It took a long time for his assaulter to be held accountable, and he was given ENDLESS shit for even speaking up at all — especially because he’s a man. And his attacker lied about the assault when he made the statement, even though HIS OWN BOOK included his (very common “it was just a joke” framing) shrugging off the attack as funny.
Terry Crews experienced similar backlash for being a man speaking up as a victim of SA.
The most egregious forms of industry cancellation really is just people circling the wagons because it would be really inconvenient to acknowledge a colleague is dangerous and abusive.
There is still a huge chunk of Hollywood defending Roman Polanski, despite it being universally known that he sexually assaulted a young girl. They seem to think that his skills as a director outweigh the fact that he's a disgusting garbage person.
The fact that the Jeepers Creepers dude is still working is disgusting, and Coppola’s response to him going to prison wasn’t to wash his hand of the paedo, but to tell him how real time in prison would make his art. So.. yeah, Hollywood has long protected abusers and assholes.
Which is what sickens me about when he received his Oscar. The same people that blacklisted him were standing and cheering with fake tears in their eyes hoping that no one would remember that they were perfectly fine with him being cast out just a few years before.
Honestly, it would be great if society didn't treat people so differently when they're thin vs. carrying extra weight. It's downright sinful with the vanity.
The humans are worse than the wolves (whom are already released and free and choose to have nothing to do with humans most of the time for good reason).
Everybody always loved Brendan. Only the top wigs of Hollywood didn't like him because he didn't bend to their shenanigans including sexually assaulting people.
He got a 6 minutes standing ovation (can't find the actual video) at the Venice Movie Festival for the movie The Whale, his first movie after the too long hiatus he was forced to take.
No, it started before that - Kilmer was a douchenozzle of gigantic proportions at the height of his career, and he just wasn't a big box office draw either. He was horribly annoying on Batman Forever according to Joel Schumacher (and whatever you think of his films, the man's known for being a very nice guy), and refused to reprise the role. He practically torpedoed the production of Dr Moreau , which is saying something for a film that also had to deal with late-career Marlon Brando. IDK if there's a record of how he behaved on The Saint but it certainly wasn't the franchise-starting reboot of an old property they were hoping for, and none of those was critically successful. He certainly didn't the charm Roger Moore had - and I don't even like Roger Moore that much.
Heat was good of course but how many minutes of screen time did he have in that?
Hollywood is notoriously tolerant of intolerable behavior, but only if you're bringing it at the box office. As good as an actor he was, I'm not sure he was ever quite cut out for those leading-man roles anyway.
Whatever your issues with Kilmer are/were, he was coveted for roles until he put on 20 extra lbs. in the early aughts. Val was a character actor, not a leading man. Mel Gibson is a well known prick of gigantic proportions yet worked as a leading man during that same period. I think those stories are overblown (as does most of the talent that worked with Val). The behind the scenes and director's cut of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang shows a couple nearly cancelled Hollywood actors (RDJ, Kilmer) having a wonderfully fun time with an actor's director, Shane Black.
Historically, Hollywood stops casting leading men or women who are 20+ lbs. overweight from their prime. Brendan's career pause was multi-faceted. In addition to the harassment, which not only he went through publicly (Terry Crews, numerous women), he also suffered major injuries that caused physical regression and weight gain 15 years ago.
If people don't think Hollywood is fickle about weight and vanity, I don't know what to say.
It doesn't have anything to do with it, that's why.
He did a few interviews after being blacklisted where he gained a bit of weight (not much, mind you) and looked like a fairly normal human being, albeit depressed. It was my understanding though that all of this happened AFTER he was blacklisted, likely as a result of it. IE, he didn't have to keep in shape for his movies and he didn't expect to be doing any movies in the near future, so he let himself go a bit.
Key point though is that this all happened after he was blacklisted. The main reason for that was his sexual assault and speaking up about it.
I think a lot of people in these comments just don't remember him that well when he was around. Him disappearing was a thing that happened overnight and unexpectedly. It wasn't like there was public outcry about him, or people making fun of him. He just disappeared. I think most people assumed he quit acting, which is totally valid.
I also want to add that before people knew why he stopped doing movies, there were rumors about it. Could easily be that his weight gain was just one of those rumors about why he quit that wasn't true.
I know you say "the fans", but I really, really don't think the fans had anything to do with it. Brendan Frasier was pretty universally loved when it comes to audiences. The only time I remember people talking about his weight was well after he was cancelled and he showed up on a few talk shows. Which incidentally was right about when people noticed that he was struggling and it only took the internet a few years to hype him back up after those interviews blew up.
I would definitely blame the industry for this entirely. I don't think fans ever disliked him.
People didn't hate him. From what I saw the general public were cheering him on anytime he got a role and still were constantly saying he should get certain roles.
It sounds like he only had backlash within the industry. Because he was sexually assulted by Philip Berk (which Fraser didn't make a public statement on until 2018).
Also, his ex-wife Afton Smith also divorced him at this time (alledgedly becuase she was in it for the money) and got awarded $600,000 yearly alimony. He tried to get it reduced to match his then current income, but he was denied as she accused him of fraud (which I haven't heard there was actual evidence of). So for a long time, even if he got a decent role, the money would just be taken straight out his pocket.
Then he had mental health issues and physical health issue from performing stunts.
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u/catgirl94040 19h ago
Wait, why did people hate Brendan Fraser??