A "Spotlight" on Sexual Assault
Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 2:00PM The Oscars last Sunday threw a somewhat unexpected spotlight on the issue of sexual assault. Best Picture Spotlight is famously the true story of journalists covering the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Room is about a girl who is raped and imprisoned and ultimately escapes with her son. A Girl in the River, winner for best documentary short, is about honor killings—something that is intimately tied to the sexual control of women. And Lady Gaga’s much discussed performance was of a song about surviving rape, featured in a movie about campus rape, The Hunting Ground.
In general, when awards shows and sexual assault go together, there’s a kind of gawky, almost porny pandering. Pat ourselves on the back for giving an acting award to the rape victim—yes, I’m looking at Joanne Froggatt, who has done very fine work on Downton Abbey, but who won her Golden Globe for getting raped on the show.
But that’s not what we saw Sunday night. What we saw was respect for survivors, and the will to change.
Bookending the night were Spotlight’s two wins. To begin was Best Original Screenplay. Tom McCarthy’s acceptance speech honored survivors...
We have to make sure this never happens again.”
Closing the night was its Best Picture win, with its producer Michael Sugar speaking.
This film gave a voice to survivors, and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican".
I don’t think that Spotlight was this past year’s best movie or the best of the nominees (For the record, Carol and Brooklyn, respectively) but I recognize the power of that sentence. I recognize what it means to thousands of survivors.
Watching Spotlight was a weird experience for me. I’m both an experienced rape crisis counselor and a survivor of child sexual abuse. When I first read of the growing child sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, I kind of nodded my head, like, 'Oh, of course.' I wasn’t shocked, just sad. But I watched Spotlight with my spouse, child of a devoutly Catholic family, and for her, it was different. The need to resist the truth was so palpable in her family; it was as if she was one of the on-screen Bostonians, but sitting next to me.
Between the Spotlight bookends was something that moved me far more: Lady Gaga’s extraordinary performance of “’Til It Happens To You”. This emotional highlight of the Oscars was introduced by Vice President Joe Biden, who presented ItsOnUs.org in a powerful plea to the audience to “sign the pledge” to intervene. Gaga was joined onstage by fifty sexual assault survivors (mostly women—the Instagram photo shows three who seem to be men). Written on their arms were “Unbreakable” and “Not My Fault” and “Survivor” and so on.
I cried a river. Did you? Did I cry because I’m a survivor? I can’t answer that, I’ve never been anything else.
Here’s the thing. It’s not the lyrics. It’s not the story. It’s not Spotlight, or The Hunting Ground, or the Vice President. What it is: Standing up, telling the truth, speaking the pain without shame, on the biggest stage in the world.
If you are not a survivor, I assure you, you know one. More than one. Biden’s daughter cited a statistic of one in five women who will be assaulted on campus. That’s just on campus: That’s not rape or sexual assault anywhere else in the world, it’s not incest or child abuse or gropers on the subway or flashers in the park. People fight about these statistics. They call them overblown, want them dialed back. But doesn’t that imply that there’s an acceptable number?
To me, the acceptable number is zero.
Sunday night was not a night about the pain of sexual assault. It wasn’t about statistics and it wasn’t about agony. It was about surviving. It was about standing up. Biden says we can change the culture. I’ll stand up for that.
Brie Larson, who won an Oscar for playing a survivor in Room, hugged every one of the fifty survivors who stood with Gaga. Tell me this doesn’t make you all gooey inside.
Brie Larson hugged every survivor from @ladygaga’s #Oscars performance (via @chrissGardner)pic.twitter.com/zCSvYs0XCK
— Mic (@micnews) February 29, 2016
more on Spotlight | more on Room | more Gaga | more Oscars
Deborah Lipp writes about television and movies at Basket of Kisses.
Reader Comments (18)
Now does the Academy have so much respect for survivors and enough will to change to take back the 2002 Best Director Oscar from a rapist?
And Lady Gaga's "extraordinary" performance only made me cry because it was appalling.
Okay then, Brie Larson is even more awesome to me now.
Thank you for sharing your personal experiences.
Thank you for this article. I was raised in a very, very Catholic environment and Spotlight hit really close to home too. I couldn't stop thinking of the priests at my school, the ones I loved and the ones I didn't get a good vibe from, and whether anything ever happened there.
And more men who have committed sexual assaults have won Best Director Oscars than women or African-Americans. That stat is so incredibly upsetting.
Beautifully written article, Deborah.
Deborah, thank you for this and sharing your insights. For me, Gaga's performance was an emotional touchstone that will be remembered long after the Oscars.
Thank you, Deborah. As much as I adore my beloved TheFilmExperience, I have never been moved to tears by an article. That changed today.
Deborah -- thanks for this. I knew you'd do the topic justice... and found you and your wife's disparate responses to SPOTLIGHT really fascinating.
though i wasn't moved by Gaga's performance in and of itself I did find Joe Biden's intro and the finale with all the survivors very impactful.
Rob -- i somehow didn't absorb this until the next day (the Brie Larson part) and I ALREADY loved her so much so she's just. well. L-O-V-E her. She threw her arm around my shoulder in 2013 once at an event when I was talking to her once and it was just so... I was taken off guard but she's just very chill / real / sweet.
3rtful, I think that comment is incredibly classless.
Thank you for this piece Deborah. It is absolutely vital that we stand up to undo rape culture. There is definitely no acceptable number.
Anyone can write my user name and post bullshit. I am consistent in my aggravation (Streep/Lawrence, dead inside ingenues (Stewart), white gay boys who write in black appropriated language) but I would never disrespect a thread dedicated to a serious and sensitive subject matter. Not my style.
the comment has been removed
I agree. If the academy cares so much about the victims, they should revoke/take back Polanski's Oscar. Otherwise, they are just being populist, hypocritical and following a double standard.
And that's just one. Not getting íntimo Allen, Kirk Douglas, etc.
And I was date raped at the age of 17 in the backseat of a car by a friend who was giving me a ride home after a party.
Amanda, that's awful. I'm so sorry.
It was great to see "Spotlight" take best picture ( anything but that over rated "The Revenant") but it's a good tough little movie which is really about something.
I had already mentioned it here, Nathaniel, on your post about the Farrow-Allen-Dylan scandal a couple of years ago.
The Lady Gaga song was atrocious.
Such beautiful writing, Deborah! The "acceptable number" point is so necessary to this discussion because it's just another way institutions try to make this seem like less of an epidemic. Hearing them try to diminish the statistics is always a rage trigger for me
Thanks for all your responses! And great point about the rapist Oscar winners; I could have contextualized the article in Oscar history but did not.
Nathaniel, thanks for giving me a forum for this. And Amanda, thank you for standing up.
Today this is one of the most popular problems that surrounds us. I want you to read the article newmiddleclassdad.com/prevent-domestic-violence/ to learn how to prevent domestic violence. Indeed, abuse can be experienced by anyone, regardless of race, color, educational status or social status. If you've heard something from your neighbors about domestic violence or bizarre behavior by the abuser, don't ignore it.