Just as one cannot imagine what it must be like for a woman to be assaulted by a man, so too is the idea of a man being sexually assaulted by another man an unimaginable act. That is what actors Terry Crews and James Van Der Beek claim happened to them. And as if to prove that the same sinister culture that protected Harvey Weinstein for three decades still exists, neither actor will name his abuser(s).
Their silence is frustrating. We want them to name names. We want to see justice done to every sexual abuser. After all, silence is the abuser’s greatest enabler. But what is truly at fault is a system that keeps Crews and Van Der Beek silent, that very same Hollywood culture that protected Weinstein for so long.
And it is not just Hollywood that protects these abusers. When names are not named, the same NBC News that killed Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein bombshell, is able to protect Hollywood with outrageously generic headlines like this.
Using his Twitter account, earlier this week Crews detailed the story of a “high level Hollywood executive” who “groped his privates.”
Crews says he “told everyone who needed to know” about the incident, but so did a number of Weinstein’s alleged victims. And we all know how that worked out.
Moreover, this is criminal behavior, above and beyond something you take to your human resources department.
Wednesday night, Van Der Beek told his sordid tale:
Van Der Beek says he has not named his abusers because two of them were charged and one has died.
If they were charged and punished, if they are dead, why not tell us who they are/were? Only good things can come from this. Especially if there are other victims blaming themselves.
The only answer is fear… Fear of a backlash within an entertainment industry that enables sexual predators like Roman Polanski for as long as they make rain, fear of a backlash from an NBC News that protects Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and Harvey Weinstein, even when they possess smoking gun- audio of Weinstein admitting to his behavior.
Until Hollywood and the mainstream media create a culture where women and men, like Crews and Van Der Beek, not only feel comfortable naming names, but understand that naming those names is the only proper thing to do, the victims in Hollywood will just keep piling up like so much cordwood.
Look right now at how — at this very moment, as though they have learned nothing from the Weinstein scandal — the entertainment media is protecting Ben Affleck from mushrooming allegations.
And let us never forget the political aspect of all this. Hollywood, our media, including the entertainment media, will always make it career suicide to tell an inconvenient truth about a leftwing sacred cow.
NBC News refused to publish what will prove to be the story of the year, what is already the biggest scandal in Hollywood history. If our media is that corrupted and depraved, can you blame Crews and Ven Der Beek?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.