You cannot turn on a television or cable news show these days without hearing about another Hollywood celebrity claiming to have been sexually assaulted by someone with influence in show business. From influential producers to prominent actors to lesser knowns trying to make it to stardom, there appears to be a wave of predatory depravity emanating from the elite circles in entertainment. I say “appears” because we all know the truth. This stuff; the people who do these acts and are willing to have these acts done to them have been around since the first movie studio and recording contract.
When the revelation that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein used his power and position to intimidate women – young starlets – to have sex with him came to light, one of the most disingenuous gasps wafted across the information sphere. News programs and social media were on fire in their castigation of the man. Somehow, in an industry that created the term “casting couch,” the idea that a powerful movie producer would extract sex in exchange for making someone famous was suddenly foreign and appalling.
Just as with the transition from darkness to light in the flip of a switch, many who once found moral relativism in advancing their careers through gratuitous sex acts with the powerful now see themselves as victims. It is as if being a predatory victim of the elite in Hollywood is now a prize to be coveted; a label that gains the wearer entry into the “in crowd.” The designation is a cloak of relevance in today’s entertainment industry.
This is not to say that all of those who are claiming victimhood in this wave of wanton subjugation are not indeed victims. Many naïve people have gone to Hollywood only to become the prey of maniacal degenerates and megalomaniacs who dwell in that sphere; opportunistic cretins whose only way to find self-worth is to oppress and damage others, physically, emotionally and intellectually. Those people, the bright-eyed and star-struck who end up used and cast aside, they are the real victims of an industry peppered with human refuse that has been allowed to ascend to influence.
However, just as there are naïve innocents that get chewed up in the pornographic gears of Hollywood, so, too, are there the opportunists employing moral relativism who intellectually barter their dignity for stardom. There are, and there can be no doubt about this, people – both men and women – who will and have rationalized getting on their backs and/or knees to be “anointed” to fame and fortune. One can only imagine the “stains” a fluorescent light would reveal if shined on the inhabitants of Tinsel Town’s red carpets. It is enough to make one feel the need for a hot shower.
The truth is this. The cauldron of opportunistic depravity that captivates many circles in the entertainment industry is self-manufactured. If those who were, and are, willing to whore themselves for stardom, would refuse to allow themselves to become grist for the twisted sexual appetites of the Hollywood’s Weinsteins; if each of them had taken a stand at the time, refusing to subjugate themselves, perhaps with even a forceful punch to the groin, then there wouldn’t be any casting couches; there would be no predatory sex scandals. Alas, there are those who find nothing wrong with waring kneepads to get ahead. And then there are those who have worn kneepads to get ahead who kept quiet for years, allowing the cycle to continue. One has to ask this question. Aren’t the ones who have kept quiet just as guilty; just as evil and the sexual predators themselves?
So, pardon me if I don’t have much sympathy for those now coming forward to accuse Hollywood’s elite of having sexually assaulted them oh-so-many years ago. I find their “convenient courage” to suddenly do the right thing a bit self-serving in its publicity, and a bit nauseating.
Maybe if we purged them all from fame; shunned them as they deserve, we might even see some creativity dripping out of Hollywood. Lord knows it would be better than what’s dripping out of there now.