system, I bet. Catering to the arthouse crowd a la Roman Polanski.
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Outright physical assault? No, but he was definitely a fan of F’d-up, unequal power dynamics around sex.
Plus he and his wife tend to murder their lovers. In one case, during the act of making love.
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Or maybe everything isn’t about sex.
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this was paltrow’s:
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Frank Underwood’s quote, not mine.
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Fair enough, but it’s still I think a false assumption about society. YMMV, of course.
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OH I saw that pic in my image search. Slow clap. Bravo.
Yeah, there’s not much doubt that fictional villains who are played by real-life predators have a messed up view of society.
Well, I think that many people also believe this idea, though. The writers didn’t come up with that out of thin air, of course, they pulled on ideas that exist in the world.
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50% off Spacey’s Masterclass.
I wonder if evaluation and treatment actually means legal consultation…
I wasn’t suggesting that having his acting career torpedoed (assuming that actually happens) won’t have any impact on him. Of course it will. I was suggesting that even if he never works another day in any facet of the entertainment industry that this cannot, by any metric, be considered “rock bottom” for him, because he still has a probable eight-figure net worth and will almost certainly not face any criminal charges.
It might be true that Spacey’s claim that he is seeking “treatment” is genuine, and it might be tue that this choice does indeed stem from a place of remorse and empathy for his victims. But we have no evidence of that. Indeed, we have lots of reason to believe otherwise. And the “hitting rock bottom triggers epiphany and quest for redemption” narrative simply isn’t applicable.
I understand and in most cases genuinely support One_Brown_Mouse’s position that accused perps are still human beings, and that they deserve to be treated as such. But, yeah, well. If we believe those who are now coming forward (and the balance of probabilities compels such belief), then this guy is a serial sexual predator and pedophile, and he has been one for 35 years. He has shown no empathy or sympathy for his victims, and he has not treated his victims like human beings, he has done nothing in 35 years to prevent the suffering of further victims.
So, sure, I think justice is pretty cool, and I think justice should be about rehabilitation and redemption more than punishment, but it’s not like any of those things are going to happen in this case. If Spacey is found guilty in the court of public opinion it’s the only court where that will happen, and any punishment he faces upon being ostracized from his chosen profession is nothing as compared to the suffering of his victims. So, nope, sorry: I do not sympathize with the plight of those with no sympathy, I do not empathize with those with no empathy, and I do not give the benefit of the doubt to somebody that deliberately causes suffering and harm to others for thirty-five years and takes no steps to mitigate or stop it until he gets caught.
Spacey deserves far worse than anything that will happen to him, and his victims deserve compensation and justice they will never see. My compassion goes only one direction, here.
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Is that necessary though, does it matter?
I sometimes wonder why there is an almost religious preoccupation with peoples’ motivations. If he gets help changing his behavior, good. It isn’t justice, but absent actual justice, the next best thing is that offenders just stop the behavior.
I wish I hadn’t put the words “sincere effort to get help” in my post- my actual point is that Xeni seemed to be dismissive of treatment itself, and I think whether he is sincere or merely embarrassed is beside the point. If a chronic drunk driver doesn’t seek help until they injure someone, is it not worth at least trying to get help to change destructive behavior? Presumably treatment will involve trying to get the perp to see their victims as humans to empathize with; I fail to see why this invokes so much cynicism. The proof will be in the pudding.
It will cost him his power, which is what allowed him to continue his behavior. Never underestimate the value of power, fame, ability to provoke fear, and peer respect when it comes to people who have enough money that they never have to work again.
Then again, like I pointed out in a post about Mel Gibson, if Woody Allen is allowed back in public life and a career in movies, NOTHING is beyond the pale, so I fully expect Spacey to have a tremendous comeback in about 10 years. That’s where my cynicism lies; not that his apology is insincere, but that the public will take him back because we’re suckers and for some stupid reason one of our society’s tropes is that being talented in the arts excuses being a shitty person.
Precisely because that’s what it would require the perp to do, and, in this case at least, there is no information that inspires any confidence that that will happen. Motivation is not irrelevant in either legal or public court. It’s the difference between murder and manslaughter, and it’s the difference between a one-time genuinely-regretted mistake and serial douchebaggery.
But…
Excellent point, well made. Because, yeah, this is what really matters. Spacey’s sincerity isn’t the point, whether his effort to seek help is genuine or successful isn’t the point, the degree to which he feels bad or has his career or personal fortune impacted isn’t the point. This will cost him something very important: it will take away his ability to keep abusing people, so there will be no further victims. That ain’t justice, but you’re right, that ain’t nothing, because the real point isn’t anything to do with Spacey, the real point is his victims, and that they can now find some comfort in the fact that there won’t be any more of them.
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Very well put, couldn’t formulate my thoughts as eloquently as you did and was hoping someone would
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Latest on Spacey. He’s been fired from House of Cards, and they canceled a planned project on Gore Vidal:
Good on netflix for doing this.
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