So you've dedicated hours of your life to a terrible person
What I've learned since my 2010s foray into podcasting
**Content warning: This article contains references to sexual assault.**
Nearly a decade ago, friend of the Substack Dan Slevin appeared on Radio NZ’s Afternoons to discuss the rich ecosystem of podcasts about film made in New Zealand. Among such luminaries as Never Repeats (Hayden Frost and L.J. Ritchie) and Slevin’s own (alongside Kailey Carruthers) Rancho Notorious, he mentioned one particular podcast that was "…weirder than others.” This was my very own podcast, recorded with my good friend Adam Goodall and a really impressive lineup of guests, mainly from Wellington’s theatre, comedy and film scenes.
I am so proud of the quality of what we made and don’t for a second regret the fact that nobody will ever get to listen to it again.
In October 2017, we were preparing for a break as I headed overseas for an unspecified amount of time. We were halfway through recording a live episode that would mark the beginning of the hiatus when we found out about the first of what would be a slew of allegations of sexual assault about the subject of our podcast. Adam and I made the (really easy) decision to pull The Spacey Space from the internet and we haven’t looked back since. Credit where credit’s due, Adam did most of the necessary damage control while I was travelling.
After all, who’d want to be associated with Kevin Spacey?
The answer is, regrettably, a lot of people. Actors like Sharon Stone1, Liam Neeson2 and Stephen Fry3 have called for him to be allowed to return to acting. This is despite the fact that he never really left, having starred in five films in the years since he was ‘cancelled’. An array of figures from Paul Schrader to Tucker Carlson have thrown their support behind him. For these rich and powerful people, the (extremely brief) moment known as #metoo was an existential threat and they circled the wagons in response.
For me, and for a lot of normal people, the movement signalled something else entirely. It demonstrated how easily extreme power disparities can be exploited within institutions that rely on them, like Hollywood (not to mention the Catholic Church, law firms and several industries that aren’t glamorous enough for a hashtag). The threat that keeps people like Fry and Schrader up at night doesn’t really exist. The truth is, most predators, abusers and bullies are able to go on operating as they always have. Other than a few particularly egregious monsters like Harvey Weinstein, so-called ‘victims’ of cancel culture tend to be ‘uncancelled’ before long (not just Spacey but Johnny Depp, Shia LaBeouf, J K Rowling, etc etc). All the structures that enabled Kevin Spacey to assault so many people are still in place. This lack of accountability for the powerful, aside from a performative slap on the wrist, permeates every level of our society from the re-election of Donald Trump, to that manager in your workplace who the grads warn each other about.
And of course this is an area where New Zealand is no exception, as much as it might like to pretend it is. If you read last week’s stomach-churning Vulture piece about the extent of Neil Gaiman’s alleged sexual assaults, you would be aware of the fact that a lot of his alleged offending happened on Waiheke Island. It’s easy to criticise an openly genocidal ethnostate like Israel for granting amnesty to pedophiles, but much harder to acknowledge that New Zealand plays a similar role. We have a reputation as an easy-going country, far away from other nations and with a population that tends to leave famous people alone which makes us very attractive safe haven for figures hoping to keep a low profile like Gaiman, Jimmy Urine and Peter Thiel.
This isn’t just an imported phenomenon either. Peter Beck is treated as our very own success story, even getting a knighthood, despite the widely-publicised issues with the way he runs Rocket Lab. There are high-profile figures in New Zealand’s film, politics and literary scenes whose alleged offending is an open secret (just as James Wallace’s was until it wasn’t). I’m sure many of you have encountered similar figures in your professional careers and seen the level of resistance from those in power when you have tried to raise concerns.
People have opined on the role that performative male feminism has played for bad men wishing to cover their tracks. There’s definitely some truth in this and we’ve all met dudes whose interpersonal behaviour doesn’t match their professed values. But the most important thing that all these figures have in common isn’t empty woke-signalling but power over others. It is almost impossible to have the wealth and status of someone like Gaiman or Spacey and still be a good person; their very success depends on the dehumanisation of the people below them.
It can be hard to cut loose an artist whose work has played a big part in your life but part of being an adult means getting over the shit you liked when you were younger. Kevin Spacey is nowhere near a good enough actor to justify such defensiveness from his contemporaries (and it wouldn’t matter if he was). J K Rowling was never a good writer, you just read her at an impressionable age (and it wouldn’t matter if she was). Even if you identified some merit in their work (as many former fans of Gaiman have been grappling with), there is no book or film more important than the people whose lives have been ruined by these monsters. Imagine how many people there are around the world who are better at acting than Kevin Spacey but haven’t raped anyone. Put them in your film!
The main thing I learned from The Spacey Space, #metoo and its backlash is that this shit is just going to keep on happening until we destroy the structures that allow them to happen: the patriarchy, white supremacy and capitalism.
Apparently no longer a racist.
A one-time progressive who has recently succumbed to anti-trans brainworms.
what's ur book going to be about!! how exciting