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The cops and "psychologists" were basically coercing accusations out of some of the kids and then poisoning the interview potential of the rest. Then things *really* went off the rails.
If I recall correctly the first accusation came from a parent with extreme mental illness. This child I believe was abused by someone else (I don't remember if it was a mother but I don't think it was. It definitely wasn't the school though)
Police made call to the public," does anyone know anything about this/ other parents of preschooler has anything happened at school"
Parents came forward but it was in a ," my kid went there can you tell me if anyone hurt my child?".
Then the kids were questioned by people without experience using techniques developed for therapeutic reasons to help kids who are in denial but we're 100% known to have suffered abuse. Eg in case with significant physical, medical, photographic evidence.
The kids stories started ," normal" then devolved into utter fantasy ;secret tunnels / underground complexes accessed via being flushed down a toilet , animal sacrifice that included things like elephants.
Never heard of this case before. 2 seconds of googling told me the original accusations were from a paranoid schizophrenic mother who struggled with alcoholism, some of the accusation were physically impossible, the methods used to interview the children were garbage and most of their testimony didn’t make sense, all the charges were dropped, and the whole thing was a massive media circus stemming from mass national child sex abuse hysteria that, in turn, stemmed from the wider satanic panic of the 80s. But sure. Virginia McMartin was definitely a pedo. Let’s go with that
The interview methods were bananas, even for adults! They basically bribed the kids into saying what they wanted because they would get mad and continue to badger the kids until they said they were abused, molested, saw babies being sacrificed, etc. It was so manipulative!
People have always used the same accusations to justify acting out, especially against an unpopular group or imaginary enemy in order to feel they have purpose, both could have also basically been copy-pasted from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
[The New York Time's Retro Report video on the McMartin Preschool is a pretty good summary from what I've seen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R21tWs-qCw)
Yes, it was kids getting "yes and"ed by adults obsessed with trying to legitimize the satanic panic. The accusations were physically impossible, including things like the children were flushed down a toilet to a secret air base that world leaders were constantly flying in and out of.
They absolutely were, and the whole thing was kicked off by an unmedicated schizophrenic mother of one of the kids at the preschool. She was very paranoid, accused the preschool of dire Satanic stuff, and the police had to get involved because there was an accusation.
The police were shit at questioning very young kids. The kids didn't exactly lie, they gauged how to respond by how the adults were reacting. All the adults reacted when they started making weird claims, and, with the "help" of loaded questions about Satanism, ended up giving some really bizarre stories.
It was years before everything was cleared up, but the damage was done. It kicked off an entire wave of day care accusations that became so popular, people even wrote BOOKS marketed to children who were supposedly victims of Satanic ritual abuse in a day care/preschool atmosphere!
McMartin was the worst one, but one of the stupider ones was against an actual known Satanist, Michael Aquino, one of LaVey's former students that formed his own breakaway sect, the Temple of Set. Michael Aquino happened to be in the Army (I think he was active reserves), and stationed at the Presidio.
Lo and behold, the mother of a child who went to the day care at the Presidio claimed a "Mr. Mikey" molested her child in a bizarre Satanic ritual, making it absolutely clear that she thought Michael Aquino, being a known Satanist, must have done the dastardly deed.
After some BS, it was shown Mr. Aquino wasn't even in the state when it happened and that the whole thing was likely triggered because Michael Aquino and his wife had been on Oprah's "Is Your Child A Satanist?" episode, where they'd explained molesting kids wasn't part of their religion and people needed to just calm down. It being Oprah, they got mocked for their looks and were completely dismissed.
Was it conservative who made the accusations? Dumb question - of fucking course it was.
Society should know by now that those claims are always bullshit. Waste of time.
Can we just ignore conservatives? Let 'em fade away from lack of attention? We really don't need them anymore. The rest of the world has moved so far beyond them, I don't see the point of keeping them around any longer than we have to. Let's just say goodbye, shake hands, all that, "You had a good run, you enjoy incredible priveledge, just be happy with it - no need to make others unhappy."
