For many people, Gay Talese is an icon of literature and journalism. But I suspect that most people, out in the world, have no idea who he is. You can read his Wiki here – I was always more of a Truman Capote fan, and I always thought Gay Talese was just the budget version of Capote (haters gonna hate, journalism-style). Anyway, Gay Talese is 85 years old. He’s still around and he’s still being invited to important events with important people. And when Gay Talese says something, it will probably be printed. He said something to Vanity Fair about Kevin Spacey and VF printed it. It was what many journalists would call a “bad take.”
Veteran journalist and Library Lion Gay Talese conferred with New York Times owner Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in one corner of Astor Hall before dinner. Talese, who has done as much as any writer to turn the magazine profile into an art form, broke away from his conversation to tell Vanity Fair about the one he would want to write right now.
“I would like to talk to Kevin Spacey,“ he said. News had come that afternoon that Netflix was cutting ties with the House of Cards star after multiple men had accused him of sexual harassment, beginning with actor Anthony Rapp, who told BuzzFeed that Spacey made a sexual advance towards him in 1986, when he was 14.
“I feel so sad, and I hate that actor that ruined this guy’s career,” continued Talese, who possibly had not kept up with the growing scope of the accusations online. “So, O.K., it happened 10 years ago . . . Jesus, suck it up once in a while!” Talese, visibly agitated, pressed on: “I would like to ask [Spacey] how it feels to lose a lifetime of success and hard work all because of 10 minutes of indiscretion 10 years or more ago.”
Gesturing to the roomful of media titans sipping champagne around him, he added, “You know something, all of us in this room at one time or another did something we’re ashamed of. The Dalai Lama has done something he’s ashamed of. The Dalai Lama should confess . . . put that in your magazine!”
What is it with men – and it’s always men – who think of sexual assault and rape as a mere inconvenience on the victim’s time? That happened in the Brock Turner/Stanford rape case too, where Brock Turner’s father referred to the rape as “20 minutes of action.” Ten minutes is a lifetime when you’re being assaulted or raped. And no one should have to “suck it up.” Is Gay Talese just awful, or is this the kind of stupid, dated hot-take from a very old man? I don’t know.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
This may be harsh but i don’t care: i can’t wait for people like him to die off. The older generations have such toxic ideas around so many things that I’m ready for them to have no ability to screw us over anymore.
not harsh, totally agree–these dinosaurs need to become extinct.
This fossil is cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
No, Kaye, I won’t calm down. And I don’t appreciate your flippant attitude by telling me to take a chill pill. Nicole’s last sentence is what I took offense to so may I please post my opinion without you trying to trivialize it and telling me how I should feel?
Such an offensive comment from Kaye.
@CTgirl totes right, i am a total monster.
While his comments are despicable and miss the point that spacy’s actions have been very current and ongoing, its not fair to attributed his flaws to every one in his age group. My parents are almost his age and some of the most is selfless, fair people I know. Just as. There’s plenty of young people with messed up thought processes.
I am offended by your comment. I am part of that generation. I may or may not hold the same views and opinions as you. But I am allowed to hold them. I don’t agree with this man. I find his statement horrible. Can you imagine if you said Jew, Blacks, Gays, women, children(fill in the blank) instead of the older generation? Yeah I find it harsh that you think the older generation should die off because they don’t have old fashion views. Remember if you are luck, you will be that older generation eventually.
Nicole said PEOPLE LIKE HIM. Not everyone in his generation. So unless you side with rapists, she’s not talking about you.
“The older generations have such toxic ideas around so many things that I’m ready for them to have no ability to screw us over anymore.”
Sorry but telling older people not to be offended like this is the same behavior he is engaging in. True, not as serious in degree, but the same behavior. Ageism is rampant in our society.
Lightpurple, I totally agree with you. It’s not okay to say this about older people, and, no, I’m not part of this generation but young Gen X. I’ve encountered some older people who are much more progressive than Baby Boomers or younger people. Take someone like Joy Behar, who’s in her 70s but very progressive about many issues, or the beloved Bernie Sanders. What about authors like Margaret Atwood, from whom pop culture continues to draw inspiration. You can’t paint older folks with a broad brush. Ageism is rampant, and it’s not okay. I think Talese is a garbage person, but I also feel the same way about Tomi Lahren.
Ya, the anger she’s displaying towards an entire generation is ridiculous and just as toxic. Generalizations make fools of us all.
@ lua: Universalizations make fools of us, perhaps, but not generalizations; there’s a considerable difference.
