I think in a weird way, there's a lot of truth to the pedogate stuff, just like with any other conspiracy theory: most of the details are wrong, and there are lots of totally unjustifiable leaps of fancy. But at the same time... all the most far-out details wrap themselves around a basic story that is probably true: the extremely wealthy, the power-elite, the glitterati, etc, have lost all sense of obligation to those lower in the hierarchy (however you define that hierarchy: wealth, fame, power, access), and have no problem with exploiting people who don't have the resources to take them to court. They get away with things that the rest of us would do serious jail time for, and we see it in the news over and over and over again: famous pretty person gets drunk and runs over a nobody with their sports car. Gets probation. Famous person caught with drugs. Not prosecuted. Famous person's employee or assistant turns up dead. Nobody is ever arrested for it. Famous person drugs and anally rapes a 13-year-old, moves to Europe, lives the high life for decades, makes an Oscar-winning movie that everyone gushes about. And everyone with half a brain has figured out by now why child actors and music stars are such screwed-up adults.
We all know that if WE go to a party where everyone is doing drugs and consorting with hookers, there's a good chance we'll end up with a permanent record that will prevent us ever getting a decent job again. We all also know that if you're Hollywood, this is normal, everyone shrugs it off, and even if you don't partake, silence is the cost of your continued employment. Everyone's complicit, to some degree.
The basic founding myth of our republic is that everyone is equal under the law. The more obvious it becomes that fame and money exempt you from real consequences, the greater the pool of resentment. Adding in schlock details like SRA turns the whole thing into an exciting pulp novel that everyone secretly wants to read. It gives a unified narrative to an otherwise nebulous collection of more-prosaic injustices.
There's a certain amount of C.S. Lewis' Inner Ring idea at work, on both sides. The ultra-wealthy tend to hang out with each other. Everyone slightly lower in status wants to be part of their club, and will excuse any kind of bad behavior as long as they keep getting invited to the right parties, schmoozing with the people who could make their careers... everyone keeps each others' secrets to stay in the in-crowd. Doing a tell-all interview, or filing a police report, would obviously get you booted out. Ever wonder what happened to Brendan Fraser's movie career? He was groped by the president of the HFPA and *didn't* just laugh and go to bed with the guy.
Down here in regular-people world, we don't know all the sordid details, because the first rule of celebrity club is: don't talk about celebrity club. But we can all tell that the club exists, that there's some skeezy stuff going on there, and that we're not invited. People are gonna fill in whatever details they think fit. Probably the baby-murdering and blood-drinking is fantasy, and the panic-mongering about massive numbers of stranger abductions certainly is (nobody really wants to look at the fact that most trafficked kids are trafficked by their parents). But rich people exploiting kids from poor backgrounds for sex? That's in the court documents. It not that hard to go from "These people all know each other, protect each other, and they can get away with anything" to "These people are doing the most evil thing I can imagine."
I think you're right that this is way more dangerous to those accused than they think it is.
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We all know that if WE go to a party where everyone is doing drugs and consorting with hookers, there's a good chance we'll end up with a permanent record that will prevent us ever getting a decent job again. We all also know that if you're Hollywood, this is normal, everyone shrugs it off, and even if you don't partake, silence is the cost of your continued employment. Everyone's complicit, to some degree.
The basic founding myth of our republic is that everyone is equal under the law. The more obvious it becomes that fame and money exempt you from real consequences, the greater the pool of resentment. Adding in schlock details like SRA turns the whole thing into an exciting pulp novel that everyone secretly wants to read. It gives a unified narrative to an otherwise nebulous collection of more-prosaic injustices.
There's a certain amount of C.S. Lewis' Inner Ring idea at work, on both sides. The ultra-wealthy tend to hang out with each other. Everyone slightly lower in status wants to be part of their club, and will excuse any kind of bad behavior as long as they keep getting invited to the right parties, schmoozing with the people who could make their careers... everyone keeps each others' secrets to stay in the in-crowd. Doing a tell-all interview, or filing a police report, would obviously get you booted out. Ever wonder what happened to Brendan Fraser's movie career? He was groped by the president of the HFPA and *didn't* just laugh and go to bed with the guy.
Down here in regular-people world, we don't know all the sordid details, because the first rule of celebrity club is: don't talk about celebrity club. But we can all tell that the club exists, that there's some skeezy stuff going on there, and that we're not invited. People are gonna fill in whatever details they think fit. Probably the baby-murdering and blood-drinking is fantasy, and the panic-mongering about massive numbers of stranger abductions certainly is (nobody really wants to look at the fact that most trafficked kids are trafficked by their parents). But rich people exploiting kids from poor backgrounds for sex? That's in the court documents. It not that hard to go from "These people all know each other, protect each other, and they can get away with anything" to "These people are doing the most evil thing I can imagine."
I think you're right that this is way more dangerous to those accused than they think it is.