Current Events > 100 years ago Fatty Arbuckle was a victim of cancel culture

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On September 5, 1921, Arbuckle took a break from his hectic film schedule and, despite suffering from second-degree burns to both buttocks from an accident on set, drove to San Francisco with two friends, Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback. The three checked into three rooms at the St. Francis Hotel: 1219 for Arbuckle and Fishback to share, 1221 for Sherman, and 1220 designated as a party room.Several women were invited to the suite. During the carousing, a 26-year-old aspiring actress named Virginia Rappe was found seriously ill in room 1219 and was examined by the hotel doctor, who concluded her symptoms were mostly caused by intoxication and gave her morphine to calm her. Rappe was not hospitalized until two days after the incident.

At the hospital, Rappe's companion at the party, Bambina Maude Delmont, told a doctor that Arbuckle had raped her friend. The doctor examined Rappe but found no evidence of rape. She died one day after her hospitalization from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. Rappe suffered from chronic urinary tract infections,[22] a condition that liquor irritated dramatically. She developed a reputation for over-imbibing at parties and then drunkenly tearing at her clothes from the resulting physical pain[citation needed]; but, by the time of the St. Francis Hotel party, her reproductive health was a greater concern. Despite reports trying to paint her in a bad light, the autopsy revealed Rappe never had any abortion nor was pregnant.

Delmont then told police that Arbuckle had raped Rappe; the police concluded that the impact of Arbuckle's overweight body lying on top of Rappe had eventually caused her bladder to rupture.[3] At a later press conference, Rappe's manager, Al Semnacker, accused Arbuckle of using a piece of ice to simulate sex with Rappe, thus leading to her injuries.[23] By the time the story was reported in newspapers, the object had evolved into a Coca-Cola or champagne bottle rather than a piece of ice. In fact, witnesses testified that Arbuckle rubbed the ice on Rappe's stomach to ease her abdominal pain. Arbuckle denied any wrongdoing. Delmont later made a statement incriminating Arbuckle to the police in an attempt to extort money from Arbuckle's attorneys.

Arbuckle's trial was a major media event. William Randolph Hearst's nationwide newspaper chain exploited the situation with exaggerated and sensationalized stories. The story was fueled by yellow journalism, with the newspapers portraying Arbuckle as a gross lecher who used his weight to overpower innocent girls. Hearst was gratified by the profits he accrued during the Arbuckle scandal, and later said that it had "sold more newspapers than any event since the sinking of the Lusitania." Morality groups called for Arbuckle to be sentenced to death. The resulting scandal destroyed Arbuckle's career along with his personal life.

During closing statements, McNab reviewed how flawed the case was against Arbuckle from the very start and how Brady fell for the outlandish charges of Delmont, whom McNab described as "the complaining witness who never witnessed". The jury began deliberations April 12 and took only six minutes to return with a unanimous not-guilty verdict; five of those minutes were spent writing a formal statement of apology to Arbuckle for putting him through the ordeal, a dramatic move in American justice. The jury statement as read by the jury foreman stated:
Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him. We feel also that it was only our plain duty to give him this exoneration, under the evidence, for there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story on the witness stand, which we all believed. The happening at the hotel was an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, so the evidence shows, was in no way responsible. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and woman who have sat listening for thirty-one days to evidence, that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.

Arbuckle tried returning to filmmaking, but industry resistance to distributing his pictures continued to linger after his acquittal. He retreated into alcoholism. In the words of his first wife, "Roscoe only seemed to find solace and comfort in a bottle". Keaton attempted to help Arbuckle by giving him work on his films. Arbuckle wrote the story for a Keaton short called Day Dreams (1922). Arbuckle allegedly co-directed scenes in Keaton's Sherlock Jr. (1924), but it is unclear how much of this footage remained in the film's final cut. In 1925, Carter DeHaven's short Character Studies, shot before the scandal, was released. Arbuckle appeared alongside Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, and Jackie Coogan. The same year, in Photoplay's August issue, James R. Quirk wrote: "I would like to see Roscoe Arbuckle make a comeback to the screen." He also said: "The American nation prides itself upon its spirit of fair play. We like the whole world to look upon America as the place where every man gets a square deal. Are you sure Roscoe Arbuckle is getting one today? I'm not."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Arbuckle

Cancel culture sure was a lot more ruthless back then.

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Once you are accused of something, it's hard to be considered innocent even if you prove it. Sadly how our culture works

Darmik posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Arbuckle

Cancel culture sure was a lot more ruthless back then.

Holy shit Louie Anderson was a monster