I think it is a bit dangerous to think the older generation is screwing you over with their crazy ideas. As a person who falls in the middle aged group, I admit I’m a little bit befuddled with the younger generations fascination with social media, especially nude pics and cyberbullying. I don’t think age is a precursor to having crazy thoughts or being a criminal. I think you will be greatly disappointed when you realize it is your generation too. Plus keep in mind it was this older generation who fought for your freedom. The only time I think age should be an excuse and only in some actions is when some form of mental deficiencies are involved.
Yes, it’s harsh. Not all older generations are jerks, and actively trying to screw over younger generations. This gay dude said this bc he’s an awful person, plain and simple. Thanks for telling us you are waiting for us to die. Nice person you are Nicole.
calm down, okay? she did not say she wants every one of this generation to die off–what she means (and what I meant) is we cannot wait for the vocal proponents of really shitty social policy and views to no longer have a voice. these are the people who we are supposed to say, awww they are old, it doesn’t matter they are so sexist and raciest and so on. nope–it does matter and they need to be quiet.
and when i say, “Die off” I am not talking dancing on the graves of old people, i mean becoming more and more and more overpowered by reasonableness and decency.
jumping to a logical fallacy (aka hasty generalization) is what you’ve done here. so, maybe take a chill pill–as we used to say.
Um thats EXACTLY what you both said. “cant wait for people like him to die”
“cant wait for them to be extinct” ????
I think its the both of you that jumped to a hasty generalization.
geeze–i clarified what i meant, that i was speaking metaphorically as I assume the other person was, but i guess that’s still not good enough?
seems a bit too early in the morning to be so filled with rage, have a good one!
xoxoxox
@kaye, your clarification wasn’t an improvement
@Lightpurple cool story, bro–thanks for the hall monitoring. sorry for the late reply, i was out doing the work and not worried about word police.
alot of people of my generation (im 33) hold the same views as this piece of shit. I know because a friend of mine was raped by another friend of mine who happens to be a bit of a local celebrity, and I was shocked and appalled at how people my age and younger reacted. This same exact bullshit “his career will be affected for this small thing” “she is lying for attention” etc etc – I stopped speaking to all of them after that.
Unfortunately its people of all ages.
Its always shocking to me how fans of any celebrity, however minor, will forgive them anything or blame others for their actions.
You know what else takes hardly any time at all? Shooting a gun. And yet that act, quite rightly, derails careers and lives. This geezer needs to STFU.
Not harsh. He chooses not to evolve this thinking as our culture (far too slowly) shifts from blame the victim to blame the predator.
If only this kind of thinking would die out with them… but it won’t. They’ll just be replaced by other clueless men.
Yep, hence the alt-right.
And like I’ve said before, most monsters are created over time. So if there’s so many awful men out there, how did they get that way?
Gay Talese is apparently a proponent of the suck-it-up method. But that kinda attitude helps make monsters. To disconnect boys and men from their emotions and their pain and to send the message that it’s not “manly” to struggle emotionally even after you’ve genuinely been violated creates monsters.
I can’t say this enough. Collectively, we are failing our boys and the result is toxic masculinity.
Sadly, I think you are right.
I changed my mind. Today is a happy day, with some wins and good vibes that this trumpland will end sooner than later.
I just don’t want the negative karma, and I am sorry I posted here.
Sometimes my favorite part of commenting is seeing who actually reads what i say and who’s the first to say “NOT ALL ‘insert group here’”
Always amusing
I agree. I just am too excited and happy today, I’m cleaning for christmas and enjoying the colder weather, and to hell with people who can’t be bothered to read and comprehend.
When you label an entire generation as toxic Nicole you’re going to get a NOT ALL response. And you find it amusing?
Um as someone that studies human behavior yep.
And the older generations do overwhelmingly have toxic ideas surrounding a lot of things. I’m not the first to say that or study it.
To make a statement it shouldn’t have to always have a qualifier of not all “insert group here” even though my comment literally says people LIKE HIM WITH THOSE VIEWS.
So yea it’s amusing to see people jump in a comment section.
I would like to say, in my toxic elderly way, Nicole, put a sock in it.
“The older generations have such toxic ideas around so many things that I’m ready for them to have no ability to screw us over anymore.”
The older generations also brought us the civil rights movement and the women’s right movement and the gay rights movement. There are plenty of younger people with toxic ideas who are quite eager to screw us – Paul Ryan springs immediately to mind.
Sure but I’m not going to pretend that there’s not toxic ideas in the older black community either. The same people that brought us civil rights. I happen to know plenty myself
I attended an American couple’s same sex wedding in Toronto in 2005. They married in Canada because the US government does not have the authority to nullify a foreign marriage, and, at the time, they were uncertain if a gay marriage conducted in the US would be protected from the whims of politics.
When asked why they didn’t wait for gay marriage to be legalized in the US, one of the grooms said that was 10 years off and they didn’t want to wait that long. He is a statistician and did the math. At the time, the majority of people who opposed gay marriage were over the age of 70 and it would take about 10 years for enough of them to die in order for public opinion on gay marriage to shift. Looks like he was right.
