This year has brought about a kind of collective reckoning about how people, men, mostly, have abused their power relationships with other people sexually. We're listening to women and men come out about how egregious behavior by others who should have certainly known better have hurt them and impacted their lives. I think this is a good thing. It's past time we collectively as a society wanted accountability for how people treat one another, and for the real damage done by gross, selfish, unethical and deliberately or negligently harmful behaviors to get the discussion that is due.
And that means sometimes saying that some individuals who did really good work that you appreciated just need to get cut off--like
Bill Cosby. As I relentlessly bore youse with, I am from Philadelphia, and Cosby could have gone anywhere, but he was a native son here and he went to Temple. I grew up with
Fat Albert. I watched
The Cosby Show and
Picture Pages. (Although
A Different World, a spin-off from
The Cosby Show, was definitely more my favorite show--because the original kind of has some Brady Bunch vibes, but I just liked where
A Different World was coming from. Debbie Allen was the creative mind influencing later episodes of that show, and of course, I loved her since
Fame.) Like, every comedian I came across for years had to have a Cosby impression going on. His HBO specials where he discussed fatherhood and his life were great decent material. He was a major influence on culture, and some comics today can still talk about him with reverence because he did do some great work--
But he also did so many shitty things. And eventually, that is what people will remember, because that's how it goes. And it's sad. I won't think less of his work product, necessarily, but I will have to reckon with the damage that went into it. And that is ugly.
Same thing with Kevin Spacey--if I were to go back in time and tell 1999 me, just getting out of a theater having taken a half-day from work because I just thought I wanted to take in a movie in a mostly-empty theater and really appreciate
American Beauty, that
in my timeline
, Kevin Spacey came out in 2017. I loved
that movie so hard.
1999 Me: Hey, that is really great. I'm glad he's finally able to live his truth. I know it's hard to come out in his business and there's a danger of being typecast, but with his talent...
2017 Me: He came out to deflect from being a serial abuser and rapist of young men and boys
1999 Me: Fuck everything he even thinks about into tiny little pieces and set them on fire.
And I would have meant it then. And I mean it now--sometimes the truth hurts but you have to take it--even someone whose work you really like. It's true if the artist is someone you know, the way
Sarah Silverman talks about Louis CK :
“One of my best friends of over 25 years, Louis C.K., masturbated in front of women,” she continued. “He wielded his power with women in -—ed up ways, sometimes to the point where they left comedy entirely. I could couch this with heartwarming stories of our friendship and what a great dad he is, but that’s totally irrelevant, isn’t it? Yes, it is. It’s a real mindf—, because I love Louis. But Louis did these things. Both of those statements are true. So I just keep asking myself, ‘Can you love someone who did bad things? Can you still love them?’ I can mull that over later certainly, because the only people that matter right now are the victims. They are victims and they are victims because of something he did. So I hope it’s OK that I am, at once, very angry for the women he wronged and the culture that enabled it, and also sad, because he’s my friend. But I believe with all my heart that this moment in time is essential. It’s vital that people are held accountable for their actions, no matter who they are. We need to be better. We will be better. I can’t -—ing wait to be better.”
What she said. So, taking in that Al Franken, who has been a solid liberal voice, and a capable US Senator, has
behaved in ways that are inappropriate with respect to female coworkers in any setting, my instinct is to believe the accuser, to look at the picture without trying to deflect that he seems to be miming groping only, or that he touched her for the sake of "comedy", as if that made autonomy and personal choice about being touched less important.
Of course what he did was wrong. The thing with being a real feminist or ally is owning up to the failures of people to be who we need them to be regardless of how they mostly represent themselves as. I don't need an 80% anti harassment ally. I need a 100% ally, because that 20% is what keeps sexism and inequality going strong. I think people should acknowledge their bullshit and understand why their bullshit was wrong, and promise to never go back on their bullshit. I think Franken did a good ego-check based on his statement of apology and contrition, and called for his own senate investigation. He isn't deflecting. He's here to do the work. I can support that kind of accountability. I can also pick apart why it is stupid to carry out a mime-groping of a sleeping individual and sympathize with her dismay about what people saw fit to do around her while she was unconscious and incapable of consent and mourn how that was not transparently beyond the pale for them.
It's a reckoning. I like Al Franken and think he does good work, and am proud of him for calling for his own investigation. I don't think he's probably abusive as a general rule, and recognize that comedy can be about exploring edges, and might sometimes encroach on shibboleths, so I don't hold his comedic speculations against him as "proofs" of eventual poor behavior. I truly think proportionality is an essential part of justice.
But yeah. I also have to check in that what Franken did was sexist bullshit that took no input regarding the woman he was working with. That is wrong.
But like the vicious partisan I am, I need to also remark on this:
Yeah. Trump is still also an abuser, and has done worse than Franken as far as we have heard alleged. So I don't think Mr. Glasshouse should be using his slingshot like that right now.