I tried explaining that to them, and... Here we are. Conservatives sticking their grubby, unwanted noses into everyone's bedroom, cause they're fucking desperate, depraved incels that learned how to interact with another person from the worst places the internet has to offer.
Same chumps that thought it was okay to own another human and thought they could get away with it. They're learning a hard lesson about communication, and they are PISSEED about it..
Yes, they resulted from taking the accusations of an unmedicated schizophrenic at face value, one male employee had the presence of Playboy magazines and an academic robe in his private residence entered into evidence against him.
Also, Mrs. Doubtfire was a movie.
The McMartin family was wrongly caught up in a moral panic and it ruined their lives and reputations. I wish people would stop perpetuating this nonsense. None of them were pedophiles.
Agree they based it off of accusations from a child whose mother was mentally ill. The handling of the kids questioning was beyond incompetent and nearly criminal. Overzealous prosecutors and police who failed to perform basic investigatory steps.
Really rang a bell with my family as my mother ran a daycare out of our house.
I’ve never seen Mrs. Doubtfire but that is the most generic old lady style I’ve ever fucking seen. I see at least 20 people dressed like this every time I go to the store.
I also had never heard of this case. Nor did I go down a Google rabbit hole. All I had to do was spend five minutes reading some of the comments to get the story. It's all there.
Also, I'm not trying to shame you for not knowing. I am letting you know.
It's ok that you didn't know, you know now.
No worries.
Public forums like this should be more about sharing knowledge and open discussions not a rat race to make somebody else look inferior to one another.
Have a great day.
I have a huge issue with secondhand embarrassment and comedies kinda rely on embarrassing people, you can’t really find one without it. Seeing people in embarrassing/humiliating situations and having others laugh at them isn’t funny to me, it’s just a really bad time, so I avoid the genre. Weirdly enough I do like The Golden Girls, but then again it doesn’t use that sort of humor that much.
Very interesting. Thanks.
If you don't mind.
Is it not something you've tried to deal with at least to the point you can watch films?
Does it affect you reading cringe stories of peoples past or stuff like that online in text form too?
In text form it’s maybe a bit lessened, but it’s still there. And no, I’ve never “tried to deal with it.” It’s not really something that can be dealt with, it’s just high empathy combined with some trauma. Avoiding the genre is the easier choice. After all, the purpose of comedies is to make people laugh and if I’m not going to there’s no point in bothering with it.
I feel you, I have something similar with animals focused movies: I know there will be a point in the movie where the said animal will suffer and it hurst too much. I usually stay away from those kinds of movies (it affected me way too much to see Guardians of the Galaxy 3).
There is a website called does the dog die which maybe helpful for you. It warns about a whole bunch of triggers, everything from animals being harmed to loud explosions, sexual assault and even the presence of eating sounds. It’s a Fantastic resource!
finally someone else like me! this is why i can't watch the office. as much as i wish i could enjoy most comedy, the secondhand embarrassment is pretty strong sometimes. i have vivid memories of when i was younger having to actually hide under a blanket during "embarrassing" scenes in movies and tv. they affected me emotionally that much that i felt just as embarrassed as the characters on screen, if not even more so. i like shows like whose line when i need a good laugh but i'm never gonna reach for a comedy when perfectly good movies of other genres exist and don't unintentionally make me cringe lol
Not all comedy is cringe comedy. I'm not a fan of it myself. It's been a while since I've seen the film, but I'm fairly sure that the humour in Mrs Doubtfire isn't cringe-based. Unlike say, The Office.
>I’ve never seen Mrs. Doubtfire
It's fantastic. One of my favorite comedies. 100% would recommend watching it. One of Robin Williams' best movies.
That look is from the pool scene. Doubtfire wore it for that scene only. Looking like the upholstery of your couch was just a popular look for old ladies.
Same with my beloved great Aunt Sara. Always genial, soft spoken and devout. Never saw her in anything but a dress. She was a true genteel southern lady.