Does that mean all people over the age of 70 are toxic? Of course not, but what it does mean is that social and culture norms have changed a lot since the Greatest Generation came of age and some people who are in considerable positions of power and influence still hold on to what we consider antiquated ideas.
A big yes to lightpurple’s comments here. Heroes, flaming assholes like Talese, and everything in between exist in every generation & always have. As fubar noted, younger people who are lucky will age into the older generations. Maybe then, those who agree with sweeping statements like “the older generations have such toxic ideas” will recognize them for what they are — yet another toxic idea that needs to be called out.
The thing is, Nicole, there are plenty of younger men who think like this, too, thanks to the older men they have been influenced by. Misogyny, like racism and bigotry, is generational from what I’ve observed. I guess my point is even when he and his peers are gone the problem will be far from solved.
I’m well aware. I’m also aware of how much Boomers have LARGELY skewed elections here and in the UK in recent years. With backwards thinking.
Again i said people like him because let’s be real we are more progressive now than ever. There are less conversative, religious young people now than any previous gen. While older people want to cling to their antiquated crap and I’m over it.
You said people “like him” in your first sentence but your second sentence was much broader. And here again, you accused “older people” of wanting to cling to antiquated crap. Ageism is rampant in our society and it is wrong, very wrong, and it causes economic harm in the workplace to a great many people.
Light purple that’s not even remotely the same thing. Ageism in the workplace has to do with largely automating jobs, technological advancement and lack of training for older workers.
I’m not going to apologize for what i see as a generation that is largely holding onto toxic views on race, sex and general way of life. It’s not a general sweep I’ve legit read study after study on the gap between boomers views and everyone else. Generational shifts are a thing and right now the gap between boomers and millennials are large.
It’s just interesting to read the knee jerk reactions.
Depending on the jurisdiction, it also covers disparate treatment AND hostile atmosphere. Hostile atmosphere includes offensive, overly generalized comments such as saying older generations have toxic ideas. Younger generations have toxic ideas too. I handle these cases for a living and am constantly amazed at what people think they can say about older generations.
Amen sister
It’s not harsh at all, this insipid mentality is what created and helps to maintain a culture of complicity and silence.
Even IF it was “just” one time, it’s one time too many! In all my years of drunken debauchery I have never sexually harassed anyone; there is absolutely no excuse for Spacey’s atrocious behavior, none.
This dude has to go, he will not change his perspective, especially at his age. Also, Spacey ruined his career not the actor who told his story.
Fuck this guy and those who agree with him.
No one here agrees with this nasty old man. That’s why so many posters were offended by Nicole labeling an entire generation to be as toxic as him. That’s just not true or fair.
Yes, old man die, and take your 13th century views with you.
MTE. Sometimes it takes a generation dying out for a cultural shift. Certain ideologies become too ingrained in most people for there to be a significant change.
This is not to say there aren’t lovely octagenarians, just that the majority of old white wealthy male ones have pretty messed up ideas on gender and consent and social justice.
Ageism is toxic too.
I do not disagree with that one bit.
I believe that understanding generational norms and ideologies is important though, and that you can make generational comparisons. While I would never assume an older person holds those views until they show them, toxic gender norms, DV and issues with race are present in a larger proportion of the population in that generation compared to younger generations. I read Nicole’s comment as an indictment of those people, not an attack on all older folk.
I’ve had this thought before 🙁 older generations of men have such a toxic view of sex, women, gays, minorities, and they teach this sh*t to younger people. These are the generations that still normalized sexual harassment, domestic violence, spousal rape, not to mention drinking and smoking during pregnancy. Total disregard for others. They’re a toxic generation all around, especially the men. It’s like they haven’t realized they live in a new time now. Things change.
Also, if I were old I’d be enjoying life to the fullest, not releasing harmful statements to the world and say shit like “Suck it up once in a while.” Yeah, because a person’s life is worth less than some overrated actor’s legacy. Also, there are many NEW accusations if that means anything to him. It’s not one person, it’s dozens.
Can’t help but think about all the other actors who will reach out to Kevin in support because the machine has not gone away, it’s just hiding better.
AMEN
My thoughts exactly. I don’t care if that harsh.
I know Gay Talese (went to college with his daughter). He’s a douche. To a certain degree, his douchiness was entirely normal back in his day (a thought which makes me thanks the Gods that I did not have to come of age during his era) but he takes douchiness to a new level. It seems to come with a certain kind of celebrity, and I am so sick of it.
To the urn with you, Gay. You are so over.
