Punishing everyone to make a point concerning one person is never a good idea. The idea of ‘we all stand as one’ is great if you’re talking about a positive change in society or are standing against an injustice and will fully accept the consequences or triumphs. But for a TV show cancellation hurts more than the individual. In fact it’s safe to say that the individual might not even feel the pinch that badly since the person in this case that is the star of the show, Kevin Spacey. As of now it would seem that season 6 of House of Cards and its spinoff Game Change have been suspended since the author of the book that the show was based on was accused of sexual harassment as well.
This is not good news for the author or for Spacey, but it’s much worse news for the rest of the cast and the crew that might be depending on the work these shows might bring them. There is no doubt that Spacey and Halperin, the author of the book, could weather this particular storm quite easily when it comes to their financial’s, but the crew that works on the show could take a big hit and need to find work elsewhere. Cancelling the show puts a great many people out of work at the expense of just two men essentially. It’s easy enough to say that this is not at all fair, but it is also a serious issue that must be addressed and handled with care.
The easiest thing to do should be to remove Spacey. Removing Halperin would be a touchy process since his work is what the show is being based off of, but this still should not be allowed to stand as it is. The welfare of every cast and crew member must be taken into account before such widespread decisions are made, if only to insure that one employee’s are taken care of. Removing the individuals responsible needs to take precedent over shutting the project down. It might not be the same show without Spacey and the show might not survive without the author, but there is a good chance that it could still be reworked into its own entity, apart from the book.
The act of punishing everyone for the actions of the few is a petty, knee-jerk reaction that is meant to close down any idea that those in charge might be supporting the ill behaviors of those they are associated with. It’s akin to denying that you had anything to do with this person once it was discovered they’d done something that everyone else considered absolutely heinous. It’s extremely hypocritical given that before now the studio would have likely sided with Spacey on just about anything. And they might have allowed the author to give his insights as much as possible without much argument. Those are guesses at best, but up until now there’s no doubt that life was just a bit easier on the House of Cards set.
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