Kevin Spacey is either a complete madman or a genius. And you, I and millions of others will make that determination, based on whether he can keep our eyeballs glued on him. The video he recently posted is a roll of the dice on his part and he’s betting that he’s going to win.
When allegations surfaced in November of last year claiming multiple incidents of sexual assaults and harassments against young men going back over decades, Spacey was killed off as one of the main characters, Frank Underwood, on House of Cards, one of the most popular political dramas of all time. Netflix dropped him like he was on fire.
If you haven’t seen the clip yet here’s where you can find it. However, if you’re not a fan of his acting don’t bother.
The fact is, I’ve always been a Kevin Spacey fan, and while I was — and still am — deeply troubled by the allegations against him, at this point, as he points out in the video, they’re still allegations.
But there’s too much smoke not to be some fire. Spacey quickly admitted that he was gay when the allegations first surfaced (which should not have been a surprise since he kissed a male character passionately as Underwood on screen in the previous season of the show), and as some gay activists rightly said, gayness should not be used as an excuse for sexual assault.
However, Spacey’s argument going forward is probably going to be that while he might have plied young men with alcohol and then put the mash on them, his acts were not illegal or demonic since the men (and in one case, allegedly, a boy) willingly consented to the behavior.
This last incident, in which an 18-year-old busboy who worked at a Nantucket, Massachusetts, restaurant alleges that Spacey bought him drinks and then, bragging about the size of his penis, rubbed the young man’s genitals through his pants. I don’t know about you, but even at 18, when he starts talking about the size of his dick, I’m outta there with the quickness. The youth further alleges that Spacey unzipped his pants and played with his pecker for “about three minutes.” Three minutes? Three minutes, and the young man didn’t stop him or cum? Come on — he definitely should have done one or the other.
This is in no way attempting to play “blame the victim.” But I’m simply attempting to determine if there was a victim at all, or someone looking for a payday.
Of course, some might say that I’m attempting to give Spacey a pass on his potentially illegal sexual behavior because I’m a fan of his work, and they may just be right. Maybe I am. But I’m also going to wait until all of the facts are in.
Spacey is betting that enough people will still want to watch him on some platform (and there are a lot of them out there) that his star won’t be totally eclipsed, and he just might be right. Watch the video.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.