Here’s the thing though - it’s different and individualized to each person. Maybe to you it would be no big deal, but it obviously was a big deal to this actor, and we don’t have the right to tell him that it wasn’t.
I had a lot of people tell me after once incident “Well, at least you weren’t raped.” I’m sorry - is that the standard by which trauma is measured? If I wasn’t raped I should just be able to get over it?
This was a big deal to Anthony Rapp - it still deeply bothers him. We don’t get to tell him that he should just be able to shake it off. He felt he needed to disclose. He didn’t destroy Kevin Spacey’s career - Kevin Spacey did that himself when he drunkenly crawled on top of a 14 year old kid. This is just the long-overdue bill coming due.
John Doe: “We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it’s common, it’s trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore.”
It didn’t ruin Anthony Rapp’s life - on the contrary he has continued on and had a fine career. It’s just one of those things that continued to bother him, and when he felt sad and supported, he came forward.
It may ruin Kevin Spacey’s career, but since he was the one that committed the crime, I have a hard time being sympathetic, no matter how much I may like his work.
I have no sympathy for Spacey either. But he’s always been one of my favorite actors and it’s regrettable that we’ll now lose a lot of great performances from him.
I too feel slightly mournful that one of my favorite actors turns out to be a sexual predator, forever tainting my enjoyment of his work, and, not incidentally, wreaking untold harm on his victims. He is scum. I hope he never works again.
Oh, sure. I have zero sympathy for Spacey. He was a jerk, and a predator, and it’s come back to bite him in the ass. That’s just fine with me.
And I know nothing about Anthony Rapp – I never heard of him before this. It’s too bad this happened to him at such a young age. Or any age.
I was just remarking that there seems to be an *expectation *that anyone who is the object of an unwanted, aggressive sexual advance will, and should, be forever damaged.
Damaged may be the wrong word, but the point is that it happened, and it can’t unhappen. He suffered what lawyers would call “irreparable harm.” Literally nothing he does will restore him to where he was before this action happened to him. It is something he must always carry with him.
That’s not saying it must make him “broken” or anything. As an analogy, consider someone who serves in the military in a bad time. Some people come back with PTSD. Others don’t. I would never say that everyone had to have PTSD, but I will say that the event and their feelings about it are something they have to carry with them for the rest of their lives.
And, given that Rapp spoke up about them, and said he felt disgusted when Spacey was on TV, it’s clear they were pretty bad feelings.
I think the public is more forgiving of directors and other “behind the scenes” folks in entertainment. Don King was convicted of homicide, but people still paid to see the fights he promoted because no one came to those fights to see Don King - they came to see Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. Put another way, many people go to movies without having the slightest idea who the director is or what evil they may have done. Actors, to an extent, are their characters. Directors enjoy a shade of anonymity.
I understand your point now, sorry I was missing it. To give you a bit of an example that may help, I am a member of a private support group for people who were sexually assaulted while serving in uniform. Everyone in the group shares that fact, but the way they process it is wildly different.
Some of them are barely holding on by their fingernails, others remain reasonably collected most days. It’s so individual.
I agree that many people seem to think it should be devastating to be sexually assaulted, and maybe to some people that is - and maybe at certain points for others it is. There really is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to feel about it.
I hope that disclosing what happened brings Mr. Rapp some closure, and maybe peace. Sometimes, when you finally tell your story, that is enough.
His lawyers will always say that because that’s how they make their best case (and the most money.) They wouldn’t have a cause of action if he said, “It was oogy at first, but we had a big laff about it later.”
Besides, we live in a society were EVERYONE knows that ANY sort of unwanted sexual contact is ALWAYS the most horrible, devastating, soul-crushing, inconceivably destructive thing ever. Not to mention that it gets you instant sympathy from anyone if you’re a victim. Which is probably why so many people make up false stories of sexual abuse (as opposed to, I dunno, false stories of carjacking.) :rolleyes:
A-List stars are going to do what will make them a lot of money. If associating with Polanksi will hurt the professionally, they won’t associate with him.