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Kevin Spacey’s ‘Creepy’ 2018 YouTube Video Explained
from PART IV - New Ways of Implicating Through the Digital Medium?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2022
Chapter 10 dissects Kevin Spacey’s YouTube video posted on Christmas eve in 2018 to defend himself against sexual assault accusations. It shows how dangerous the second-person pronoun can be when it is used to numb ‘cognitive vigilance’ all the more so as the actor fakes to embody his House of Cards character (Netflix 2013–2018) and charmingly threaten the audience into trusting him by virtue of their past history. Spacey asserts he knows what his audience wants: they want him back. In the YouTube clip, the second-person pronoun loses its ethical bond-creating force, turning instead the viewer into a hostage to the character/actor’s perception. This chapter offers a fine-grained analysis of the video, highlighting where Spacey breaks the fictional contract by offering a show outside the show that is authorised by no ‘collective sender’, authoring himself so to speak and forcing the audience to adopt a ‘third consciousness’ as both fans and citizens. The doubly deictic ‘I’ he uses, ambiguously superimposing references to himself as a fictional character (Frank Underwood in the political series) and as a citizen (in the real world) indeed problematises response from the viewers.
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