You go from dreary Parsons Boulevard in Queens to Hollywood movie mogul but can't feel your life. What do you do? You have such pretty people begging for a taste of your dreams but feel nothing. What do you do? In a sausage-factory city, you produce works of art but feel worse than ever. What do you do?
In Hollywood, the answer is: Don't ask.
It would be nice if open secrets about Hollywood's many sociopathic, perverse beasts raised a "How did we let this happen?" kind of question. But sorry, delving is not our thing.
It would be nice if we recognized our own complicity in monstrous conduct but really, a perfect rationalization is just sitting there: With so many open secrets hanging around, we've built up an immunity. ("Really? He's a predatory deviant too? Anyway, yeah, they're bringing back Roseanne.")
Right up there with movies, TV shows and music, dirt is one more product of the entertainment industry, and everyone's a consumer.
Years ago, at an industry screening, I heard a rumor about the very subject of our current (exploded) open secret. Let's just say it was horrible and explicit and wolfish, but was conveyed in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone.
"Oh," I said.
It would've been nice if, before this month when some of us finally copped a plea, we'd taken a second to visualize the actual open secret in action. It would've been nice if we'd gone deep enough to place ourselves inside the suites at the Peninsula and let the revulsion hit us, rather than just grabbing the open secret and converting it into currency.
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Peter Mehlman is a comedian and former writer on Seinfeld.
Editorial on 10/17/2017