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Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Head of Old Vic Theater Says She Had ‘No Knowledge’ of Kevin Spacey’s Alleged Misconduct
Variety: The head of London’s Old Vic theater said Friday that she would never have hired Kevin Spacey if she had been aware of concerns about his behavior and that no complaints about him were brought to her attention during his 11-year tenure as the theater’s artistic director.
The headline for this article already got under my skin even before I started reading. To me it seems that the Old Vic is just trying to scream as loud as possible that they are victims too and not responsible for hiring a monster. Like we get it--no one wants to be actively supporting someone who has sexually harassed and assaulted others, but trying to beat the blame game is getting very old. It seems like they should be focusing more on what mistakes they made and how to repair the damage to their staff's ability to trust them instead of their public image. Expressing horror and disgust is fine, but don't pretend utter ignorance--rumors about Spacey have been going around for decades and I sincerely doubt that they were completely blind to any mention of bad behavior. I'm not saying that they should have known better, but perhaps now they can take the knowledge and experience and make headlines by how they are fixing their systems and adding in safety measures and procedures to help protect against any future employee who sexually assaults others.
1 comment:
The headline for this article already got under my skin even before I started reading. To me it seems that the Old Vic is just trying to scream as loud as possible that they are victims too and not responsible for hiring a monster. Like we get it--no one wants to be actively supporting someone who has sexually harassed and assaulted others, but trying to beat the blame game is getting very old. It seems like they should be focusing more on what mistakes they made and how to repair the damage to their staff's ability to trust them instead of their public image. Expressing horror and disgust is fine, but don't pretend utter ignorance--rumors about Spacey have been going around for decades and I sincerely doubt that they were completely blind to any mention of bad behavior. I'm not saying that they should have known better, but perhaps now they can take the knowledge and experience and make headlines by how they are fixing their systems and adding in safety measures and procedures to help protect against any future employee who sexually assaults others.
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