Recently I recommended “Star Trek Continues”, a web series I had praised, to my brother.
It turns out, however, that as of December 2022, just months ago, a court upheld judgements against lead actor and series creator Vic Mignogna, requiring him to pay legal fees for the plaintiffs who had claimed he sexually assaulted or harassed them. It ended the (2019-2022) fight for the actor to defend against, and then counter sue for damages, charges of sexual assault and sexual harassment made against him by multiple fans and actors. I won’t detail much here. In my opinion, what a person does in privacy with any other consenting adult is nobody else’s business. Rumors and false accusations or revelations about said activities, even to the point of entering mass media, can cause serious damage to those involved. “Outing” someone is an act of terrorism. People have died because of claims, whether true or false. The roommate of a college student, who was engaged in a same-sex relationship, video recorded the couple and made it available. The victim jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
Not many people jump from there and fail to die, and face it, bridge-or-building suicide attempts are acts of pure despair and desperation. It’s often done with no real planning; just the effort to get to the place and do it. It’s a hard way to go and you have to, in that moment, want it to the exclusion of all else. Given time, second thoughts can make a difference. Intervention can too, but police can sometimes cause a bad end even under the best of conditions.
That’s not the case here; Mignogna had multiple people saying the same things against him. Three appeals failed. He was not charged, I assume, with a crime. It was civil action.
I’m cautious about these things; after the Amber Heard debacle, I came to believe Depp was candid, honest and courageous. I do not believe that he was without guilt in the horribly failed relationship, but it was clear, Heard was lying. Every bit of her testimony was said directly to the jury, and that’s extraordinary. Nobody does that without lying. At no time do the innocent behave so. Except, of course, for sociopaths. Her display actually made me quite physically sick.
Usually I’d side with a victim. I’m not like alpha male dicks who call bullshit all over the press, social media and truck stop shithouses and call all female and child victims “whores” or “stick kids”.
Conservatives in media cause too much damage without facing any consequences. That’s despicable. Trauma piled on top of trauma, which defense attorneys have already compounded, is one of our biggest problems and leads many victims to let a criminal go; all estimates of incidence of rape and child abuse are invalid and the act of estimation itself is horrifying. And all victims know that their lives have been damaged, but never do they realize just how drastically they have been damaged. They hardly need to go to the police and be humiliated in court for that.
I’m glad that Mignogna was properly treated by Sony Entertainment as a predator; pleased that his victims were so courageous, but it has changed how I feel about what was an excellent fan-made series. It’s a shame that his victims include the cast, donors and fans of the show. If you’re going to tell me that one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole barrel, I’m sorry, but at times, the adage is accurate. Mignogna made the series happen, and the whole time, he was literally shitting on it and everyone associated with it. And some of his victims weren’t even of legal age to proposition, much less kiss, fondle or more. If it could get any worse, it’s probably because his victims included fans.
Ironic that he played the role of James T. Kirk so well, when the man who made the role famous was so infamous among his own co-stars. One actress had heard about this. As a guest for one episode, each of which took about a week, she had just arrived and gone to her trailer when she found Shatner suddenly “on top of me”. But back then, it was treated differently. Bill Shatner would be called a stalker and a predator today; apparently he has changed his ways over the decades since the 1960s.
All things considered: I no longer consider myself a “Star Trek Continues” fan, and would like to see his work removed from YouTube. It won’t be.
If nothing else, America knows how to treat its victims.
It just forgets them.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 