fujishig

Eh, I beg to differ. I think what we see a lot is hand waving and non apologies, but America loves a redemption story.

slop101

On that note, one of the best, most sincere and self-realized apologies I've seen was from Dan Harmon...

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/1...ganz-community

PatD

Yes, I liked (some) of his shows. And yes it was a wonderful (at the time) experience meeting him. I have already admitted my bias. That said:

I never said he wasn't a mean boss. I'm pretty sure he was. AND I condemn that kind of behavior. I've had to put up with mean bosses back in my working life. Some of them were women. I hated them, but I didn't even occur to me to have them blackballed for life. I'm just looking for consistency in our culture's rules of conduct. You want to call it "whataboutism", fine. I call it pointing out The Court of Public Opinion's tendency for selective prosecution, no consistent statute of limitations and punishing people ex post facto. If the public insists in setting itself up as judge, jury, and executioner, they should conduct themselves on some level of principle. And while YOU might not be calling for him to be cancelled, many others are. There are even a few who would be happy to drive him to suicide if not outright kill him.

Also, I can guaran-goddamn-tee you if all the the people Whedon was hateful to on the job were exclusively men, the general public wouldn't give a shit. It would be brushed off as a Glengarry Glen Ross situation and wouldn't even be a blip on the public's radar.

Draven

No, it's not - it's forgiving to a fault.

DaveyJoe

What about Mike Tyson and Quentin Tarantino?

DJariya

James Gunn...cough cough

He made some inappropriate remarks on Twitter (which we all know about) years before he became an A list filmmaker. Someone was digging into dirt on him, Disney did a knee jerk reaction and fired him. But, he had overwhelming support from his colleagues that he was not that person and Gunn and made a public apology that his remarks and jokes at the time were stupid. Took some time, but he got re-hired.

Whedon has been quiet.

Paul_SD

That wellspring of forgiveness might just be related to the nations ADD,

I just watched as bad actors spent the last four years gaming the already abbreviated news cycles with further outrages to make those brief cycles fly be even faster with less impact.

What I've seen throughout my life is that people like to put others on pedestals and eventually take pleasure in seeing them laid low again through scandal or misfortune. After that happens and the subject has been sufficiently humbled, then the people will make the magnanimous gesture of helping rebuild them back up.

fujishig

I know you're not making it personal, Paul_SD, but I would be perfectly fine if none of the actors/directors/politicians/public figures that I like or whose work I enjoy have scandals at all. Heck I don't even have to like their work. I have no need to see them laid low. I would like them to show that they are good people, or at least contrite ones.

Now do I get some pleasure from seeing, say, Tom Brady beaten on the field? Sure. But involved in a scandal? Nah.

Paul_SD

I don't want to see my personal heroes involved in scandals either.

It just seems that there is a basic part of the human psyche that gets sated when we see Icarus finally falling back down to earth.

Supermarket tabloids were built on exploiting the human thirst for schadenfreude.

Josh-da-man

I don't think there's a hard and fast formula for why society forgives some celebrities and not others. Like most other things in life.

I think it comes down to a lot of factors, such as

How hypocritical were they?
How grievous was the offense?
How contrite were they?
Have their victims forgiven them?
How beloved were they in the first place?
Did they pay their debt to society?
How successful was their comeback?

But, yeah, I don't know why society can collectively forgive someone like Roman Polanski -- who still makes movies and wins awards despite forceably sodomizing a fourteen year-old and showing zero contrition, yet still ostracize someone like Michael Richards. Or shrug off what Tarantino did to Uma Thurman, but break out the pitchforks for Joss Whedon's treatment of Charisma Carpenter. We can forgive Mike Tyson for rape and abuse, yet hope Bill Cosby dies in prison.

Noonan

It all comes down to when it happens and how people feel about the person. Hate to bring the name up but don't forget Kobe...

fujishig

I don't think society forgave Polanski, did it? Hollywood did for a long while until the public outcry/publicity became too much, then they denounced him too.

Tarantino I think it's a combination of people liking his work and the incident not being all that visible. I think I heard about it here but it's not like Uma has come out against him (that I know of).

Sports is a weird one, it's a "what have you done for me lately" and how good are you. There are lots of despicable actions that sports stars have been accused of that a lot of people just forgive because they are really really good at sports. On a national level sometimes they aren't forgiven but on a local/fan level they definitely are. And they don't have to be all that contrite about it either.

