On Christmas eve 2018, Kevin Spacey posted a very peculiar video titled Let me be Frank on his official YouTube channel. One of his first public appearances after Netflix fired him from House of Cards in the midst of allegations of sexual abuse, Spacey presented himself in casual attire and Santa Claus’ apron while drinking from a Christmas mug. As could be expected from the title, he was impersonating one of this most successful characters, corrupt political mastermind Frank Underwood. True to the break-the-fourth-wall style of the character, Spacey/Underwood addressed his viewers in the intimate and intriguing tone that made the show famous.

An excerpt:

of course some believed everything and have just been waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all, they’re just dying to have me declare that everything said is true and that I got what I deserved. Wouldn’t that be easy, if it was all so simple, only you and I both know it’s never that simple, not in politics and not in life. But you wouldn’t believe the worst without evidence, would you? you wouldn’t rush to judgements without fact, would you? did you? No, not you, you are smarter than that.

The video is particularly disturbing for one reason: in it Spacey refers in a concealed way to the more than ten accusations of sexual abuse that fell on him as a result of the so-called “Weinstein effect,” but does so with the tone and mannerisms of his most famous character. His monologue deliberately confuses (one hopes!) his personal problems with the political tribulations of Frank Underwood, who had been ousted from the presidency at the end of the fifth season, before the sex scandal ruined Spacey’s career.

Seldom can one see as clearly how social media are a perfect ground to confuse fiction and reality (2.2, 2.7, 4.5, 5.13).