Cover-up of perversion and sexual abuse in Hollywood goes back decades: why are we watching their product?

I read today that the man who was once America’s Favorite Dad, Bill Cosby, is going to face a criminal trial over the mass of evidence that he drugged, abused, and raped women for decades.  Another revelation came out recently, from his own testimony in a previous civil trial, that he had “scouts” bring him a bevy of very young teen models for his perusal every day, and that he would select one or two to use for his sick pleasures.  Hardly surprising, given the other evidence, but since this practice was self-admitted, and that there is evidence that some of the models may have been underage, this admission by Cosby could cause him even further well-deserved legal trouble.

But the truth is, Hollywood has known about Cosby’s sicko lusts for decades.  I believe I have mentioned before that one of my best friend’s sisters was a Playboy Playmate.  There’s a whole sordid tale about how that came to pass, but that’s not the point of this post.  The point is, as a former Playboy Playmate, aspiring (but never successful) actress, and denizen of Hollywood, she had access to the Playboy Mansion owned by Hugh Hefner.  This was a frequent gathering spot for former Playmates looking to party in a drug-soaked atmosphere with both major movie stars and the perennial Hollywood hangers-on.  One of the most frequent guests at the Playboy Mansion during the 70s and 80s was one Bill Cosby.

So there I was at my best friend’s house one evening in 1991 or 1992, when his sister happened to be in town with her then-fiancée Miklos “Mickey” Hargitay, Jr.  I don’t know how we got on the subject, maybe his show was on TV, but both mentioned how often they saw Bill Cosby at the Playboy Mansion back in the day.  Even more, Mickey Jr., who I ran  into several times, and who was a really cynical sort (I was told he was messed up from seeing his mother Jayne Mansfield decapitated right before his eyes in a terrible 1967 automobile accident), made a number of very disparaging comments about Cosby’s moral hypocrisy, how he “guessed he loves his wife Camille, now, because he sure didn’t seem to back when he was <using> 15 year olds three at a time in the mid-80s,” among other things.

Anyway, this was no big secret they had stumbled onto.  Everybody who even occasionally attended the Playboy Mansion knew of Cosby’s habits, so notorious were they, and because virtually anyone who was anyone in Hollywood in that period (says, 60s-early 90s, at least) visited the Mansion at least occasionally, pretty much all of Hollywood knew what was up. They probably considered it no big deal, because many others had similar habits, whether criminal or not.  Secrets like this are considered de rigueur in Hollyweird, I suppose.

For a bit more evidence of that, a number of child stars from the 60s through the 90s have alleged that child molestation is also extremely widespread, that the “casting couch” applies as much to children as it does to young adults seeking to “make it big.”  Just recently, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Woods stated that child sex abuse was common in Hollywood (though he subsequently backtracked), only confirming previous claims from former child stars like Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, two youths who claim their train-wreck adult lives of addiction and worse were fostered by the abuse they suffered.

And it continues to this day.  X-Men director/producer Bryan Singer may or may not have raped underage boys, but that he has a strong attraction for “barely legals” is beyond dispute.  When allegations first surfaced, the Hollywood press reacted to the effect that everyone already knew this, and who cares?

Of course, these are only a few recent scandals.  Hollywood has long played a pivotal role in the decline of moral standards in this country.  Hollywood has been associated with moral depravity from its earliest days, whether through the perversion of major stars or “prosaic” serial divorce/adultery, the standard Hollywood set, through its massive cultural influence, provided a highly influential, highly negative example to tens of millions of Americans going back decades.  Hollywood has helped normalize vice, perversion, and sin of all kinds.  Even “good guys” like John Wayne, Ward Bond, or Clint Eastwood have led personal lives of highly dubious moral character.

Which leads me to my close: why the heck are we giving these sickos a dime of our money? I ask this question as much of myself as of anyone, because my kids like to have some of the recent kids movies and I have a few things I like to watch, too.  If I watch anything these days, it’s mostly old westerns, but I do break down from time to time and see something “modern,” which I usually regret afterwards.  Like skeinster has said in the comments, if we eschewed everything with a taint of immorality we’d have to live in a cave somewhere with no contact with the outside world.  But watching movies and TV comes with an exceedingly high cultural, moral price.

I’m going to try like heck to no longer pay it.  So no Captain America: Civil War for the kids, thanks to Disney leaning on Georgia to overturn their ban on men in women’s restrooms, which they unfortunately did.