It takes perspective to judge Hollywood’s troubles
Time once again my favorite quote.
It’s a line George Bernard Shaw wrote for his character, Hesione Hushabye, to say in defense of her husband, Hector, when it becomes clear, in “Heartbreak House,” that Hector has a tendency on occasion to embellish the truth.
In paraphrase, Shaw has Hesione say, “Man does have his virtues and vices in neat little sets. He has them anyhow.” “Anyhow” meaning as they come.
It’s my favorite quote because it puts human nature in a nutshell. “Woman” and “her” could easily be used in place of “man” and “his” in Shaw’s quote. The great playwright and commentator was embracing all of humankind in this declaration.
Shaw’s words have to be considered in this intense time when behavioral infractions, particularly sexual infractions, egregious and relatively mild, are being exposed from every corner at an accelerating rate.
Everything from overtures to all-out assault are being branded abuse and harassment. As all-out assault, and worse, rape, should be.
It’s difficult to know where to stand and whom to defend or excoriate. Purists, in this neo-Puritan age when, against Shavian thought, will insist anything short of perfection and Utopia lets villains escape and will not do. Arguing takes tact for others who see shades and degrees and who factor in perspective and proportion in the face of the politically correct.
How can you speak up, not necessarily in favor of, but in indulgence or indifference for an adult who seduces a juvenile, a star who asks a young production assistant to rub his feet, or someone in power who demanded carnal fealty as a condition for granting a job? to trot out
On moral grounds, you can’t. That’s where the politically correct claim high ground in any discussion.
Morality is different from moralism, and the world, as Hesione implies, is a huge, varied place and not a Utopia. People, even husbands, lie in it. And worse.
What I want to do is set up a context for discussing the spate of revelations about sexual misconduct in show business. What I want to do, admittedly dangerous as any attempt at perspective can be misconstrued as laxity or even support, is to establish a sense of degree and refuse to lump all revealed offense into one barrel that makes anyone alleged to have transgressed as guilty, feckless, and evil as others.
Remember Shaw, and remember the words “perspective” and “proportion.”
Also think of an attempted act, sometimes a flirt or an offer, unwanted but innocuous, as opposed to serial misuse of position or outright drugging. Or as opposed to making a salty statement, making a pass, or even chasing after someone in the manner of the title trio in Marx Brothers movies.
The reason I ask this is careers, not only of the named and accused, but of their castmates, producers, and others connected with television programs and movies, are being affected. The question is how fairly. Even taking the stance that nothing is acceptable, and acknowledging what women in particular have faced in all businesses as they vied for higher positions, shouldn’t there be a line in which actions mean exile and other actions waved off as a tawdry peccadillo or “show biz?”
If, as he’s accused, Bill Cosby, used drugs to knock women comatose before copulating with them – although doing so seems to take some of the juice from the occasion – that is a serious breach of acceptable standards. If Harvey Weinstein spent years giving women an ultimatum – sex or no job – that too needs to be addressed.
Both Cosby and Weinstein are paying for their sins. But, citing Shaw, even those sins do not erase either man’s talents, one as a comedian, writer, and educator, the other as a producer of higher-than-average work.
Moving from Shaw to Shakespeare, these men really did hoist themselves on their own petard.
But I wonder about others and the extremes demanded of them because of accusations. The late Roger Ailes and newsman Bill O’Reilly immediate come to mind.
Now let’s look Spacey.
Thirty-two years ago, when he was age 26, he suggested sex with another actor, Anthony Rapp, who was a minor, age 14.
Unthinkable. Deplorable. All ugly words apply. Child abuse should not be tolerated, even at Kevin as Roman Polanski receives Oscars (What a difference between 2002 and 2017?).
Then comes the question who was hurt. Spacey, smarmy as his act was, was rebuffed. Nothing happened. Rapp obviously did not think much of it and wasn’t much affected by it if it took him 32 years to mention it.
And why did he mention it? Why are accusations and memories literally flying from the woodwork?
Again, don’t get me wrong. I don’t applaud or condone foul acts. But isn’t there some kind of fashionable bandwagon forming? Hasn’t “me too,” two weeks ago a sad message of how many people, I included, have endured sexual harassment, turned into an eager race to be counted and, at times, to get one’s own publicity at the expense of someone more successful? I see the work of Ellsworth Toohey from Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” in the mix.
See what I mean by perspective? I don’t want to be counted as someone who excuses the shameful, yet at the same time, I don’t want to throw rocks of the same weight at people who truly violated all decency and those who took a chance, made a pass, or pinched a random butt.
This is show business we’re talking about, folks. The theater and Hollywood have rarely been known as places and careers that attract the monklike and the prude. I don’t know much about ancient Greek audition practices, but it wouldn’t surprise me if an amphora was found depicting the actress who originated Medea on a casting couch.
The smarmy can also be historic. It could also be the longtime accepted practice is a business where morals were never tight, even when Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons were insisting they must be.
Before judging, we need to look at the degree of mayhem and the ultimate harm done. We also have to know what really happened. Something tells me that now all, but many, share Hector Hushabye’s habit of embellishing. Remember, we’re talking about people who are practiced at and paid for being dramatic.
I feel as if between a rock and hard place even addressing this. But I have to because I’m more disgusted with the Puritanical nature that has everyone gasping at the latest revelation and at the person who committed the act.
Pretty soon no one will be able to work. Talent will be minimized in the name of moral turpitude. Or political correctness. Sexual games have been played from the beginning of time. Audiences love seeing them enacted in movies and TV shows. Do we denigrate Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson for their womanizing the same way we sneered last week at Kevin Spacey or Dustin Hoffman? How about JFK or Bill Clinton?
I worry most about the talent gap if every big star accused of malfeasance is barred from working again. Spacey doesn’t have Oscars, Emmys, and Tony for being mediocre. He didn’t run one of England’s most prestigious theaters, the Old Vic, because he doesn’t know his craft. Or his art.
Should “House of Cards” have to go out of production because Spacey inappropriate seduced Anthony Rapp (who I’ve met three times and is also a fine performer)? Is Dustin Hoffman’s brilliant career, one of the best ever, to be negated because he did what so many Hollywood dons did take advantage of a young production assistant?
I say ‘no.’ Not because the mighty can’t fall. Harvey Weinstein and Roger Ailes are proof they can.
But because of what Shaw, or Hesione, said. And because perspective and proportion are handier tools of justice than perfection or Utopia.