My issue with cancel culture isn't inconsistency as such or hypocrisy as such. Rather, it's arrogance. It's inevitable that people are going to separate the art from the artist. Almost no one actually wants art and culture to simply be expressions of public virtue, and those who do you really don't want to spend much time around. So just...let me make my own choice. You can hang and forgive who you want, and I'll do the same.
On the subject of Kevin Spacey, I wouldn't vouch for his innocence, but a lot of the accusations against him feel opportunistic. I also suspect that Bryan Singer threw him under the bus in order to put off the day when people looked into his own closet full of skeletons.
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Arrogance is a good word to describe the senseless practice of publicly shaming others. Of course, hypocrisy still has its place: "Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own?"
Having had years of experience seeing supermarket tabloids on my way out of the store it's easy for me to ignore common gossip. What movie people do outside of the films they make doesn't hold much interest for lots of us: Rock Hudson is a homosexual? Has Doris Day been told?
One funny thing, though, is that after the scandal had broken about Woody Allen and Soon-Yi I happened across a blog post written by Moses Farrow that impressed me enough that I've kept it in my bookmarks. He's one of the children belonging to that large combined family and is himself a therapist.
An apt scriptural quote. I think it's safe to say that the pharisees are always with us. Also that some people actually aspire to be them.
Rock Hudson obviously wasn't the first homosexual to gain employment in Hollywood. His being a generally nice guy probably helped as well. Not only did Doris Day know but so did heartland conservative John Wayne, who said it wasn't anyone else's business.
The way Farrow ran her household and raised her adopted children was notably creepy and cultlike. It very much seems like her goal was to have the truth be just whatever she said it was. Obviously at some point Allen fell on the wrong side of that. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to follow along though.
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