Your Fave is Problematic

So with Francis Ford Coppola gearing up to release his first movie in over a decade, I feel like it's only a matter of time until someone with a big enough platform brings up his connection to Victor Salva, right? I can't help but wonder if that has a part to play in why seemingly no one wants to give him funding.
 
gaporter said:
So with Francis Ford Coppola gearing up to release his first movie in over a decade, I feel like it's only a matter of time until someone with a big enough platform brings up his connection to Victor Salva, right? I can't help but wonder if that has a part to play in why seemingly no one wants to give him funding.
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I had to look him up. Ew.
 
gaporter said:
So with Francis Ford Coppola gearing up to release his first movie in over a decade, I feel like it's only a matter of time until someone with a big enough platform brings up his connection to Victor Salva, right? I can't help but wonder if that has a part to play in why seemingly no one wants to give him funding.
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This is gross and bad, yes, but it's more likely Coppola has struggled with financing because he's infamous for difficult productions and overbudgeting and hasn't directed a hit money-maker since the '80s.

As far as I understand, they haven't personally worked together in 20+ years. And shortly before that even Disney produced one of Salva's movies. So my point is, I don't think it will effect Coppola in any way now, and the problem goes deeper than him. Money is ultimately what talks.

This is not to excuse Coppola. He's a legend yes, but I'm sure he's not a great guy.
 
ayayrawn said:
This is gross and bad, yes, but it's more likely Coppola has struggled with financing because he's infamous for difficult productions and overbudgeting and hasn't directed a hit money-maker since the '80s.

As far as I understand, they haven't personally worked together in 20+ years. And shortly before that even Disney produced one of Salva's movies. So my point is, I don't think it will effect Coppola in any way now, and the problem goes deeper than him. Money is ultimately what talks.

This is not to excuse Coppola. He's a legend yes, but I'm sure he's not a great guy.
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Unfortunately, from what I can tell, Coppola's involvement with Salva went far beyond just producing one or two of his movies. Salva was essentially Coppola's protégé and the movie where the assault took place, Clownhouse, was partially filmed at Coppola's home. After Salva was convicted, Coppola played a very active role in helping a convicted child molester get back on his feet financially by paying his legal bills and subsequently attempting to downplay his crimes in interviews by trying to claim that Salva was "practically a child himself" at the time (Salva's victim, who was blacklisted and defamed by Coppola, was 12, while Salva was nearly 30). Realistically, it's only because of Coppola's influence that Salva had any shot at a successful career getting gigs like the Disney-distributed Powder and the Jeepers Creepers series less than a decade after his conviction.

This is all to say, while Coppola may be a master of the craft, these are things that aren't great to have floating around out there. This situation is one that looked bad at the time, but only looks worse now, and in our current social climate where people will look into your connections to see who you've been affiliated with at any point in the past, I don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine that Coppola's connection to a legitimate pedophile doesn't give potential investors pause. It's something that crosses my mind seeing all the tweets on my timeline recently where people are expressing incredulity that nobody wants to give Coppola money despite his illustrious filmography and relationships with multiple other big names in the industry. I just keep thinking, "well... I can think of at least one reason why."

I think some of the blame can be attributed to Coppola's reputation of being a difficult artist who is currently trying to sell what is by all accounts a commercially unfriendly project, I won't deny that. However, I would suggest that maybe the answer to the people wondering why no one is rushing to help Megalopolis get made is that, as Salva's case has become more widely reported on in the age of the internet and social media, it's only a matter of time before people start connecting the dots to figure out who was enabling the career of a convicted sex offender and why he was able to successfully sweep it under the rug for so long.
 
gaporter said:
Unfortunately, from what I can tell, Coppola's involvement with Salva went far beyond just producing one or two of his movies. Salva was essentially Coppola's protégé and the movie where the assault took place, Clownhouse, was partially filmed at Coppola's home. After Salva was convicted, Coppola played a very active role in helping a convicted child molester get back on his feet financially by paying his legal bills and subsequently attempting to downplay his crimes in interviews by trying to claim that Salva was "practically a child himself" at the time (Salva's victim, who was blacklisted and defamed by Coppola, was 12, while Salva was nearly 30). Realistically, it's only because of Coppola's influence that Salva had any shot at a successful career getting gigs like the Disney-distributed Powder and the Jeepers Creepers series less than a decade after his conviction.

This is all to say, while Coppola may be a master of the craft, these are things that aren't great to have floating around out there. This situation is one that looked bad at the time, but only looks worse now, and in our current social climate where people will look into your connections to see who you've been affiliated with at any point in the past, I don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine that Coppola's connection to a legitimate pedophile doesn't give potential investors pause. It's something that crosses my mind seeing all the tweets on my timeline recently where people are expressing incredulity that nobody wants to give Coppola money despite his illustrious filmography and relationships with multiple other big names in the industry. I just keep thinking, "well... I can think of at least one reason why."

