Why Kevin Spacey won't find work in Hollywood
There is a quote that suggests even though it is we that make choices, in the end, our choices make us. Filmmaker Ridley Scott’s decision to replace Kevin Spacey in his completed and ready to release thriller All the Money in the World following the multiple allegations of sexual harassment is the first sign of Hollywood finally getting it that a man’s artistic stature cannot decide the extent to which he would be allowed to get away.
Misconduct
In the last four weeks, more has happened than ever before to bring in the open the sheer degree of sexual misconduct and violence against women in our society than anything else in a long, long time. Following The New York Times and The New Yorker expose that revealed movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct, many have come forward with accusations of social impropriety against prominent men including Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Affleck, former President George HW Bush, to name a few. The one thing noticeably different in terms of reactions than earlier is the swift manner in which the axe seems to have fallen on some of these men professionally.
While Weinstein was instantly fired from his own company and Manhattan district attorney reportedly seeking an indictment against him, the biggest impact of the so-called "Weinstein effect" can be seen in the way Spacey’s career panned out in a matter of days after actor Anthony Rapp went public with his allegations.
Rapp’s claim that Spacey assaulted him when he was 14 saw the former being fired from House of Cards, dropped as the recipient of a special Emmy award he was due to receive later this month, and two of his films that have wrapped up shooting — a Gore Vidal biopic and Billionaire Boys Club — might never be released. But nothing reveals the degree to which Hollywood is willing to go to distance itself from Spacey as much as the unprecedented move of him being "recast" by Scott.
The filmmaker has replaced the 58-year-old Spacey with the 87-year-old Christopher Plummer in his upcoming completed thriller All the Money in the World and is reshooting all of Spacey’s scenes with Plummer, who in fact, was his original choice to portray the role of billionaire J Paul Getty.
Netflix pulling the plug on a film (Gore Vidal biopic) featuring Spacey or bumping off his character on a globally popular show (House of Cards) is taken by a company, but what about the abysmal response to George Clooney’s latest film as a director of Suburbicon at the box office? Both Suburbicon’s director Clooney and the male lead Matt Damon owe a major debt to Weinstein in terms of kick-starting their careers and both have acknowledged that they had an idea about Weinstein but not to the extent that has now come out.
Behaviour
Did the behaviour of Clooney or Damon have an impact on the way people responded to the film? One could also say that a racial subplot in Suburbicon — set in the 1950s America where a newly arrived African-American is terrorised by a growing local mob of white supremacists — might have alienated the viewers as well, but it still does not explain the film’s lacklustre $3.7 million (Rs 24 crore) opening weekend collection considering the talent attached.
Did the average American audience "punish" golden boys Clooney and Damon for their, in the manner of speaking, "complicity" in fuelling Weinstein? A former reporter for The New York Times, Sharon Waxman, has also said that pressure from people such as Damon and Russell Crowe to vouch for a man named Fabrizio Lombardo, whose alleged duties included procuring women for Weinstein, saw her investigative story into allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein get gutted when she was with NYT.
New normal
Drastic as it may appear Scott’s decision to replace Spacey is now the new normal – and a welcome one. It’s an example of recognising a watershed moment. This is the way in which one would not let a Roman Polanski continue with business as usual after drugging and raping a 13-year-old, then fleeing from the United States after spending 42 days in jail to avoid the trail and being on the run for almost 40 years now.
Unlike Polanski or for that matter Woody Allen, who has also been accused of sexual abuse, Spacey might not be able to make a film again, not the way others with allegations against them have.
Like Matt Damon or Quentin Tarantino, who has also said that he knew enough about Weinstein to do more than what he did, continuing to work with Weinstein, many leading actors have participated in creative collaborations with Polanski and Allen despite knowing about the allegations.
This action saw them carry on for decades as if nothing happened. Unlike the industry sweeping the ugly truths under the rug, the audience and general public, thanks to social media, might not do the same. One can expect some change, some justice and a major overhaul of the way movies are made.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)