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    ‘Hysteria!,’ ‘Stranger Things’ and the Satanic Panic That Never Goes Away

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    Five years ago, the television writer Matthew Scott Kane sold “Hysteria!,” a scripted drama that takes place in the late 1980s. The series was inspired in part by the tumult of misinformation he found online and in the media of the late 2010s. Shows like these take time to make, and Kane worried the idea would pass its best-by date.“I kept thinking, man, I don’t know if this is going to feel relevant,” he said in a recent interview.“Hysteria!” which premiered on Peacock on Oct. 18, is set in a small Michigan town in the grip of the so-called satanic panic of the 1980s and early 1990s, an episode of mass hysteria which imagined that a cross-country network of satanic cults was engaged in ritual abuse, animal sacrifice and infanticide. In the pilot, a high school football star is discovered dead. Suspicion turns to several of his classmates, members of a heavy metal band that exploits satanic imagery.The aesthetics of “Hysteria!” — the wallpaper, the jeans, the popular music — are distinctly ’80s. But the impulse to displace social anxieties onto perceived groups of outsiders is as American as apple pie. (Are those apples poisoned? Do they have razor blades inside?) And in a culture of heightened political rhetoric and pervasive misinformation, as apparent now as it was five years ago, the distance between the satanic panic and current conspiracy theories — QAnon, say, or the supposed grooming of children by queer people — is a short one, barely the length of a suburban lawn.Recent works of fiction — “Hysteria!”; the novel “Rainbow Black”; the fourth season of “Stranger Things”; the film “Late Night With the Devil” — all treat the satanic panic as a discrete historical event. But they also suggest how the panic’s concerns resonate in the present. As it turns out, Americans are still panicking. We may always be panicking.“Hysteria!,” a new Peacock show set during the satanic panic, features an attempted exorcism. Mark Hill/PeacockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      #MeToo Stalled in France. Judith Godrèche Might Be Changing That.

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      Judith Godrèche did not set out to relaunch the #MeToo movement in France’s movie industry.She came back to Paris from Los Angeles in 2022 to work on “Icon of French Cinema,” a TV series she wrote, directed and starred in — a satirical poke at her acting career that also recounts how, at the age of 14, she entered into an abusive relationship with a film director 25 years older.Then, a week after the show aired, in late December, a viewer’s message alerted her to a 2011 documentary that she says made her throw up and start shaking as if she were “naked in the snow.”There was the same film director, admitting that their relationship had been a “transgression” but arguing that “making films is a kind of cover” for forms of “illicit traffic.”She went to the police unit specialized in crimes against children — its waiting room was filled with toys and a giant teddy bear, she recalls — to file a report for rape of a minor.“There I was,” said Ms. Godrèche, now 52, “at the right place, where I’ve been waiting to be since I was 14.”Since then, Ms. Godrèche has been on a campaign to expose the abuse of children and women that she believes is stitched into the fabric of French cinema. Barely a week has gone by without her appearance on television and radio, in magazines and newspapers, and even before the French Parliament, where she demanded an inquiry into sexual violence in the industry and protective measures for children.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV’: 5 Takeaways

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      The Investigation Discovery documentary takes a look at accounts of a problematic working environment at Nickelodeon.The Investigation Discovery documentary “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” is a four-part series about working at Nickelodeon, including the environment under the former producer Dan Schneider, and what some described as harmful situations that child actors and adult employees were put in. It premiered on Sunday and is streaming on Max.Schneider, who parted ways with Nickelodeon in 2018, doesn’t appear in the docuseries, but former writers, child stars, staffers and journalists paint a picture of the environment at the network starting in the 1990s, through his departure.Schneider responded to the series in a video on Tuesday. “Watching over the past two nights was very difficult, me facing my past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret, and I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology,” Schneider said in a nearly 20-minute video posted to his YouTube channel.In response to producers’ questions, the documentary said, Nickelodeon stated that the network “investigates all formal complaints as part of our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace” and has “adopted numerous safeguards over the years to help ensure we are living up to our own high standards and the expectations of our audience.”Here are the biggest takeaways from the series.Drake Bell publicly speaks about his abuse for the first time.Drake Bell, in 2018. He has spoken publicly about his sexual abuse for the first time, in “Quiet on Set.”Slaven Vlasic/Getty ImagesBrian Peck, a dialogue coach for Nickelodeon, was convicted of sexually abusing the “Drake & Josh” star Jared Drake Bell. Peck was arrested in 2003 in connection with the sexual abuse of a teenager over a four-month period. In 2004, Peck pleaded no contest to two felonies, according to public records. At the time of the abuse, Bell was 15 and Peck was 41; in court documents, Bell was identified as John Doe.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Drake Bell Will Detail Abuse He Suffered as a Child Star

