When I was 15 years old, a friend and I bought tickets to the movie Mission to Mars and didn’t see it. Instead, not yet old enough to buy tickets to an R-rated movie, we snuck into American Beauty. And for the rest of my adolescent years, I became obsessed.
I loved everything about that movie. I related, hard, to Thora Birch’s portrayal of a privileged but slightly misanthropic teenager who, above all else, just wanted to spend time with her intellectual, artistic boyfriend who, unlike everyone else, understood her. I swooned at the dancing plastic bag, which Wes Bentley told me, as I gazed deep into his blue eyes (and can we just take a moment and appreciate Wes Bentley’s eyes?), was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. But, more than anything, I fell in love with Kevin Spacey.
I devoured Kevin Spacey’s older movies, watching The Usual Suspects and Se7en several times each. When Pay it Forward, The Life of David Gale, and yes – even K-PAX came out, I saw them all opening weekend.
And when I graduated from college, my father presented me with a wrapped package – an American Beauty deluxe edition DVD, with the inscription: “For Jennie, Congrats on your graduation! Follow your love of theatre and follow your dreams! Best Wishes, Kevin Spacey” WOW! I had it framed and hung it on my wall.
Old Loyalties Die Hard
During those years, the only thing I loved more than American Beauty was the Broadway musical Rent. I spent hours memorizing the lyrics to La Vie Boheme, and road trips were often devoted to my sister and I singing our way through the entire first act, a cappella, lobbying for who would get to be Adam Pascal as Roger and who would sing Anthony Rapp’s part, Mark.
So I was blindsided when, a few months ago, Anthony Rapp came forward and told the world that Kevin Spacey had sexually abused him.
Actually, that’s not true. What I was, initially, was confused, because the Broadway.com headline I read said, “Kevin Spacey Addresses Anthony Rapp Sexual Advance Accusations, Comes Out as Gay.” Processing only the end of the headline, my comment was, “wow, good for him!” Then I read the article and felt pretty embarrassed about my initial response.
But in that moment, curled up in pajamas and reading Broadway news on my cell phone, I saw what I wanted to see. Kevin Spacey had been a hero to me – the paragon of acting excellence, admirably private about his life in a world that thrives on celebrity gossip, and with a musical theater pedigree to boot. And as I read the article, I began to process that I was going to need to change the way I felt about this person who had played such a huge role in my formative years.
And so, three days later, tears welling in my eyes, I took down the American Beauty DVD from my wall.
Grieving Fallen Heroes
There’s no other word for it – I felt betrayed by Kevin Spacey. Then I felt betrayed by Aziz Ansari, and by Louis CK… and those are just the Hollywood names that hit me hard.
So what do I do with that copy of American Beauty? How about my copy of Modern Romance, or the unwatched episodes of Louie on my DVR? And more importantly, what do I do with the nostalgia and memories I have around those things?
Everyone copes differently, but here’s how I’ve chosen to process my feelings:
1. Leave room for your nostalgia.
This is different from separating the art from the artist. Some people can compartmentalize those things, but I know that I’m not one of them. To me, that feels dismissive, so I’m sad to say, I doubt I’ll ever watch a Kevin Spacey movie again.
But my teen identity development is inseparable from my experience of watching and rewatching American Beauty. That movie influenced me. It made me think differently about embracing every small moment of my life, about deliberately constructing the life I want to live, about valuing beauty in unexpected places. It was one of my first exposures to the idea that suppressing who you are can lead you to lash out at others in a big way. That movie changed me, for good.
I can’t take any of that back, nor do I want to. It’s part of my identity and were it not for Kevin Spacey’s work on that film, I might be a different person. So I can make space for the role Kevin Spacey played in my life, while also holding the opinion that he’s a person who has done a lot of really terrible things.
2. Understand that people are complicated.
Like… incredibly complicated. We aren’t archetypes or tropes, we’re human – all of us. None of us are all good or all bad. Most of us are pretty solidly somewhere in the middle.
In the book Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung talks about the idea of a “shadow self”. This is the uncomfortable parts of yourself that you don’t want to acknowledge. It’s the little voice in your mind that sees someone standing on a balcony and thinks, “I could push him” – even though you never would. It’s the dark and macabre part of each and every one of us.
Paradoxically, the more shame we feel about our “shadow selves”, the more likely we are to act on those thoughts. If Kevin Spacey, who was deeply closeted for many decades, feels ashamed of who he is, it’s the repression of those feelings that leads to his need to exert power over others. (Incidentally, in American Beauty, it was Frank Fitz’s being closeted that led to his abuse of his son and his liberal use of gay slurs…)
This does NOT excuse the actions of these people. It does NOT mean we forgive and forget and move forward. But it contextualizes them. It encourages us to stop deifying celebrities and mentors, and to view them as the complicated, messy humans they are.
And, at its best, it also encourages us to look at our own messes. What does your shadow self say to you? Do you respond by trying to shove that voice way down deep, where it can only emerge with a gasp of breath by making you to do something that hurts someone else deeply? Or do you nod at it, extend a hand, and say, “hey, you there in the shadows… I see you. Let’s talk.”
3. Find new heroes, and don’t put them on a pedestal.
There are so many people in the world who do incredible and extraordinary things. When someone you admire comes crashing down, find new people to admire. For me, it’s been amazing strong women who are using their voices to affect change in the world… people like Laverne Cox, Hillary Clinton, Emma Gonzalez, Lindy West, Michelle Obama, Emma Watson, Tarana Burke, Chrissy Metz, Brené Brown, and others like them.
I’m not limiting myself to female heroes (and on the days when I’m feeling particularly bleak, I even find myself looking to the sky, saying “please, universe… just leave me Lin Manuel Miranda”). But as so many of the “greats” are revealed to be, well, not so great, I’m looking for a different kind of role model. I’m looking for people who have struggled with oppression and adversity, and who are willing to show up and be vulnerable, and say “here’s my struggle, and it’s made me who I am.”
But you know what? Those people aren’t perfect either. They’re human people who are doing the best they can, just like all of the rest of us.
Here’s an example: Brené Brown, one of my greatest heroes, the woman who taught me everything I know about giving voice to vulnerability, failed to show up for a talk that I traveled across the country for. I still don’t know why she wasn’t there, and I was really hurt and angry. But the thing is… I’m sure she was doing the best she could.
You’ll notice, though, that her name is still on the list above. She’s one of the smartest, most important people whose work I have ever encountered… but I no longer have her on a pedestal. And I think my conception of her is healthier for it.
We are all nuanced. We are all messy. So within reason, why should our heroes be any exception?