Grooming is Essential

A documentary about Hollywood's boy problem, An Open Secret, is being shared on Vimeo because it can't get a distributor, and it's not hard to see why. It isn't just that powerful people in Hollywood are threatened. The Narrative itself is threatened.

At the center of the scandal is Mark Collins-Rector, who created something called the Digital Entertainment Network, producing original programming for the Internet directed at teen "subcultures" such as homosexuality. The company was probably ahead of its time (founded in 1996, before high speed internet) but drew in a lot of investors (among them high-profile gays like David Geffen and Michael Huffington) before collapsing just ahead of its IPO when Rector was accused of child molestation. He lives in Europe and is still wanted in the States.

The brief look we get at the network's programming suggests it was some part grooming operation itself. At 35:14 (can't embed it here) in the video we get a taste of one program, Chad's World. Chad's a boy who goes to live with a rich young gay couple. The house is a playground: a pool and hot tub, video games, electronics; a sort of Neverland Ranch of enticements.

I found an episode on YouTube. This one's about a boy coming out to his conservative parents.



The show was ahead of its time culturally and politically as well in its advancement and normalization of homosexuality. Gay adoption was still controversial.

It's difficult not to see the show and network, indeed the whole gay rights movement, as a sort of mass grooming operation.