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      The former Nickelodeon actor is set to describe sexual abuse he experienced at the hands of a former dialogue coach, according to a new docuseries. Court documents detail the back story.Jared Drake Bell, a former star of the hit Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh,” will speak publicly about abuse he suffered at the hands of a 41-year-old dialogue coach when he was 15, according to the network airing a new docuseries about the grimmer aspects of children’s television.Mr. Bell, now 37, will describe his relationship with the dialogue coach, Brian Peck, who pleaded no contest in 2004 to two felonies: oral copulation with a minor, and lewd and lascivious acts with a child, according to public records.Mr. Peck was sentenced to 16 months in prison and registered as a sex offender in California, according to state records. Before entering his pleas, he worked in children’s television for years, including on hit Nickelodeon shows like “All That.”Mr. Bell could not be reached for comment and a trailer released by Investigation Discovery, which produced the docuseries, coming out March 17, “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” did not contain any details of his account. But a transcript of Mr. Peck’s sentencing hearing in 2004 quotes the victim, who is not identified, as saying, “I have to live with this for the rest of my life. And let me tell you, it’s horrific.”Attempts to reach Mr. Peck were also not successful. In the transcript, Mr. Peck said he felt “deep and profound remorse” for his actions and took responsibility for them. He said he found the victim to be an “extremely talented” working professional who he considered “equal to me and my friends.”In court records reviewed by The New York Times, prosecutors said Mr. Peck sexually abused the teenager over a period of four months in 2001 and 2002. Mr. Peck was 41 and the victim was identified as being 15 years old.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the Big Shift in True Crime

