It was announced that Netflix has suspended (fired) Kevin Spacey from House of Cards (whom I believe he may have produced to an extent) after the allegations of sexual abuse came to light. Part of the situation might have been further exacerbated with him “coming out of the closet” at the same time, which was not ironically rejected by the LBGT community in poor taste and timing. In view of these matters, I wanted to provide some personal thoughts on the situation.
First, in many ways the situation does not surprise me. Kevin Spacey often played the brash, belligerent, heavily condescending yet highly intelligent jerk in many of his roles. For me the exemplary role was Buddy Ackerman in Swimming with Sharks where he played an asshole Hollywood executive producer boss. There were others before that point but I think Buddy Ackerman is the real Kevin Spacey.
It was always entertaining to watch Kevin Spacey play similar deltas throughout his career such as Horrible Bosses, Lex Luther in Superman (where he stole the show), American Beauty (mostly for the dinner scene and the way he talked down to his character wife), even the surprising John Doe in Se7ven. I will never deny his delivery, especially the conviction for which he would strike at the world that seemingly wronged him at some level. However, it’s odd how many of these parts were common and the way he kept his personal life a secret.
Now, with the truth coming out much of this makes sense. Even prior to the revelation of him being gay, I always suspected that he was odd. Hollywood leading men like himself often flaunt their excesses and the fact that he had no wife (or wives) and kept his private life so secret made me wary. Like Sean Hayes who plays a gay man in Will & Grace, Kevin Spacey remarked that he would keep his life secretive as he wanted no one to doubt his acting ability.
For me, it was never doubting what he could play. It’s more about how a person handles the criticisms about what they do. Here, the problem is that Kevin Spacey is a powerful person in Hollywood and it’s pretty evident that he uses this position to his advantage. He (and other people with all the new allegations spreading day by day) would like to think that he can abuse this privilege and hide behind the curtain of being an actor.
Instead, it simply has made someone like myself want to stay even further from Hollywood than ever. Weinstein’s situation was pretty much the top of the cancer in Hollywood, although more than likely this disease of power permeates throughout the entire entity. Hollywood has always been about perception and manages to control its image using its deep tendrils throughout.
However, Hollywood as a whole is so damaged that the whole thing needs to be built from the ground up again. Most likely, that will never happen. I think the California government alone depends too much on the tax revenue generated from Hollywood that it would be scared to make a major move against the entity of Hollywood itself. Just the unions alone probably have more influence on the state than say the fire department.
What’s sadder is watching Netflix itself distancing themselves from the situation in just isolating Kevin Spacey. Yet they can’t drop the franchise since it’s a breadwinner for them. The thing with House of Cards is that it hasn’t been good since the first two seasons and you can tell Netflix is milking it for all its worth.
But that goes to show the mentality behind this monster connected with the entertainment industry. In truth, there are no real good nor bad guys. Just people trying to grab the biggest piece of the pie to move upward or gain more territory.
Part of me wants to pull my Netflix subscription but the real justification would be the increased fees and the fact that there’s not a lot of good stuff on at the moment (not a Stranger Things fan). At the end of the day, it’s just another stupid scandal and nothing really will get done. The powerful will remain powerful and that will never change while those victimized won’t be compensated for the pain they’ve suffered.