Brad Pitt has just announced that he’s making a movie about one of the most notorious rape cases in recent history.
He’ll tell the story of a 16-year-old girl raped by two guys at a party in Steubenville, Ohio in August 2012.
If you remember, the girl was sexually assaulted at a college party by two young footballers, both of whom were considered heroes in Steubenville. She was carried between party venues and abandoned. The next day, photographs of her unconscious body slung between two young men appeared on social media with a jovial ‘look what we did last night’ vibe. Friends of the boys bragged online about how ‘raped’ and ‘out of it’ she was.
What happened next is an indictment on the way we as a society prioritise male sporting prowess over the dignity of a female rape victim. An entire community, the 180,000 sports fans who live in Steubenville USA, rallied together to protect the girl’s attackers and vilify her for ruining their reputations. Several adults including a sports coach and parents of students covered up for the offending boys and got involved in legal battles of their own.
The people of Steubenville chose sporting heroism over the criminal violation of a woman’s body. Are we now choosing Hollywood movie-making over the privacy and dignity of the same victim? I think we are.
Pitt’s production company, Plan B, has bought the rights to a Rolling Stone article called Anonymous Vs. Steubenville by David Kushner, which focuses mainly on “a skinny, scruffy 26-year-old programmer” called Deric Lostutter. Lostutter is facing jail time for his involvement in exposing the rapists’ identities online. Outrageously, he may be punished more severely than the actual rapists, who received sentences of one year for their crime. Pitt’s film will put this man smack-bang in the middle of the narrative, not the woman who was assaulted, or even the perpetrators.
The young victim herself, to our knowledge, has not been consulted.
This whole transaction implies that this is David Kushner’s story to sell, Brad Pitt’s to buy, and ultimately ours to consume with a bucket of buttered popcorn. Which is problematic when there’s a teenage rape survivor whose life, safety, and identity have been affected by this crime against her.
Brad Pitt will likely make a riveting film. His production company just took home a bunch of Oscars for their film 12 Years A Slave and it’s possible that they’d approach this subject matter with equivalent sensitivity. But that doesn’t mean this film should be made. Making Deric Lostutter the protagonist doesn’t change the fact that the pain of this story belongs to the female victim. The probable excellence of this movie does not cancel out the trauma it will cause her.
The victim here, whose identity has not been disclosed, is somewhere in Ohio trying to rebuild her life. She’s trying to move on. As a victim of sexual assault, she may be feeling vulnerable, scared, and isolated. She will likely deal with the psychological damage of this experience for the rest of her life, and statistically she’s more susceptible to depression and suicide.
Having the horrific details of her assault made into a movie and screened at her local cinema could be a violent interruption to that recovery process. Perhaps for once, that should be more important than our entertainment.
The horror of that night in August 2012, the betrayal of an entire neighbourhood, and the lingering shame of this woman’s public suffering – they all belong to her. She is the protagonist here. This is her story. Not Brad Pitt’s. Not David Kushner’s. Not ours.
Unless the victim of the Steubenville rape case expressly gives her permission for this story to be told, she deserves to recover in peace.
Top Comments
Enough of the high moral ground - read the Rolling Stone article and look at the focus of the film. It is on KYanonymous/Deric Lostutter's perspective. All reputable media would approach this with the well being of the victim in mind be it 4 Corners or a documentary that hardly any watches or a feature film that has the potential to reach millions and can potentially change mindsets. It is in the public domain and the story as hideous as it is on many fronts, needs to be told . To hide it shames us. Brad Pitt has a strong reputation working on human rights issues , there is no reason to doubt him.
Also, perhaps let's not sharpen our pitchforks and light our torches before a script has even been written. The fact is, we have NO IDEA what this movie will look like, or how the subject will be treated. Films are often only very loosely based on their source material. Why don't we, for now, give them the benefit of the doubt? This film has just as much potential to be powerful and tasteful, as it does to be disrespectful and intrusive. I, for one, have faith that it will be the former.