“See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil”

Hollywood: The only land so filled with scandal and corruption that people gawk, but no one is actually surprised. In wake of the long-needed witch hunt on sexual miscreants, there’s still a dirty part of Hollywood that no one seems to want to address: Pedophilia. Just ask Corey Feldman. He’s been talking about it for years now and has continually been dismissed. Watch this clip of Barbara Walters on The View stating, Feldman couldn’t claim people in Hollywood were pedophiles because it would be “damaging an entire industry.” An industry that should be damaged, might I add, if degeneracy like this is allowed to happen to children. The worst part is that these children can’t do anything to stop this, because 1) Hollywood uses their money and power to keep the issue a secret, 2) parents are likely blinded by the money and fame involved, not wanting to have their children’s careers threatened, 3) the people on set will either disregard the issue or are a part of the abuse as well, and 4) this type of behavior has been normalized, keeping children quiet in the process. Hollywood is a place where dreams are supposed to be made, but for many child actors the dreams turn into nightmares they can’t escape.

 

 

Outside of Hollywood, people look down on pedophilia. The mere implication that someone is a pedophile causes emotional reactions of outrage and disgust. The general public denounces pedophilia, and the people in Hollywood would have you believe they denounce it, too. Hollywood portrays itself as a moral compass, pretending to be on the side of goodness while engaging in the very acts they deem despicable. Keeping an audience is most important to them; they want their money after all, right? Now, don’t get me wrong, wanting to keep an audience and make money is understandable. When an actor struggles with drug addiction, for example, many of them are able to clean themselves up, recreate their image, and become successful again. The key to keeping your audience when you face a struggle is cleaning yourself up. The people in Hollywood–as powerful as they may be!–should have planned for the floodgates to collapse, but they didn’t.

 

Hollywood has been taken by surprise, and I’m glad it happened this way. In tiny doses, people would have cared less; accusations would simply be the steamiest scandal to exploit. Everyone would forget about it in about a week–two weeks tops! The current Hollywood scandals of accusations and confessions of sexual assault and harassment have been focused on for a little over two months now–much longer than I would have expected. Hollywood has always been the modern Sodom and Gomorrah, but condemnation of the elite’s sinful and debaucherous nature has never gone to this extent. More and more celebrities are speaking out, shows are being pulled, movies and companies are firing executives, the scummiest in this industry are (rightfully) living in fear wondering if they’ll be called out next! Hollywood is imploding, and, honestly, it’s beautiful. Seeing elitist Hollywood squirm because they’ve finally been exposed is amazing. This should have happened sooner.

 

Back to pedophilia, though, how do the Hollywood scandals affect children in the industry? Probably very little. Other than Corey Feldman, I can’t think of any other celebrities who are as outspoken about discussing the issue of pedophilia in Hollywood. News stations hardly touch the issue, only focusing on adults involved in scandals. Again, Hollywood loves to act so moral, while protecting pedophiles. This is normal to them. Sexually abusing children is normal in Tinseltown, and yet, no one wants to talk about it. How can the news report on everyday pedophiles and totally evade powerful pedophiles in an industry that has so much influence? How can the media spout the worn-out “think about the children” mantra, when they aren’t even reporting on allegations of pedophilia in one of the biggest industries in the world? It only proves that pedophilia in Hollywood is protected, and that’s an even bigger problem. Allegations will stay allegations, and that’s what Hollywood wants. Hollywood can clean itself up after sexual assault claims from adults, but from children? They’d never be able to live it down. They’d be ruined, and, as I stated at the beginning, they should be ruined for allowing something so disgusting as pedophilia to run rampant in their town. Hollywood seems to follow the Three Wise Monkeys by living off the principle “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”