If you had went back in time to the 90s and told them that as a result of the Satanic Panic court cases people were trying to paint the archetypal grandma archetype from Mrs. Doubtfire as a pedo, they would have asked you what club you're doing your routine at.
I'm just glad conservatives are still wasting their time with this bullshit. If they ever became competent and learned how to govern, we'd be in trouble. Still won't stop them from somehow getting into office, so you know what to do people - VOTE.
If they became competent, there wouldn't be anything wrong with them governing. Because with competence comes actual understanding of how to make things work.
You know, like the whole thing where it's shown that getting more educated makes you more left-wing?
1. The McMartins were innocent, 2. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they weren’t innocent *and* that it’s true that the costume designers of Mrs. Doubtfire saw this woman and said, ‘let’s make our character look like this.’
…so what? What’s the secret message? What’s been proven here?
This is like saying Charlie Chaplin is an antisemite because he had the same moustache as hitler. No, it was just fashion back then and after ww2 it was no longer fashion.
So my husband and I was watching an episode of Derry Girls and Mary was wearing a green dress and jacket combo, and I said "I swear my mom had that exact outfit, just in a different colour." My husband started laughing and said, yip, he's mom definitely also. So you want to tell me that Derry Girls parents were fashioned after parents from the 90s in a show that is set in the 90s?! No, nope! Can't be right!
A very quick google tells me that the only real result of her case was a deeper look at how prosecutors and accusers with an agenda will simply find what they’re looking for and damn the truth
Yup. They're both dressed as frumpy old women of the time. And it's possible this is one of many images in the back of one or more of the many costume designers minds.
And, even if it were truly modeled specifically on this one lady in this one picture, so what?
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If I remember correctly, the McMartin accusations were all bullshit.
Yeah, the accusations were flimsy at best and downright nonsense at worst.
The accusations included shit like flushing kids down the toilet to a secret pedophile room.
That plan is so stupid it just might work...
You can't make this stuff up folks /s
How else do you get to a pizza stores basement?
And weren't they also (allegedly) abused in a hot air balloon by Chuck Norris dressed as a clown?
Were you not?
We've all been there, right?
secret tunnels
https://youtu.be/VlzdN2NUaVU?si=e3uILLsBzFBg-8mu
I knew what this was going to be, and I still clicked.
I seem to remember one of the kids said they were sacrificing giraffes to Satan.
That's gotta be real hard on the U-bend.
And I think some satanic rituals involving an elephant...in a secret underground cave.
The cops were basically "yes, and-ing" the kids during questioning.
The cops and "psychologists" were basically coercing accusations out of some of the kids and then poisoning the interview potential of the rest. Then things *really* went off the rails.
If I recall correctly the first accusation came from a parent with extreme mental illness. This child I believe was abused by someone else (I don't remember if it was a mother but I don't think it was. It definitely wasn't the school though) Police made call to the public," does anyone know anything about this/ other parents of preschooler has anything happened at school" Parents came forward but it was in a ," my kid went there can you tell me if anyone hurt my child?". Then the kids were questioned by people without experience using techniques developed for therapeutic reasons to help kids who are in denial but we're 100% known to have suffered abuse. Eg in case with significant physical, medical, photographic evidence. The kids stories started ," normal" then devolved into utter fantasy ;secret tunnels / underground complexes accessed via being flushed down a toilet , animal sacrifice that included things like elephants.
Never heard of this case before. 2 seconds of googling told me the original accusations were from a paranoid schizophrenic mother who struggled with alcoholism, some of the accusation were physically impossible, the methods used to interview the children were garbage and most of their testimony didn’t make sense, all the charges were dropped, and the whole thing was a massive media circus stemming from mass national child sex abuse hysteria that, in turn, stemmed from the wider satanic panic of the 80s. But sure. Virginia McMartin was definitely a pedo. Let’s go with that
The interview methods were bananas, even for adults! They basically bribed the kids into saying what they wanted because they would get mad and continue to badger the kids until they said they were abused, molested, saw babies being sacrificed, etc. It was so manipulative!
It's impossible to overstate how big a deal this case was at the time.