Tyson, I can't explain.

But I think you guys are right, it's not like there's a logic to it that makes sense when it comes to forgiveness in the public consciousness. The only commonality is that the accused either apologizes or at the very least stops talking about what happened, or they pass away and time heals some wounds and people forget. Note that for all this talk, it's not like Carano is blackballed from every acting job or even that this won't be forgiven in a few years. But if she just wants to continuously put those same thoughts out there, it's kind of hard to sweep it under the rug.

Runaway

She came out against him, but not as an attack. She was just telling her story and it was Tarantino who gave her the recording of the crash, so she could release the tape.
Tarantino admitted it was his fault, he broke her trust and said their relationship suffered for a couple of years, but they that they were back on good terms. So Tarantino had not to be publicly outed, he knew he was in the wrong right away, he apologized and accepted the blame even before Uma Thurman went public.

Any way others getting a free pass isn't an argument for giving everyone a free pass.

Paul_SD

When the content of the scandal runs counter to the impression the public already had (of the accused), that seems to me to be the reason some stick and others don't.

Polanski was not a warm cuddly figure before the rape charge. He was known primarily for Rosemary's Baby and a violent neo noir that had incest as a major plot point.

I don't believe Stephen Collins plied his victim(s) with drugs and then anally raped them. The severity of the reaction towards him , I believe, was because he was known primarily as portraying a pastor in a family show.

Mike Tyson was assumed to be violent out of the ring even before the rape charge. Again, that charge didn't run counter to the perception people already had of him.
I think that allows a lot of athletes to escape because the dominant alpha male perception of pro sports players in general.

That alpha male quality also lets some figures get away with doing things that betas then get raked over the coals for.
Frank Sinatra was 49 and Mia Farrow was 19 when they met and 50 and 21, respectively, when they were married.
Being a domineering, cradle snatching perv didn't hurt his career any.
They were only married two years.

OTOH Woody Allen formally met Soon Yi at 16- but they've been married for almost 21 years.
I think it's less the betrayal and family dynamic (He and Farrow had a very non traditional arrangement from the start), than he's the epitome of a beta male.

I'll confess- that last point isn't something I came up with on my own. Two women I work with made the distinction to me as to why they don't view Sinatra as negatively as Allen over basically similar behavior.
Dominant bad boys get a pass. "Weak" bad boys are the objects of openly hostile contempt.

Also similar is how this works with politicians and transgressions. The shameless that don't show contrition or admit fault muscle through it.
The ones that actually have a conscience and express shame and regret are then made to endure a long penance, and may even see their careers finished - even when the transgression may be private and relatively non impactful (to the public).

Draven

There is definitely an element of "doubling down" that certain people (especially men) can get away with.

fujishig

Do people get raked over the coals for dating 19 year olds though? I'd say (not being a woman who thinks about alpha and beta) that's why I look at Sinatra, and someone like Woody Allen who as you say knew her from 16 and where she was part of even his non traditional family. Collins too, I realize that it was worse because of his TV roles but the allegation was he was talking to a 14 year old. I'd hope that's condemned no matter what roles he had.

DJariya

Twitter

DaveyJoe

I could see that.

fujishig

Not that this was Gerard's fault but again, the Heigl-led My Father the Hero does not stand the test of time (it was probably terrible when it came out too, but I only remember watching the trailer as a teenager for... reasons).

PerryD

Sacré bleu!

devilshalo

I'm dying now?!

andicus

My bro-in-law works in the film industry and said Gerard was one of the biggest assholes he's ever dealt with.

A shame. I like his work, but it's been tainted since I heard that.

Norm de Plume

He seems like an asshole, so I'm not surprised. Not that this has anything to do with rape, but he left France because of taxes. One of those people.

fujishig

Right. Those people... Frenchmen.

Nick Danger

I think that Tyson also gets points for having been a seriously messed-up young man who went to prison and is healthier now. Maybe not as strong as redemption, but he escaped from a grim environment where felony was a reasonable career path. He gets forgiveness because he used to have residual street-thug behaviors but he's since gotten rid of them.

Compare that with Bill Cosby was drugging women for decades after he became a household name. He was an executive and an A-list celebrity who wasn't satisfied with groupies, but preferred non-consent. So far as we know, Tyson raped one woman.