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      Not long ago, true crime storytellers had little in the way of first-person footage captured in real time to rely on. Now, as much of our daily lives are documented, the genre is transforming.There’s a moment near the end of the 2017 documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest” where Gypsy Rose Blanchard is filming her boyfriend at the time, Nicholas Godejohn, as he lies nude in a hotel room bed. A day earlier, Godejohn had stabbed to death Gypsy’s mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. The killing was part of a plot the couple hatched to free Gypsy, who was then 23, from her mother’s grip so they could be together. In the short video, we hear Gypsy make a playful sexual comment amid her copious, distinctive giggling.Dee Dee Blanchard had abused and controlled her daughter, mentally and physically, for decades. It was believed by many to be a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy — a form of child abuse in which a caregiver might induce illness to draw public sympathy, care, concern and material gifts — and the saga captured the collective interest.The snippet is the first time we see it unfolding through Gypsy’s eyes, and the point of view serves as a glimmer of what would become one of the biggest shifts in true crime storytelling.Stories like these were once conveyed through re-enactments, dramatizations and interviews with police officers, journalists, medical professionals, family and friends. If there were primary sources, those were typically scans of photos of happy families or of grisly crime scenes underpinned by voice-over narration, exemplified on shows like “20/20,” “Dateline,” “Snapped,” “Forensic Files” and “48 hours.” Home video cameras, which became popular in the 1980s, certainly changed the true crime landscape, but those recordings were generally sparse and supplemental. In rare instances, viewers might hear directly from the perpetrators or victims in interviews often conducted years after the fact.Dee Dee Blanchard, right, with her daughter, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who endured decades of physical and mental abuse by her mother. via The Blanchard Family/LifetimeNow we have reams of first-person digital footage, which means that viewers, more than ever, are privy to the perspectives of those directly involved, often during the period in which the crimes took place, closing the distance and making the intermediaries less essential. The case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard encapsulates the trajectory of this phenomenon. Her saga, for example, received the scripted treatment with “The Act,” a 2019 limited series on Hulu, for which Patricia Arquette won an Emmy. But those looking for a definitive, unvarnished, visceral take on the events now have options and direct channels, rendering that series as almost an afterthought.The rise of social media has, of course, accelerated this dynamic. Blanchard and Godejohn’s relationship was almost exclusively online before the murder, and Facebook posts and text messages between them were used in court by prosecutors to incriminate them. Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison; Gypsy received 10 years, of which she served about seven.She was released on Dec. 28, 2023, and the following day she posted a selfie to Instagram with the caption “First selfie of freedom,” which has gotten more than 6.5 million likes. Online, she’s been promoting her new Lifetime series, “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.” “This docuseries chronicles my quest to expose the hidden parts of my life that have never been revealed until now,” we hear her say from prison.Blanchard and her husband married in 2022 while she was still in prison. via Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Ryan AndersonShe has quickly become a social media celebrity, with more than eight million Instagram followers and nearly 10 million on TikTok. Since her release, she has shared lighthearted videos like one with her husband, Ryan Anderson (they married in 2022 while she was in prison), at “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway and more serious ones, like a video in which she explains Munchausen syndrome by proxy.Technology’s influence on modern criminal investigations has become foundational in many documentaries from recent years.In the two-part HBO documentary “I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter” (2019), the story is largely told through the thousands of text messages exchanged between two teenagers, Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy III, from 2012 to 2014. The text messages led up to the exact moment of Roy’s suicide. Selfie videos that Roy had posted online are also shown. Carter spent about a year in prison for her role in his death. The documentary (by Erin Lee Carr, who also directed “Mommy Dead and Dearest”) left me “spinning in circles, turning over thoughts about accountability, coercion and the nebulous boundaries of technology,” as I wrote last year.One of the highest profile murder trials in the United States in recent years — that of the disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who shot and killed his wife, Maggie, and son Paul in 2021 — ultimately rested on a staggering recording captured moments before the murders. That video, on Paul’s phone, placed the patriarch at the scene of the crime, sealing his fate: two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.Alex Murdaugh, center, as seen in the Netflix docuseries “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.” His murder trial was among the most talked about in recent years.NetflixThe use of that footage, along with abundant smartphone video that brought viewers into the world of the Murdaughs, in documentaries like Netflix’s two-season “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,” would have been unimaginable not long ago.But perhaps no recent offering illustrates this shift like HBO’s docuseries “Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God.” Members of the group Love Has Won live-streamed their days and nights; they filmed and posted untold hours of preachments and online manifestoes to YouTube and Instagram Live. Much of the three-episode series comprises this footage, and in turn viewers watch Amy Carlson, who called herself “Mother God,” slowly deteriorate over the course of months from the perspective of the people who were worshiping her.It’s a vantage point so unnerving and haunting, it dissolves the line between storytelling and voyeurism. When the group films her corpse, which they cart across numerous state lines, camping with it along the way, we see all that, too, through the eyes of the devotees. Several of the followers continue to promote her teachings online.Amy Carlson, center, who led a group called Love Has Won, as seen in the HBO docuseries “Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God.”HBOIt was clear this month in the comments on Blanchard’s Instagram that many were uncomfortable with her re-emerging as a social media presence. Some found it odd that she would participate so heavily and publicly immediately after her release. Others thought it was in bad taste for her to celebrate her freedom while Godejohn serves a life sentence.The greatest criticism of the true crime genre is that horrors are being repackaged as guilty-pleasure entertainment, allowing viewers to get close — but not too close — to terrible things. And perhaps the best defense of true crime is that it allows viewers to process the scary underbelly of our world safely. It is a strange dance between knowledge, observation and entertainment.Either way, the fourth wall is cracking, and perhaps the discomfort this might cause has been a long time coming. More