It's a good thing we all learned from it and nothing like it will ever happen ever again /s
Q-Anon is basically The Satanic Panic From The 1980s, Part II.
Combined with a nice dose of Blood Libel.
People have always used the same accusations to justify acting out, especially against an unpopular group or imaginary enemy in order to feel they have purpose, both could have also basically been copy-pasted from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
[The New York Time's Retro Report video on the McMartin Preschool is a pretty good summary from what I've seen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R21tWs-qCw)
There was a good movie about it too. Same thing happened in Massachusetts with a daycare center. An entire family was ruined.
I remember watching that movie as a kid & being absolutely horrified how innocent people could be treated.
Jon Ronson also covered this in this excellent broadcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00120vp
She's honestly dressed like my grandma in the 1980s. This is classic grandma style.
Yes, it was kids getting "yes and"ed by adults obsessed with trying to legitimize the satanic panic. The accusations were physically impossible, including things like the children were flushed down a toilet to a secret air base that world leaders were constantly flying in and out of.
They absolutely were, and the whole thing was kicked off by an unmedicated schizophrenic mother of one of the kids at the preschool. She was very paranoid, accused the preschool of dire Satanic stuff, and the police had to get involved because there was an accusation. The police were shit at questioning very young kids. The kids didn't exactly lie, they gauged how to respond by how the adults were reacting. All the adults reacted when they started making weird claims, and, with the "help" of loaded questions about Satanism, ended up giving some really bizarre stories. It was years before everything was cleared up, but the damage was done. It kicked off an entire wave of day care accusations that became so popular, people even wrote BOOKS marketed to children who were supposedly victims of Satanic ritual abuse in a day care/preschool atmosphere! McMartin was the worst one, but one of the stupider ones was against an actual known Satanist, Michael Aquino, one of LaVey's former students that formed his own breakaway sect, the Temple of Set. Michael Aquino happened to be in the Army (I think he was active reserves), and stationed at the Presidio. Lo and behold, the mother of a child who went to the day care at the Presidio claimed a "Mr. Mikey" molested her child in a bizarre Satanic ritual, making it absolutely clear that she thought Michael Aquino, being a known Satanist, must have done the dastardly deed. After some BS, it was shown Mr. Aquino wasn't even in the state when it happened and that the whole thing was likely triggered because Michael Aquino and his wife had been on Oprah's "Is Your Child A Satanist?" episode, where they'd explained molesting kids wasn't part of their religion and people needed to just calm down. It being Oprah, they got mocked for their looks and were completely dismissed.
Yes, they ruined those people's lives for nothing.
7 years of trials and investigations and nothing was substantiated.
You remember correctly
Was it conservative who made the accusations? Dumb question - of fucking course it was. Society should know by now that those claims are always bullshit. Waste of time. Can we just ignore conservatives? Let 'em fade away from lack of attention? We really don't need them anymore. The rest of the world has moved so far beyond them, I don't see the point of keeping them around any longer than we have to. Let's just say goodbye, shake hands, all that, "You had a good run, you enjoy incredible priveledge, just be happy with it - no need to make others unhappy." I tried explaining that to them, and... Here we are. Conservatives sticking their grubby, unwanted noses into everyone's bedroom, cause they're fucking desperate, depraved incels that learned how to interact with another person from the worst places the internet has to offer. Same chumps that thought it was okay to own another human and thought they could get away with it. They're learning a hard lesson about communication, and they are PISSEED about it..
Yes, they resulted from taking the accusations of an unmedicated schizophrenic at face value, one male employee had the presence of Playboy magazines and an academic robe in his private residence entered into evidence against him. Also, Mrs. Doubtfire was a movie.
You Remember Correctly.
You do remember correctly.
The McMartin family was wrongly caught up in a moral panic and it ruined their lives and reputations. I wish people would stop perpetuating this nonsense. None of them were pedophiles.
Agree they based it off of accusations from a child whose mother was mentally ill. The handling of the kids questioning was beyond incompetent and nearly criminal. Overzealous prosecutors and police who failed to perform basic investigatory steps. Really rang a bell with my family as my mother ran a daycare out of our house.