Oof, this does not surprise me. I had dinner with Gay Talese once, right after the Penn State sex abuse cases, and he basically said the victims were asking for it. It was like watching one of my heroes die right in front of me. (I’m a journalist and was taught to idolize Talese and other “new journalists” like him.)
I have to agree with you. Is not a politically correct thing to say and many will call you names. But damn it if what you wrote is true! Which doesn’t mean generalization: absolutely doesn’t mean that ALL older generations people “bad” and ALL newer generations are “good”. Is a lot more than that and is a very complex and difficult discussion to have on a gossip board.
The key to your sentence “LIKE HIM” and other older people “LIKE HIM.”
I have to agree with that. I can’t say I want a 20-year-old with terrible views to die off because they are young and should have a chance to grow and change. But an 85-year-old man who thinks the victim is to blame. Bye.
My parents are Baby Boomers but hella cool, and my grandparents aren’t like him. So I feel pretty confident she isn’t referencing them.
My dapper old Russian grandfather doesn’t think like that he used some word I didn’t understand about Spacey but it wasn’t nice.
My other grandfather is no longer on this earth, and I am confident he might have agreed with GT. I didn’t care for him very much, and as a kid, my parents had to make me hug him until I threw a monumental tantrum. We just weren’t tight after that. Lol. He talked in a thick Cajun drawl and was gruff and made my Memere wait on him hand and foot. Yeah, he is no significant loss for progression. The year before he died I stayed with them for a week, and he made it plain he thought it was a crime I was “made to be Jewish.” Eww, I just remembered that.
Nicole meant him ^^^^.
Yeah I think “LIKE HIM” is the most important part of Nicole’s statement that everyone here is ignoring.
Also, you and I have both said that we don’t want another old-ass white man in the Oval Office ever again. Is that ageism? Maybe, but I think Nicole’s larger point that many old people cling to old (and toxic) ideas is an unassailable one.
Yes, they do Kitten and if you look at how they vote it is more Republican. Gen X and Millenials are overwhelmingly the other way and get out and vote now. Even some younger Republicans are reasonable and don’t agree with their older brethren on many social issues.
No more old white guys. I want a woman and more women to change this game once and for all. We need laws that protect us. I want more WOC and LGBTQ+ women.
Yes. The first sentence says she can’t wait for people *like him* to die. The second sentence includes no such qualifiers and she’s just wishing people incapacitated in some way, not necessarily dead.
The “********“ have such toxic ideas about so many things that I’m ready for them to have no ability to screw us over anymore.
Fill in that blank with any group that you belong to, that you have zero control over and tell me again how it’s ok???
I miss my dapper old Russian grandfather. He always cheated at dominoes and gave himself the ‘big half’ of the chocolate but damn if I didn’t adore him. I miss my Russian grandmother a hell of a lot too. I have no idea what their ideas would have been on this but I know for sure it wouldn’t have been ‘get over it’.
As someone who rubs shoulders with alt-righters on a near-daily basis, I’m not keen on them any more than I am on Gay, Pretty sure some will ‘grow’ out of it but many seem to get worse, not better.
I agree, but I can assure you that their views are not dying with them. 🙁
Ha! Younger people are better? I work with young people, some of them who share “packs” of nude pics from girls they know, girls who many times take nude selfies to share with their friends/ biyfriends and then lose control of those. Don’t tell me that is better.
All generations have bad, bad things and good ones. And yes, hopefully you will belong to the older out of touch generation, hey if you are over 30 you are uncool right now.
No amount of backtracking/clarification will make this comment ok. You’re as bad as Talese.
That’s “10 minutes of indiscretion, 10 years ago” for the perpetrator but 10 years * 365 days/year* 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour = 5,256,000 minutes of reliving the trauma for the victim.
+1000. And it’s clear that this comment was only a statement on certain types of older people.
These problems exist in every generation, but let’s not pretend that they didn’t all start with someone older. There’s room to acknowledge progressive older people while also acknowledging that the era a person is born in can shape their stances on sexual morality, gender, rape, race, domestic violence, and religion.
This whole thread has me feeling like I got dipped in a big ol’ bath of ick. I’d take Helen Mirren over (insert Duggar of choice here) any day of any week. Broad generalizations do way more to polarize than they do to inform. Gay Talese sounds like a Grade A asshole. If he were 30, he’d be Milo.
This “Put ’em in the “old” box!” talk seems like an easy way for lazy people to avoid thinking about the reality that unpleasant people are out there, and they say mean and ignorant things.
This Gay Talese comment was from the other century. When we were all supposed to just lie back and enjoy and accept the hierarchies of the wealth aristocracy. I cannot wait for this old boomer guard to give way to the new consciousness. I used to hob nob with people like him and they were so sure of their place in the world, so out of touch, so ungrateful for the luck they had. And they were all a bunch of racists and misogynists. That the sun is setting on them can’t come soon enough.