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      in Music

      Second Woman Accuses Steven Tyler of Sexually Assaulting Her in the 1970s

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      In a lawsuit, a woman says that the Aerosmith frontman groped and fondled her in a New York phone booth when she was about 17.For the second time in the past year, Steven Tyler has been accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in the 1970s, when his band Aerosmith was rising to fame.In the new lawsuit, which was filed in New York on Thursday, Jeanne Bellino accuses Mr. Tyler of assaulting her twice in one day in approximately 1975, when she was about 17 years old and a model living in Queens. He would have been in his late 20s at the time.While Ms. Bellino was visiting Manhattan for work, the lawsuit says, a friend arranged for them to meet Aerosmith. As Ms. Bellino was walking down the street with Mr. Tyler and his entourage, which included his bandmates, he forced her into a phone booth, where he aggressively kissed, groped and fondled her, according to the lawsuit.“Others stood by outside the phone booth laughing and as passers-by watched and witnessed, nobody in the entourage intervened,” the lawsuit says.Because Ms. Bellino did not have money for transportation home, according to the suit, she was taken to the Warwick Hotel with Mr. Tyler and his entourage. The lawsuit says Mr. Tyler pinned her against a wall in a public area and again assaulted her. Shortly after, a doorman at the hotel helped her get into a cab and flee.“He never even asked me what my name was,” Ms. Bellino said of Mr. Tyler in a news conference on Thursday.A representative for Aerosmith did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Ms. Bellino’s lawsuit was filed under a New York City law that in March opened a two-year window for people to accuse someone of gender-motivated violence that would otherwise be beyond the statute of limitations.In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in December, Julia Misley accused Mr. Tyler of using his status and power to “groom, manipulate, exploit” and “sexually assault” her over the course of three years, starting in 1973, shortly after her 16th birthday. Ms. Misley said in her lawsuit that she had met Mr. Tyler at an Aerosmith concert in Portland, Ore., and that the musician had persuaded her mother to let him become her legal guardian.Mr. Tyler, who is now 75, wrote about sexual encounters with a teenager in his 2011 autobiography, “Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?,” saying that he gained custody of a person who nearly became his “teen bride.” More

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      in Movies

      ‘To Kill a Tiger’ Review: The Survivor Who Refused to Be Shamed

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      In this unflinching documentary, a young girl in rural India and her father fight an entrenched village culture to seek justice for her brutal rape.Nisha Pahuja’s documentary “To Kill a Tiger” opens with a startling image: a 13-year-old girl braids her hair in close-up as her father relates, in gutting voice-over, how she was raped by three men. Pahuja had planned to mask the girl’s face in post-production, but when Kiran (her pseudonym in the film) saw the footage at age 18, she chose to reveal herself in the film. It’s a defiant gesture on her part, to refuse the shroud of shame.“To Kill a Tiger” is a film bristling with such invigorating defiance. It follows Kiran and her parents, who live in a village in northeastern India, as they seek justice with the help of activists from Srijan Foundation, an advocacy organization. Interviews with other villagers reveal the tribalist, deeply patriarchal values that ensnare Kiran. Both men and women chastise her for her supposed irresponsibility and suggest brazenly that she marry one of her rapists to restore her “honor” and the village’s harmony.Kiran and her family are heroes, but this isn’t a simple tale of heroism. The film lays bare the uneasy and inadequate avenues available to survivors seeking justice. Is the long ordeal that pushes the family into debt and forces Kiran to repeatedly rehash her trauma making a difference? Is a fight that pits the family against their entire community worth it? Does the imprisonment of the perpetrators offer any real succor to the victim or upend the patriarchy?“To Kill a Tiger” doesn’t offer any easy answers. But in staying close to Kiran’s father, who refuses to let his daughter bow her head, and to the girl, who speaks with hope and flinty confidence, one thing is clear: The revolution begins at home.To Kill a TigerNot rated. In Hindi, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Scout’s Honor’ Review: Uncovering a History of Abuse

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      This documentary, subtitled “The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America,” unveils the legacy organization’s habit of covering up cases of sexual abuse.Almost three years ago, ahead of a bankruptcy court deadline, more than 82,000 people came forward with sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America. The mostly male survivors were of all ages and came from every state. Some of them had kept mum for decades.“Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America,” directed by Brian Knappenberger and streaming on Netflix, is essentially a walk-through of the monumental case. A solid chunk of its running time is spent with Michael Johnson, a former director at the Boy Scouts who has since become an outspoken critic of its youth protection practices. As the film tracks the organization’s history of abuse and cover-ups, Johnson recounts hitting brick walls during his efforts to reform the system.News-based passages remind viewers about the organization’s wholesome image, as well as its links to the Catholic and Mormon Churches. Bland archival footage supports the history lesson, and the film pans across enough headlines to populate a Sunday paper.Knappenberger does, thankfully, make space for survivors to share their own accounts, and their vulnerability lends authority to an otherwise anonymous film. At one point, a middle-aged man laments not having the chance to tell his late mother about the abuse he endured as a child. These are heart-wrenching moments. Unfortunately, the film fails to build on them, leaving the culture of shame and stigma that muzzled these men to hover in the air, unexplored.Scout’s Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of AmericaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      in Music