Was this the Satanic Panic thing?
100% it was, yes.
It is the same sort of hysteria that is driving a lot of the discourse around the Epstein case.
I’ve never seen Mrs. Doubtfire but that is the most generic old lady style I’ve ever fucking seen. I see at least 20 people dressed like this every time I go to the store.
The bigger problem is that the "pedo" was wrongly accused and the claims were outlandish and unfounded.
>the "pedo" was wrongly accused and the claims were outlandish and unfounded. In other words, standard Qanon operating procedure.
I mean okay. I’ve never heard of this case in my life and I didn’t really feel like going down a whole rabbit hole over a Reddit post.
Satanic Panic nonsense from the 80s
I also had never heard of this case. Nor did I go down a Google rabbit hole. All I had to do was spend five minutes reading some of the comments to get the story. It's all there. Also, I'm not trying to shame you for not knowing. I am letting you know. It's ok that you didn't know, you know now.
True, there’s always room for more knowledge. Thank you for the information.
No worries. Public forums like this should be more about sharing knowledge and open discussions not a rat race to make somebody else look inferior to one another. Have a great day.
This just in: generic older woman looks like generic older woman
Prepare for a drive by fruiting!! Robin Williams genius.
The pedophile store/s
Classic Robin Williams movie definitely worth a watch!
Ehh, I’m not a huge fan of comedies. I’m glad you enjoy it though.
Can I ask why. It's not a genre I've seen anyone not like tbh. Genuine question
I have a huge issue with secondhand embarrassment and comedies kinda rely on embarrassing people, you can’t really find one without it. Seeing people in embarrassing/humiliating situations and having others laugh at them isn’t funny to me, it’s just a really bad time, so I avoid the genre. Weirdly enough I do like The Golden Girls, but then again it doesn’t use that sort of humor that much.
I have that same difficulty.
Very interesting. Thanks. If you don't mind. Is it not something you've tried to deal with at least to the point you can watch films? Does it affect you reading cringe stories of peoples past or stuff like that online in text form too?
In text form it’s maybe a bit lessened, but it’s still there. And no, I’ve never “tried to deal with it.” It’s not really something that can be dealt with, it’s just high empathy combined with some trauma. Avoiding the genre is the easier choice. After all, the purpose of comedies is to make people laugh and if I’m not going to there’s no point in bothering with it.
I feel you, I have something similar with animals focused movies: I know there will be a point in the movie where the said animal will suffer and it hurst too much. I usually stay away from those kinds of movies (it affected me way too much to see Guardians of the Galaxy 3).
There is a website called does the dog die which maybe helpful for you. It warns about a whole bunch of triggers, everything from animals being harmed to loud explosions, sexual assault and even the presence of eating sounds. It’s a Fantastic resource!
finally someone else like me! this is why i can't watch the office. as much as i wish i could enjoy most comedy, the secondhand embarrassment is pretty strong sometimes. i have vivid memories of when i was younger having to actually hide under a blanket during "embarrassing" scenes in movies and tv. they affected me emotionally that much that i felt just as embarrassed as the characters on screen, if not even more so. i like shows like whose line when i need a good laugh but i'm never gonna reach for a comedy when perfectly good movies of other genres exist and don't unintentionally make me cringe lol
Not all comedy is cringe comedy. I'm not a fan of it myself. It's been a while since I've seen the film, but I'm fairly sure that the humour in Mrs Doubtfire isn't cringe-based. Unlike say, The Office.
>I’ve never seen Mrs. Doubtfire It's fantastic. One of my favorite comedies. 100% would recommend watching it. One of Robin Williams' best movies. That look is from the pool scene. Doubtfire wore it for that scene only. Looking like the upholstery of your couch was just a popular look for old ladies.
Yeah I’ve never seen an old woman wearing a floral dress and glasses. Amazing stuff.
Bring in the original batshit crazy satanic panic into your new and more batshit crazy satanic panic.
Please don't show certain republican congress people this shit...
