Do we save Jussie Smollet? CAN we save Jussie Smollet? Is there ANY way out for Jussie Smollet?
Father, Joel Smollet, Ashekenazi Jew migrated from Russia/Poland was a simple 'cable layer' in the US. He married a black woman, ex Black Panther from New Orleans, who counted Angela Davis among her dearest friends and they grew up in the orbit of the Black Panthers.
The parents put them into show business, shuffling them between NY and LA until they landed a job on ABC. Jussie was just a kid. They all were. It was not a long lived sitcom, but it put them all into the Hollywood machine. The first taste of success, a new house, proud parents. The money comes in. Do you want to jeopardize that? Do you want to go back to being nobody? After that series, Jussie worked under Rob Reiner on 'North'.
Rob Reiner, beaten by his father, passed around by Hollywood moguls in exchange for success and fame. How do you keep your highly successful show on the air? You do what they tell you to do and keep your mouth shut. Its what EVERYONE DOES. The only way to success is through that casting couch, and the Harvey Weinsteins never let you forget it. If you are born into the machine like Rob Reiner, you become one of them and your job is to bring others into it. Like Jussie Smollett.
They tell you they are 'protecting you'. They protect your secrets, they protect your income, they protect your press and PR. They give you acting lessons that teach you how not to be yourself so that the mind-breaking is easier. Its a web of connections and you do favors for those connections whenever your agent calls. When you are all grown up and they own you completely, you owe your success to them, the phone call comes that asks you to do something..tells you..and you don't hesitate. You don't want to be dead like Heath Ledger..or washed up. They own all of you, by contract. You signed your soul away on the dotted line. So you do it. It will be fine they said.