And, yes, views like his are going away fast.
Gay Talese has never read a woman writer he loved.
That’s all I need to know about him.
Idiocy and prejudices are not exclusive of elder people or a generation. I know a lot of older men and women very open minded, and a lot of young people which are homophobic, racist and full of prejudices. Please, try not to repeat the idiocy and the low level of intelligence you find unbearable in others.
Read some of his work if you can stand it; Gay Talese is a massive creep. That old man is worried about what else could fall out of HIS closet.
So only people who think like you should live?
I wish I didn’t read that.
I know, let him be assaulted, raped, and violated, then told to get over it.
I wish I was not being serious, but seriously, what is it going to take for people to wake up?
it’s not “over” for the victim, ever. It stays and lingers and hits you when you are out shopping, at christmas dinner, making love. It’s there, all the time.
Fuck Spacey’s career.
Yeah at this point, rape apologists are suspect. I would be shocked if there aren’t some victims of Talese’s “indiscretions”. That is a man who is full on empathizing with assaulters.
I don’t know who this dried plump is and I deffiitely do not want to know now. I know who Truman Capote is though and he was an outstanding writer. Do not have the nerve or time to listen to this douch
He’s not remotely comparable to Truman Capote, don’t worry. He wrote mostly nonfiction, Mafia stuff, that I know of, but have never read because I have no interest in it or him.
Suck it up?? He was a 14 year old child?!!
I love how these assholes think that time erases all the pain and trauma even a second of something like this can cause a person but hey, yeah Spacey’s career and all that.
Seriously. Also, deflecting to the Dalai Lama? That’s a new one.
I wondered about that too. I have never heard he was a predator.
I think he got confused and meant Ghandi or Mother Theresa.
I’ve seen way too many people saying something similar on social media “like omg shut up, we love House of Cards! You’re ruining it!” Who cares??
Yes, Annie. I think we each have a responsibility to reply,”I care, and so should you. No talent is enough to justify sexually preying on minors!” I think we each MUST voice a response to these terrible ideas, to try to define and create a better society. Attitudes make a difference. I am an older person, and over my lifetime I’ve seen so much truly horrific racism and sexism. I see some improvement, but SUCH a long way to go. I’m NEVER silent about racism or sexism, and my children were HORRIFIED by my speaking out when they were young teens, but they’re very proud of me – albeit worried – as adults now.
And I am also truly sick of the people who say that so and so is some sort of great creative “genius” and therefore somehow sacred and untouchable. Spacey ruined his own career, and he can own that.
Bullshit. There are hundreds upon hundreds of actors who can do just as well or better than Spacey. He is replaceable. In fact, I think they should just recast another actor into the role of Underwood and move on. Woody Allen is overrated. The world is not going to die for lack of another Polanski film. Etc.
Love how he seems to think that rape/assault is over for the victim after the actual act. It’s been 17 years for me, and I’m still trying to process the trauma. As any survivor will tell you, it haunts you. So don’t tell me or anyone else to “suck it up”, you lecherous old man…
28 years for me and sometimes I feel like I am having a harder time dealing with it now.
I’m so sorry, Delta…
This must be how predators justify their behavior. Like, hey he/she kept living, made something of themselves and seem to have a good life, so how bad could it have been? As if survivors should punish themselves to prove how much they’ve suffered. I hate everything.
With regards to older folk, I think many of them have been harassed, assaulted, or otherwise abused in their lifetimes. If they recognize what Kevin Spacey did as abuse, they would have to recognize that they too have been abused and actually allow themselves to feel that pain and suffering.
Are there 100% jerks? Yes. But I tend to think of it as less than black and white. Maybe I am wrong.
Wow, I’m so shocked an old white man said this (said no one ever). I love that he acts like it was just one guy, one time too. Like nah, Kevin ruined Kevin’s career. God, that Brock Turner reminder just pissed me off all over again.
Regrettably I don’t think this is just his age, it’s the type of insensitive callous moron that he is and there are still plenty of those people to go around as evidenced by the sheer amount of assault and harassment women experience all over the world EVERY. EFFING. DAY.
Exactly. More people than not simply DO. NOT. CARE. or don’t want to understand things like assault, harassment and rape. That’s just a fact. So I’m never shocked when awful people say and do awful things. In fact, I rather know as it’s the ones who pretend to be woke all of a sudden (Baldwin, Affleck) that are way worse. At least these awful people are showing you exactly who they are.
And as for ‘getting over things’, anything that feels terrible to your body and/or mind seems like it lasts a lifetime. I wish these MFs would be forced to do something they don’t like e.g. give a speech celebrating survivors of sexual assaults in front of an audience for 10 minutes and really experience how it feels going through something you don’t like, want or asked for.