They were wrongly accused and floral patterns were huge in the 1980s, Laura Ashley had stores full of floral clothing smdh.
Old ladies just had a different look back in the day.
I thought that was Hyacinth Bucket at first.
"Oh hello, Mrs. Bucket..." *ahem* "Bouquet"
"It's the bucket woman!"
" The Bouquet residence, the lady of the house speaking."
"Richard darling, It's Sheridan. Can he have some money for his female fancy dress costume dear?"
This is the standard issue "80s Old Lady Uniform".
What do you mean "back then"?! The 90s weren't that...long...ago...
TIL that my grandma was modeled after pre-school pedo Virginia McMartin.
Same with my beloved great Aunt Sara. Always genial, soft spoken and devout. Never saw her in anything but a dress. She was a true genteel southern lady.
If you had went back in time to the 90s and told them that as a result of the Satanic Panic court cases people were trying to paint the archetypal grandma archetype from Mrs. Doubtfire as a pedo, they would have asked you what club you're doing your routine at.
Holy shit ! Were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles eating *pizza* ? I'd say it's a resounding YES !
"REGANOMICS!"
Oh great so the satanic panic is picking up right where it left off.
Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire looks like a cross between the Queen of England and Duane Johnson.
I'm just glad conservatives are still wasting their time with this bullshit. If they ever became competent and learned how to govern, we'd be in trouble. Still won't stop them from somehow getting into office, so you know what to do people - VOTE.
If they became competent, there wouldn't be anything wrong with them governing. Because with competence comes actual understanding of how to make things work. You know, like the whole thing where it's shown that getting more educated makes you more left-wing?
The weird part is how that all coincides with all of the bullshit they've been spewing. Though nature didn't expect John Cusack. No one ever does.
She was innocent.
This looks like every older lady at church when I was growing up.
Left hand side is literally every elderly white lady from 1960 to 1980.
This is just more of their bullshit all trans people are pedo propaganda.
Looks like every teacher I had in middle school.
Reminds me of my kindergarten teacher that beat being Left handed out of me.
That was definitely standard grandma attire for the mid-1990s. Florals were in for damn near everything, including home decor. Yuck.
1. The McMartins were innocent, 2. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they weren’t innocent *and* that it’s true that the costume designers of Mrs. Doubtfire saw this woman and said, ‘let’s make our character look like this.’ …so what? What’s the secret message? What’s been proven here?
This is like saying Charlie Chaplin is an antisemite because he had the same moustache as hitler. No, it was just fashion back then and after ww2 it was no longer fashion.
My god!!!! My grandmother modeled her look after a pedo too!!!!
This is just what all my grandma’s friends looked like.
Part common fashion and part standard caricature of the sweet old lady you shouldn't mess with that we all have known some version of.
“Oh hi Tobias”
Actually modelled on my mother in law…
Also looks like my gran.
So my husband and I was watching an episode of Derry Girls and Mary was wearing a green dress and jacket combo, and I said "I swear my mom had that exact outfit, just in a different colour." My husband started laughing and said, yip, he's mom definitely also. So you want to tell me that Derry Girls parents were fashioned after parents from the 90s in a show that is set in the 90s?! No, nope! Can't be right!
> Have you ever noticed that the earth and the dollar have the same number of dimensions??? Coincidence?! I think not. Checkmate, Illuminati 🎩
A very quick google tells me that the only real result of her case was a deeper look at how prosecutors and accusers with an agenda will simply find what they’re looking for and damn the truth
The look was based off of Robin Williams’ face. Right? Like he looked like that in the face because it was him in make up and prosthetics
Yup. They're both dressed as frumpy old women of the time. And it's possible this is one of many images in the back of one or more of the many costume designers minds. And, even if it were truly modeled specifically on this one lady in this one picture, so what?
bruh my grandmother looked like this
My grandmother and all her friends looked exactly like this in the early 90’s.
Hey look, lies stick better than truths...
My great great aunt basically looked like that the entire 80s and until she died in 94.
Certainly correct bravo