Sometimes you’re looking for the heat but you get the breaking ball. This was one of those times. Marnie was not what I expected and this episode travels down some roads that may be upsetting to some people. Sometimes The Greats aren’t all that great. Sometimes they just don’t show up. It can be attributed to a variety of things, both personal and/or professional. Creative or practical. You name it. We can never truly know the people we look up to. New microphone, who dis? I don’t think I’ll keep using it long term but I’m also still in the feeling it out phase.
The difference between suspecting and knowing is… wide. It’s a gulf. I’m not going to lie–I’m still mulling over what I’d learned for this one. So the first impulse might be “yeah there’s all these people coming out with stories now” but, to put that into perspective, many of those instances happened years ago and, furthermore, it has been happening for years longer than that. It’s not a “right now” or “trend” thing–that is just the public become aware of it at scale. But it has happened. In isolation. Or not in isolation but under the shroud of a “powerful director” who could and would (and did) ruin a career if denied or crossed. It’s happened for years. To all types of people. So many people knew and many probably weren’t quiet about it but nothing was done. At most the people talking about it were threatened into silence. Maybe that’s how you get “open secrets”.
It’s really telling that there are people who are distinctly not like this. There’s a wide gamut as to how people are treated and it’s explored in this really great video by Maggie Mae Fish (who is super great you should watch her stuff). But that’s always been one thing that I did think to be true for some time–that art and genius is suffering and causes suffering. I don’t know that this specific situation is that more than it’s the inverse–a man trying to live out his dreams through movies while also trying to live out his dreams with the cast of said movies–but it deserves to be examined.
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And what the fuck is a “sex mystery” anyway? The fuck outta here with that shit.