Yes
, I agree with you, I’ve posted this before but I would always rather have a bigot, misogynist – insert as applicable – exactly where I can see them and argue back. Infinitely preferable to some fake fauxmanist ( my word for a fake male feminist) patronising the hell out of my while pretending to know what they’re talking about.
I read a long post on Facebook yesterday from a (liberal) photographer friend bemoaning the fact that now he can’t stare at women on the subway like he can stare at men. And that the idea that anyone could perceive him as threatening is laughable because he looks like an aging hippie and carries a backpack. Blew my mind that he could be so clueless and self-absorbed.
Weird that your friend thinks looking like an aging hippie with a backpack exempts him from being creepy. That look, among others, often puts me on my guard because it has come along with an assumption that everyone should like them … and be fine with whatever awkward sexual sidling they decide to try on.
Um… Kevin Spacey’s ruined career can only be laid at one person’s feet; his own.
Exactly. He did it to himself.
Also LOL at Budget Truman Capote. Hah!
” Is Gay Talese just awful, or is this the kind of stupid, dated hot-take from a very old man? I don’t know”
It’s both and totally unacceptable. Telling anyone to suck up being assaulted is awful. Had he taken even 10 secs to think about how it would affect him to suck up something that was devastating in his life he maybe wouldn’t be speaking so flippantly. Or maybe he would because he’s an old, selfish man.
Whenever I hear the “we’ve all done something, right?” excuse I can’t help hearing “I’ve done something, I was so sure it wouldn’t have any consequence, but now I’m worried it’ll catch up with me so I’m trying to muddy the waters and diffuse blame to cover my own ar*e.”
Times are changing and your age won’t shield you from having to confront your past cavalier actions… And it’s not true that “everybody did it” – most of us decent people didn’t, even back in the day, and we get the reward of a clear conscience: you cannot accidentally assault someone, after all. You know what you did o didn’t do.
Sure, we’ve all done things we regret or handled differently. I can tell you right now that mine doesn’t include sexual assault, rape, sexual abuse, or sexual harassment. You know why? I’m a decent person. Good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. The difference between the two is not only what they’ve done, but how they atone for their actions.
@Esmerelda: Spot-on 👍
Evil.
Ever since the Weinstein scandal,I have been observing the reactions of my acquaintances and friends to these events.A lot of them turned out to be rape apologists and called the actresses whores and what not,why did they wait so much etc .Many women also subscribed to their opinions because of internalized misogyny.Needless to say,I have fewer friends now.Idk when will people wake up about assault and rape but things are looking very grim to me.
It’s great in that aspect, isn’t it? I too am making notes of how people react to CLEAR cases of sexual abuse. Mr. Nanny-in-law is banned from my house for a while, for example.
I think another reason women go along with the ‘whore’ argument is because they can then tell themselves it will never happen to them. They don’t do ‘action x’ and therefore they will never be raped or sexually assaulted. It’s why it isn’t always good to have women on juries in rape trials.
Of course it’s not true but it’s a very comforting lie.
That has always been a deal breaker when speaking to people (romantic, friends or otherwise). Bring up politics, race, religion (to defend archaic concepts) and women’s rights and see how people respond so I can either form new relationships or move on to something better.
The Dalai Lama??? Bitch, you need to retire.
Spacey ruined his own career. Your actions have consequences and if you think you can molest and assault people for decades, that is not 10 minutes! I have no sympathy for him or this old raisin. Next.
How about suck it up and face your actions Kevin?
Also, it’s not just men. We had fee examples of women defending aholes, including Barbara Walters saying Corey Feldman that he’s destroying whole industry… And few days ago it was some reality tv show girl.
I hope this brittle skin bag dies with a prostate the size of a fucking melon.
Lol. That is a sublime curse!
That made me LOL, obviously I’m a bad person but I just dgaf anymore, these arseholes deserve everything the karma bitch can throw at em and then some.
This man is very out of touch. Kevin S did this to his own career. And apparently many times, so he didn’t stop – probably just made him more bold. So gross and he needs to be held accountable.
He will. Mitchell Garabedian (that name will sound familiar to anyone who watched or read Spotlight) is repping a reporter who is accusing Spacey of feeling up his son in Nantucket. This may be a civil case.
Is anyone keeping a list of high profile Hollywood people who came to Spacey’s defense? And also of those who openly expressed support for his victims? I imagine the majority just keeps quiet and waits to see where it all ends up. Spacey might go down the Allen/Polanski route of “whatever, let’s write a letter in his support”. Unlike Weinstein who I believe is indeed finished for good.
Bless his heart, he thinks 1986 was 10 years ago.