I think some of the blame can be attributed to Coppola's reputation of being a difficult artist who is currently trying to sell what is by all accounts a commercially unfriendly project, I won't deny that. However, I would suggest that maybe the answer to the people wondering why no one is rushing to help Megalopolis get made is that, as Salva's case has become more widely reported on in the age of the internet and social media, it's only a matter of time before people start connecting the dots to figure out who was enabling the career of a convicted sex offender and why he was able to successfully sweep it under the rug for so long.
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If I knew about this guy before then I forgot. I know I've seen some of his terrible movies. I do believe in rehabilitation, but Coppola trying to downplay what the guy did is fucking gross.
 
Hemotep said:
If I knew about this guy before then I forgot. I know I've seen some of his terrible movies. I do believe in rehabilitation, but Coppola trying to downplay what the guy did is fucking gross.
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Yeah, I remember seeing the first Jeepers Creepers many years ago before I was aware of his background, and while I recall liking it okay, I've not really felt like touching anything related to that series with a ten-foot pole ever since finding out.
 
gaporter said:
Yeah, I remember seeing the first Jeepers Creepers many years ago before I was aware of his background, and while I recall liking it okay, I've not really felt like touching anything related to that series with a ten-foot pole ever since finding out.
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I watched them again this past October and would not have.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Not a "fave" in the usual sense but still perplexing and I don't know where else to share it:

Many years ago in college, a buddy gave me a copy of an album called Big Silence by a guy named Jim Dispirito. It's this eclectic hodgepodge of worldbeat rhythms and acoustic guitars and it didn't really sound like anything else I knew at the time. Then my friend told me that Jim Dispirito was a percussionist in Rusted Root, and it all made sense. Anyway, I've always had a soft spot for this little unknown solo album. It's on Spotify, but he only gets like 5 monthly listeners.

Anyway, I got a wild hair and looked him up last night. Apparently he left Rusted Root around the turn of the century and now works as an audio engineer or something. And his very sparsely used Twitter account signals that he's a Trumper.

It's not Problematic in the sense that most of the artists that get discussed here are, but I just can't totally wrap my head around going from this:

View attachment 200701


...to supporting an insurrection. Just strange. People are complicated.
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I think there's a weird turn when folks are super into "I DO WHAT I WANT AND NO GOVMINT GONNA TELL ME WHAT TO DO" and then they find a political slogan that sort of harmonizes with that. Which, like even on the face of it, is blatant bullshit. The Republican Party has been banging the "small government" drum because if you're a conservative and you want lower taxes well it just sorta makes sense from a PR move, but when it comes to actually makes government smaller, turns out that deeply unpopular when you try to cut welfare programs like medicaid/medicare or social security. And you can't cut the military, because...reasons? I'm not sure why not TBH but we just never, ever can. But anyway, even though the actual observable facts are "this is not the party of 'be free and leave me alone'", that's the PR move. so they lean into it, fucking hard. It makes a bit more sense (or at least, I find it easier to make sense of,) when they're really wealthy celebrities who are obviously into right wing politics because it saves them money. It's craven and mercenary, but you know, I get it. I'd like to think I wouldn't be a dickhead if I got millions, but I dunno, who's to say really
 
yukbon said:
I think there's a weird turn when folks are super into "I DO WHAT I WANT AND NO GOVMINT GONNA TELL ME WHAT TO DO" and then they find a political slogan that sort of harmonizes with that. Which, like even on the face of it, is blatant bullshit. The Republican Party has been banging the "small government" drum because if you're a conservative and you want lower taxes well it just sorta makes sense from a PR move, but when it comes to actually makes government smaller, turns out that deeply unpopular when you try to cut welfare programs like medicaid/medicare or social security. And you can't cut the military, because...reasons? I'm not sure why not TBH but we just never, ever can. But anyway, even though the actual observable facts are "this is not the party of 'be free and leave me alone'", that's the PR move. so they lean into it, fucking hard. It makes a bit more sense (or at least, I find it easier to make sense of,) when they're really wealthy celebrities who are obviously into right wing politics because it saves them money. It's craven and mercenary, but you know, I get it. I'd like to think I wouldn't be a dickhead if I got millions, but I dunno, who's to say really
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I'd be SUCH a dickhead if I had millions.
I'm at peace with it.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I hear what you guys are saying but while I imagine a stint in Rusted Root at the height of its cultural relevance provided a living and maybe (?) some access to residual income, I'm skeptical, perhaps naively, that *this* guy made millions. Could be wrong, I don't know. It's not a dig at his talent, I just have trouble imagining the economics of that. Doesn't mean he couldn't benefit financially from rightwing fiscal policy though.

In any case, it was really just the idea of a world/roots music percussionist for a group that really leaned into a crunchy image in the late 90s making this heel turn that struck me. When I picture a bongo, I don't normally picture a bigot slapping it.
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Oh no, you misunderstood me, I don’t think his particular case had anything to do with money – – although perhaps it did, I don’t know – – I think it had more to do with being a contrarian hippie, who then find himself watching Fox News or hearing and talking head, saying “ government bad, trump good” and finding himself nodding along

I’ll be very surprised if he’s not anti-VAX
 
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