Last week, Anthony Rapp joined the groundswell of women coming forward to tell their stories of sexual harassment when he shared his traumatic experience with Kevin Spacey years ago. When Rapp was only 14, Spacey, 26 at the time, invited him over to his apartment and made sexual advances toward Rapp. Rapp never told anyone about that night. But after enduring the pain and shame for so long and hearing others speak out about what other Hollywood men did to them, Rapp decided to share his story.
Spacey is far from the only Hollywood actor accused of inappropriate sexual advances lately. Many women accused Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood film producer, of sexual harassment, Bill O’Reilly paid off women to keep quiet about his unwanted sexual advances, Casey Affleck has been named in multiple lawsuits for inappropriate touching from women on the set of one of his movies, and Bill Cosby has been denounced by over 35 women accusing him of sexual assault. These have just been in the past couple of years. And who knows how many people are still keeping quiet about their tragic experiences.
At first, the reaction to Rapp’s news seemed typical; many, rightfully so, expressed outrage across social media and showed their disdain for a world in which men feel entitled to do as they please without suffering any consequences. But the most upsetting reaction, in my opinion, was Spacey’s. He tweeted a lackadaisical apology to Rapp, claiming he doesn’t remember the night and blaming his actions on the fact that he has been a closeted gay man for so long. The LGBTQ community expressed contempt for his apology because he essentially blamed his being gay as the reason why he behaved so horribly.
Not even a day after the news about Spacey came out, Netflix did something unprecedented: they cut ties with Spacey, canceling his show indefinitely. Netflix took proper initiative by releasing a statement, emphasizing that they care about being perceived as an honorable enterprise that takes these kinds of allegations seriously.
In Trump’s America, the news cycles are so short, and the onslaught of disrespect by powerful men is so frequent that we seem to become almost desensitized to issues of sexual harassment. But this story put a twist on the typical sexual harassment story we frequently hear. The combination of a man being harassed, the LGBTQ community refusing to be scapegoated, and this powerful media source taking a firm stance will hopefully be the catalyst in the larger movement to hold men like Kevin Spacey accountable for their actions.