Stupid comment from an ignorant good ol’ boy. And this was not one “mistake” made by Spacey, but a carefully crafted and practiced way of behaving in order to please himself at the expense of his victims, many of them no doubt underage and unable mentally/emotionally to defend themselves, if not physically. It was systemic abuse of power.
All you have to do is read Richard Dreyfuss’ son’s essay detailing his experience to know. Spacey is sick and it was all deliberate.
Agreed. All is takes is opening your eyes and ears to see it. Which, unfortunately, many people GT’s age, as well as those who want to be ignorant, are unwilling to do. Speaking of… HUGE news today regarding Corey Haim and Charlie Sheen. Been reading the divorce papers filed by Denise Richards and it’s evident what Sheen’s been up to for a while. I have no doubt that this was just ANOTHER “open secret” in HW. Ugh. Makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.
He should see what I could do to him in just 10 minutes of his time and then see if he just sucks it up. I am out of patience with this crap.
Right? Dude needs to be force fed solid food for ten minutes .
Right? Murdering someone can take less than 10 minutes, the twit.
Gay’s attitude is the exact thing that allows the 10 minutes of Brocks to turn into the decades of Spaceys.
These are the people who are complicit. People who make statements like this.
Exactly.
The only people you should be saying “suck it up” to is these predators in a prison cell. They did these dispicable crimes, who gives a shit about their careers. What about the trauma these innocent people now have for rest of their lives? This man is repulsive. As are all rape & sexual assault apologists.
Kevin did this to himself-you can’t do anything you want to people and get away with it. It will always come for you. And as for Gay Talese he’s a petty bitch. I’ve lived long enough to see karma come for people like him, and crush them in their ‘twilight’ years so he should be very careful, it’s not pretty.
A large woman Gay Talese’s age should grab his genitals for 20 minutes during a conversation with Gay Tales’s father. No biggie, right? Of course this is after the large, 85 year old woman violates Harvey Weinstein, naked with a massage and a strap-on. No biggie…Harvey’s a martyr right? He can take one for the team.
I completely disagree with this person but IMO this is nothing about his age or his generation. This is just his screwed up opinion.
And there are many people (young and old, men and women) who feel the same regarding the allegations against KS, HW, Trump and all the others but they aren’t being quoted by VF.
While I vehemently disagree, I am glad he said it because let’s face it that is what lots of people believe, remember, people (in particular white women) saw no big deal with Trump’s sexual harassment comments or were willing to overlook them. That speaks volumes.
Gay Telese wrote a very questionable piece for the New Yorker last year about a voyeur running a motel who had little holes in the ceilings which he used to spy on guests. The thing was, Telese knew this guy for years and knew what he was doing and never intervened to stop what was happening.
So, I would be taking Guy Talese’s opinions on sexual assault with a huge grain of salt.
I remember that terrible motel story, but did not remember it was Talese who authored it. He was complicit, in my opinion.
Now it makes sense why he’s telling victims to “get over it”.
I read that too. Talese seems to be enamoured of the role of the voyeur in journalism and writing in general. I think he’s had a fascination with the fringe throughout his life, which is reflected in some of his work, such as writing about a massage parlor and nudist camp. It seems Spacey putting an adolescent male in a sexual situation is not something he considers inappropriate. I think he lives in a world where that kind of thing happens often and is sanctioned. Maybe a few wealthy perpetrators being convicted and sent to prison will change these attitudes.
This guy’s attitude leaves me w/ the impression that he is a nasty human being w/ skeletons in his own closet. He may have a few stories of his own where he was the predator.. his cavilar attitude definitely reflects that possibility.
Totally agree! He wrote a book called “Thy Neighbor’s Wife” about sexuality and the “free love” revolution. I remember reading how his wife (who was an important book editor) would sit at home while he would go out to “research” the book. He sounds afraid to be outed!
Ah yes… reminds me why I associated his name with vomit.
No one ever talks about murder this way. “It only lasted 5 seconds, just long enough to pull a trigger, why should the murderer pay for the rest of their lives?” Talese is saying that for him, violating someone only lasts as long as that person is in front of him. Other people don’t exist and are disposable.
When men say things like this it makes me wonder what’s in THEIR past. What are THEY hiding? Men who minimize and trivialize assault are usually not squeaky clean themselves.
I used to really respect Gay Talese. No more. Between the Vanity Fair piece, his dismissive attitude towards female writers (see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/04/02/gay-talese-cant-name-a-single-woman-writer-who-inspired-him-thankfully-twitter-has-a-few-suggestions/) and this, I’m done. Beyond done.
Don’t forget all the women out there who love blaming the victim. It’s not only men.
Yes, I have a real issue with the “It’s always Men” opening line. The Bill Cosby scandal is a prime example. And someone obviousley hasn’t googled Rose McGowan/Victor Salva.
