Something is happening in Hollywood and I predict the fallout will be near catastrophic. Hollywood is the 'chosen' location, I think, because that is the one place that everyone watches and people's lives there seem to be such that privacy is given to none and we all are entitled to know every jot and tiddle of every life that flashes across a screen. "Reality TV" has brought us here and the "internet dating" mindset as set the stage.
Power through sexual behaviour is not new by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, most Biblical references to homosexuality are actually references to adult teachers using their power over their students in sexual ways ... and since the students at that time were males, it looked a lot like what we now call homosexuality. Which is why the religious superior faction use those verses to condemn same-sex relations. Yes, I believe that most verses they interpreted wrong and are actually about power through sexual behaviour.
Flash forward - Any battle through the ages that included 'pillaging' also included 'rape', and societies that built up on hedonistic values also had a portion of the pie that incorporated power through sexual behaviour. The "casting couch" is something that has been in existence for a long time in Hollywood, since Hollywood began, I suspect. And not just with young starlets with stars in their eyes but with young children whose parents were determined to turn them into the next Shirley Temple or Mickey Rooney and not realizing that this was a subtle form of child pornography. Look at any of the Shirley Temple movies and they are not promoting an innocent child but something much more twisted.
Flash forward to today. Perhaps the most hedonistic in American history, the most ego-centric and arrogant, the most hate-filled, attacking Democrats vs Republican society in decades, where 50 Shades of Grey is a literary and cinema hit (I'm feeling nauseous on that!) ... and word comes forth that the most powerful producer is being accused of sexual misconduct. What??? This is not new and our sexual mores have relaxed so much and we are making THIS the breaking point? We ignore all the steps WE took to get to this point and hinge all our attack on this one person as the guilty person? We pretend all the other times we were silent did not exist because THIS is the time to tell the 'truth', no matter the consequences because we are telling the truth, and that absolves us from all that might come after, right?
Now, don't get me wrong ... I am not condoning it by any means. It is wrong in every form of the word 'wrong'. Using sex as any form of non-consent force is wrong in my books. No 'buts'. And, at the same time, I also know that something is really broken in our world and communication is not clear or easily understood. Face-to-face dialogue and non-verbal communication is difficult at best, especially when taking into account that the individual sending the message likely isn't really clear on what s/he wants to say anyway. Especially when there's the curiosity to click on the next image or story and see what's there. Especially when relationships are made and broken with words on a screen and all non-verbal nuances are eliminated from the exchange. Especially when asked to clarify and you're faced with a response of "don't you understand English??" (Yes, I had that response once when the message wasn't clear to me.)
Back to Hollywood today. Every day, it seems, that someone else is put up on the chopping block. A producer, an actor, a politician, repeat ... every one of them male. Every one of them white. ... so far. If the abused received even a remotely similar response as I did, it's no wonder there was a blanket of silence on this for decades. No, not a complete blanket - as, previously mentioned, it was known that something was happening on that Casting Couch. So, whether it was laughed off or hushed up or just not mentioned, the gravity of the situation was kept quiet ... until now. And now, it's like the lid has blown off and every Tom, Dick and Harry are being accused, sometimes for the smallest of things. On the big screen, the anti continually is upped (BDSM on the screen, oh yes bring it on!!!) while IRL the slightest look or touch on an inappropriate spot has legal charges coming out like a repeater rifle. Is there anyone else that finds this odd?
And don't tell me that white males are the only ones who have done this. White Alpha Males. I can't believe that. I believe white alpha males are fully capable of it, and have continued it through the decades, centuries, even; but don't tell me that ALL women are innocent of it or even have never done it.
Maybe we, as a western society, coming straight from the Greek way of thinking, just has sex completely messed up. Maybe we have made it into something that it wasn't intended to be. It seems that it has forever been part of extremes, part of a world of complete religious repression or complete animal freedom. And, each in their own way, has brought the world in its own way, to this point. I think the Roman times had something similar ... and maybe various societies through history. But because we are all one big community now, we have ALL become part of this pull in some way. And, leave it to the hedonistic world of Hollywood to bring it to its knees. I really hope those women who have brought this to light realize the weight of responsibility they have just put upon themselves. Just because they have collectively pointed their fingers at the culprits does not mean they are innocent. Just because you stand for "here is the truth!" does not mean you are free when lives crash down and worlds implode and people are destroyed. Who is the one who's morals are superior? And what is the cost?
My mother was a martyr. In her mind, she sacrificed herself for everyone, for everything 'right' and 'true' ... she suffered in poverty, she anguished in pain on a regular basis. She blamed her children, her family, the world. She was a victim of male power, and likely somewhere in her past, there was probably sexual abuse. She truly was a victim, but how it played out over the decades to her death destroyed more than one life along the way. Yes, it should have been different for her; and along the way, the lives she ruined, the people she toxically infected, those that suffered because she suffered ... they were the consequences of her response. They did not matter because her victimization was the most important. She made it about her ... just like these women are making it about them. And the 'others' that were destroyed on the way? of no consequence. In some ways, they were even blamed because they did not give her what she needed because they were so lost in their own destruction that they had no idea how to self-heal. It wasn't about them, not for her. It was only about her. And now, at least right now, it's all about them. They even got on the front of the Times Magazine.
Each of us want to be heard, want to be listened to ... remember, in that to hear, to listen, to give, too, what you want to receive. If you want to be understood, seek, also to understand. It seems we are so caught up on the one side of the coin that we forget there's another side. The side that we give out what we expect to get. The Moral Superiority fights for the one side and complete ignores the other, completely at the cost of the other. Even sinners have the right to be heard ... for, at our core, are we all not some form of sinner?
It is good that light is shone on the sin;
it is not good that it is done without regard or compassion to the sinner.
Just remember - every time you point your finger, there are 3 pointing back at you.