      Sexual Abuse Suits Against Michael Jackson’s Companies Are Revived

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      An appeals court in California determined that lawsuits by two men who say Jackson molested them as children can proceed.Two men who have accused Michael Jackson of sexually abusing them as children are able to resume their lawsuits against companies owned by the singer, who died in 2009, a California appeals court ruled on Friday.The men, Wade Robson, 40, and James Safechuck, 45, have alleged that Mr. Jackson sexually abused them for years and that employees of the two companies — MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc. — were complicit, acting as his “co-conspirators, collaborators, facilitators and alter egos” for the abuse. The suits say that employees of the companies owed a “duty of care” to the boys and failed to take steps to prevent abuse.Mr. Robson’s and Mr. Safechuck’s stories were featured in the 2019 HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland,” in which the men accused Mr. Jackson of molesting them and cultivating relationships with their families to access the boys’ bodies.“Everybody wanted to meet Michael or be with Michael,” Mr. Safechuck said in the film. “He was already larger than life. And then he likes you.”The two companies are now owned by Mr. Jackson’s estate, which has repeatedly denied that he abused the boys.“We remain fully confident that Michael is innocent of these allegations, which are contrary to all credible evidence and independent corroboration, and which were only first made years after Michael’s death by men motivated solely by money,” Jonathan Steinsapir, a lawyer for Mr. Jackson’s estate, said in a statement after the decision.Vince Finaldi, a lawyer for Mr. Safechuck and Mr. Robson, said in a statement that the court had overturned “incorrect rulings in these cases, which were against California law and would have set a dangerous precedent that endangered children.”Mr. Robson and Mr. Safechuck filed their suits against the companies in 2013 and 2014, respectively, but both cases were dismissed in 2017 because they exceeded California’s statute of limitations. They were reopened in 2020 after a new state law provided plaintiffs in child sex abuse cases an additional period to file lawsuits.In October 2020 and April 2021, the suits were again dismissed when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that the two corporations and their employees were not legally obligated to protect the men from Mr. Jackson.But on Friday, California’s Second District Court of Appeal ruled that “a corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator of the abuse.”In a concurring opinion, Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr. said that for the purposes of civil liability, the corporations did the sole bidding of Mr. Jackson, who had a duty of care to Mr. Robson and Mr. Safechuck.“So did Jackson’s marionettes, because Jackson’s fingers held every string,” he said, adding, “These corporations could have taken cost-effective steps to reduce the risk of harm.”The cases, which were consolidated in the appeals court, will now go back to a trial court.In his lawsuit, Mr. Robson, who is now a choreographer and director, says that Mr. Jackson molested him from age 7 to 14. After meeting Mr. Jackson through a dance competition when he was 5, Mr. Robson performed in his music videos and released an album on his record label.According to his suit, the abuse started in 1990 when Mr. Jackson invited Mr. Robson and his family to stay at his Neverland Ranch in California. Mr. Robson and Mr. Jackson slept in the same bed and touched each other’s genitals, according to the suit. Over the next seven years, the suit said, they engaged in sexual acts including masturbation and oral sex.The suit says that employees of MJJ Productions witnessed the abuse and that employees of the two companies took steps to ensure that Mr. Jackson was alone with Mr. Robson and other children.Mr. Safechuck’s lawsuit says he was one of several children entrapped by the companies’ “child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation organization.” According to his suit, Mr. Safechuck met Mr. Jackson during filming for a Pepsi commercial in late 1986 or early 1987 and later became a dancer for Mr. Jackson.Mr. Jackson showed the 10-year-old boy how to masturbate while on tour in 1988, the suit alleges, and abused Mr. Safechuck hundreds of times over the next four years. The employees of MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures coordinated the visits, according to the suit.Before these lawsuits, Mr. Jackson twice faced criminal investigations into the possible sexual abuse of children.In 1994, the district attorneys for Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties decided not to proceed with charges that Mr. Jackson had molested three boys because the “primary alleged victim” decided not to testify. Mr. Jackson, who denied any wrongdoing, had reached a $20 million civil settlement with the boy’s family.In 2003, a Santa Barbara County district attorney charged Mr. Jackson with several counts of child molesting and serving alcohol to minors. After a 14-week trial in 2005, he was acquitted by a jury. More