Martin Kove the Latest Older Male Actor to Use Humor to Excuse the Inexcusable

Martin Kove was booted from a Cobra Kai convention in Puyallup, Washington over the weekend after biting the arm of co-star Alicia Hannah-Kim as she walked by. He bit her hard enough that he “almost drew blood,” prompting Hannah-Kim to cry out in pain. Kove then kissed her arm, claiming he was just joking around. Hannah-Kim didn’t find it funny. She filed an informational report with the police but ultimately declined to press charges against the actor best known for playing John Kreese in The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai.

It’s part of a pattern: older male actors who either don’t understand boundaries or continue behaving as they did in an era when no one called them out. And it’s always under the guise of “just joking.”

When Jeff Garlin made inappropriate jokes, like shouting “Ow, my vagina!”, on the set of The Goldbergs, he said he was being silly.

When Bill Murray kissed a crew member through her mask and got Aziz Ansari’s movie shut down, he said he was joking.

When Frank Langella was fired from a Mike Flanagan film after making inappropriate comments to a co-star and touching her leg, he insisted he didn’t realize it was “out of bounds.”

When Morgan Freeman lifted a production assistant’s skirt, told a pregnant journalist she was “looking ripe,” or sized women up with his eyes, he was just doing what he’d always done—apparently shocked that it’s no longer okay to comment on a woman’s appearance.

When Dustin Hoffman made unwanted advances toward co-stars or talked about sex in front of underage actresses, it was all “just a joke.”

That sh*t doesn’t fly anymore, old guys. It never should have. It wasn’t a joke then, and it sure as hell isn’t now. As Denzel might say: act like you know. Being older doesn’t give anyone a pass to be a creep.