Re: Disney's hiring of convicted child molester, Victor Salva: A QUESTI
From
Kneel Young@21:1/5 to
All on Tue Apr 26 11:44:19 2022
XPost: talk.politics.guns, talk.politics.misc, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
XPost: alt.politics.homosexuality, alt.california, alt.politics.democrats
by Jeffrey Wells,
with additional reporting by Lisa Karlin
Entertainment Weekly
November 10, 1995
Pg. 37
THERE WAS SHOCK, anger, and some compassion for the ex-convict when
news broke Oct. 24 that Victor Salva, Powder's writer-director, had
served time for molesting the 12-year-old male star of his 1988
feature Clownhouse. As Disney clammed up and a Powder producer
claimed they hadn't learned of his record until after shooting
started, others who know Salva—or know about pedophiles—wonder at
the film's release with several sexually suggestive scenes intact.
David Gersh, Salva's agent, says, "There is only one thing in this
film that relates to Victor's life," a deathbed scene that recalls
the passing of Salva's mother in 1985. But even costar Mary
Steenburgen (who says she learned of Salva's history only after a
public protest by his victim, Nathan Winters, now 20, made it hot
news in Variety) acknowledged before the controversy flared that in
some sense Powder "is very personal for Victor...he wrote this
straight from his heart."
Some therapists agree. According to Sandra Baker, executive director
of the Child and Family Institute in Sacramento, Calif., child
molesters think "they are more perceptive and beautiful than other
people. They feel misunderstood." Salva's having made Powder a pale,
hairless, sensitive outcast fits "what pedophiles can relate to,"
she adds. "They want their victims to be hairless usually. They
don't want adult sex characteristics."
L.A. family therapist Lisa Hacker notes that when a teacher (Jeff
Goldblum) tells Powder that he's "never had better sex" since being
touched by him, and then later strokes his bald head, the conduct is
"very intimate and inappropriate."
Salva declines to comment, but Powder producer Daniel Grodnik says
everyone felt "the issue was already out [due to 1988 press coverage
in California] and didn't have any heat. Doesn't the fact that these
scenes remained show that nobody thought [they] were a problem?"
Baker condemns that attitude. "By dismissing this as old news, the
movie studio participated in the secrecy and the cycle of abuse,"
she says. "They are what I call enablers. They underestimated the
seriousness of it."
Winters, who is urging a boycott, is equally emphatic about Salva.
"I don't care what he does with his life," he says, "but he should
never be around a child again."
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)