Maybe it’s time to take for your coffin, Gay.
I can’t, I just can’t. Every guy who tells an assault victim to get over it, should experience it himself – and then he can talk.
Does this guy know it wasn’t just a 10 minute decade past indiscretion but a decades long and continuing pattern of behavior?
“all of us in this room at one time or another did something we’re ashamed of”.
Sexual harassment and rape is not “something that you’re ashamed of”, it’s a crime.
Try reading Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife. Gag.
“and I hate that actor that ruined this guy’s career”….so does he mean that he hates Kevin Spacey who ruined Kevin Spacey’s career? Because that’s the only way that sentence makes sense to me!
Rich old white dudes are the last people I will listen to about anything.
grrl. so true. especially the ones from this screwed up industry called HollyStupid.
Women are objects to men. Objects can be acted upon. Objects cannot accept or decline an action. I believe a good many men feelsthis way to some degree about women. And predators of children two that way 100 percent.
This story isn’t about Women
yes true, but many among MEN think this away toward women and men. Men tend to objectify all human beings waaaaay more than women. To me, males are the dumbest animals on the planet. And yet our society puts up with these pedophiles.
Excuse me but the victims DID suck it up, for way too farking long, and now it’s Spacey’s turn to suck it up. Him and every other predator. Suck up the humiliation of having your true face known the the world. Suck up the consequences of being an immoral evil sick twisted f—k. How DOES it feel to lose it all when your sins finally catch up to you? I truly do want to know!
Gay whatever his name is a terrible human being. What a piece of sh!t.
This fossil is a piece of sh*t and I would careless if he and Kevin Spacey dropped dead.
My father is the same age as this nobody (sorry never heard of him but before I saw the picture I thought he was a woman – I’ve only known females named Gay) and he would not tell sexual abuse victims to suck it up. He would have been appalled.
My father would be 100 if he was still alive, and I can guarantee he would have felt the same as yours.
Yeah, that sounds like something a predator would say tbh.
This is sadly how many old people think, not just men. I guess older generations (and by that I mean 60 up) don’t have the same social awareness that we do now, they don’t really see the difference between an “indiscretion”, as he calls it, and sexual harassment. Maybe if Anthony Rapp hadn’t been a 14 year old at the time, and a wave of similar accusations hadn’t come against Spacey after, as we knew they would, it could be confused by some as an “indiscretion”. But seriously, I’m not trying to excuse this guy or this kind of thinking, just trying to understand it from their point of view. Most old men haven’t really experienced any form of harassment and at the time when they were young, women wouldn’t really speak about being harassed. My dad who is almost 70 sat me down the other day and asked me to please explain to him how a woman could be raped by a guy if he wasn’t literally holding a gun against her head or being violent. He truly couldn’t even conceive the idea because he’d never heard of it (and this is a guy who’s always said to his daughters he’d personally kill a man who dares to harm them).
My point is, there is still so much to do to make society more aware of what we are talking about here. Hopefully the new generations come with this ingrained.
Remember, Gay Talese has also participated in, and facilitated, illegal voyeurism in pursuit of a story. Male on female voyeurism. It’s not like this is out of line in his personal philosophy. He hears the baying of the hounds on his tail and he wants to leverage whatever remaining power he has as a literary icon to divert them, or stop the hunt entirely.
Some really reprehensible generalizations being made about older generations. This one individual doesn’t represent every 70-80 year-old. You people saying that they should all die off, just remember, karma’s a bitch.
Who implied he represents an entire age group? He is a sh*tty older man who should drop dead for victim blaming. No one is suggesting we off a generation.
Talese is a raging misogynist so this doesn’t surprise me at all.
I reported a few people on social media who were pretty viciously attacking Anthony Rapp. Probably nothing came of it but the victim blaming and harassment was driving me nuts so I felt like I had to do something.
Anthony Rapp is even a bigger hero. Blessings to him and his career.
It seems to me that Kevin Spacey has done enough sucking for everybody.
Let’s go take by take
“I feel so sad, and I hate that actor that ruined this guy’s career,” continued Talese, who possibly had not kept up with the growing scope of the accusations online.
It is SO sad that a RAPIST PREDATOR cannot be in movies anymore!!!! I really hate the guy that was raped though, too bad he isn’t a woman, otherwise I could also say “it was her fault, she was asking for it” – Sarcasm Off – This dude cannot be serious, for the life of me
“So, O.K., it happened 10 years ago . . . Jesus, suck it up once in a while!” Talese, visibly agitated, pressed on: “I would like to ask [Spacey] how it feels to lose a lifetime of success and hard work all because of 10 minutes of indiscretion 10 years or more ago.”
Ok, he is serious. There is no point saying anything else. This is why I’m close to a nervous breakdown,