A new two-part series by British public broadcast television Channel 4, Spacey Unmasked, produced and directed by Katherine Haywood, perpetuates the smear campaign against actor Kevin Spacey with a barrage of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior.

The reprehensible series was aired in the UK on May 6 and 7 and in the US on Investigation Discovery and Max (both owned by Warner Bros. Discovery) beginning May 13. Presented as a “documentary,” the two one-hour episodes are based on interviews with 10 individuals who recount, some in lurid, salacious detail, their claims against the actor going as far back as five decades ago when he was a teenager in high school.

Spacey was given no serious opportunity to reply to the allegations on the program prior to its broadcast. Through manipulative narration and film editing techniques, the series produced by Roast Beef Productions attempts to palm off character assassination as factually substantiated truth and even disingenuously pretends to sympathize with the actor.

One of the more peculiar features of the series is an interview with Spacey’s older brother Randy Fowler. Fowler says he was sexually abused by the boys’ father Thomas Fowler, who was also a neo-Nazi, racist and homophobe. Randy Fowler spends most of his time discussing his own emotional difficulties and contributes nothing to substantiate the allegations made against his brother by the other interviewees.

One thoroughly discreditable aspect of the program is the appearance of Adam Vary. The latter, then a reporter for Buzzfeed, was behind the 2017 #MeToo story against Spacey. Vary has been exposed for his failure to perform basic research on the allegations made by Anthony Rapp, the original accuser. Rapp later pursued a $40 million lawsuit against Spacey for “emotional trauma” for events that supposedly occurred in the mid-1980s. A jury threw out Rapp’s case in 2022 with “lightning speed,” in the words of NBC News, i.e., in little more than an hour.

Even though Spacey was previously cleared and exonerated in various court cases based on similar allegations—including in Massachusetts and in London—Channel 4 proceeded with the broadcast of its disgraceful series anyway.

Meanwhile, with the airing of new—and some old—accusations against the award-winning and gifted actor just as he was beginning to make public appearances and give media interviews, the Channel 4 series emerges as a hit piece aimed at preventing Spacey from restoring his career.

The campaign to destroy Spacey was launched in 2017 as part of the #MeToo hysteria mounted against more than 200 men who were accused of sexual assault and harassment and vilified in the corporate media, the vast majority of whom had no opportunity to confront their accusers in the face of often anonymously made claims.

Spacey posted on Twitter/X on May 2,

Over the last week, I have repeatedly requested that @Channel4 afford me more than 7 days to respond to allegations made against me dating back 48 years and provide me with sufficient details to investigate these matters. Channel 4 has refused on the basis that they feel that asking for a response in 7 days to new, anonymized and non-specific allegations is a “fair opportunity” for me to refute any allegations made against me.

I will not sit back and be attacked by a dying network’s one-sided “documentary” about me in their desperate attempt for ratings. There’s a proper channel to handle allegations against me and it’s not Channel 4.

Each time I have been given the time and a proper forum to defend myself, the allegations have failed under scrutiny, and I have been exonerated.

Rather than question the latest campaign against Spacey, the corporate media in the US has once again resorted to piling on. Rolling Stone, for example, claims the series “is a crucial entry into the conversation around male victims of sexual misconduct—and highlights how men haven’t yet developed a vocabulary to describe or process these situations.” (The media responded along the same unprincipled lines to the scurrilous attack on Michael Jackson, Leaving Neverland, in 2019.)

Unhappy with the actor’s repeated exoneration in court, Channel 4 and the entertainment press in particular are enthusiastic about the opportunity to double down on the accusations against the actor and once again see him “disappeared” from films and television.

Variety, for example, acknowledges that Spacey had been “acquitted of multiple sexual offenses in the UK,” and then goes on to repeat the claim in the production notes that the series is a “forensic look at a man who was once one of the most admired and respected actors in the world.”

As we have explained repeatedly on the World Socialist Web Site, the #MeToo witch-hunt against Spacey and others has been motivated by upper middle class layers affiliated with the Democratic Party and pseudo-left politics obsessed with sexual and racial identity in the service of their petty and selfish interests.

In addition to the blatant disregard of fundamental democratic rights such as due process, the #MeToo campaign seeks to divert attention away from the Democratic Party as a whole and, in particular, runs interference for the Biden administration as it finances genocide by Israel in Gaza and moves toward direct US-NATO military conflict with Russia in Ukraine, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

An example of this reactionary phenomenon was on display at the recent Cannes Film Festival when headlines from news organizations such as the Guardian reported that a new “explosive secret list of abusers,” was being revealed during the annual event. By launching this campaign, which never produced any such list, the #MeToo proponents and their backers in the corporate media are helping to “change the subject” for the ruling elites while millions are protesting against their war crimes.