Eight current and former employees of Kevin Spacey's show "House of Cards" have accused the actor of sexual harassment and, in one case, assault, CNN reports. A former production assistant alleges that Spacey sexually assaulted him during an early season of the show. Other accusers told CNN Spacey's behavior, including inappropriate comments and nonconsensual touching, was "predatory" and caused a "toxic" work environment.I've never watched House of Cards, and I can't say that I have ever found Spacey an appealing screen presence (not just because he plays a bad character, either), so it's not as if this is shocking because I liked him before. But he has been a popular figure with the audience whenever appearing on the likes of Colbert or other late night chat shows. I expect it will be some years before we see him on one of those again.
But what does feel kind of shocking is that such behaviour, which has become so verboten in your average workplace for decades now, has not been addressed in such a high profile and (yes) largely liberal by reputation industry. (Mind you, the culture around key figures at Fox News was clearly toxic as well, and so well tolerated that million dollar contracts were renewed. Conservative media does not really have grounds to gloat.)
It's just odd to think that, when young Ms Smith from accounts at a small company 30 years ago could (and often did) deal effectively with her predatory boss if she wanted to, entertainment industry folk have been putting up with it for many decades since then.
1 comment:
not a patch on the original one from the UK.
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