The talk was all #OscarsSoWhite at the beginning of the year, a critical and passionate response to the second round of pure vanilla nominees at the Academy Awards. The controversy opened up a necessary conversation about diversity in media and gave Nate Parker’s The Birth Of A Nation the steam it needed to rise to the top at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The standing ovations, celebratory ink, record-breaking distribution deal and Oscar predictions over Parker’s incendiary account of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion were doubtless a reaction to the moment. The movie itself doesn’t have the artistry or insight to deserve more than a passing notice, but its hot take on race relations at a time when #BlackLivesMatter and #OscarsSoWhite were trending made it seem like the movie of the year, despite the fact that it premiered opposite Manchester By The Sea and Certain Women.
That talk changed in August. Parker’s history re-emerged in the media, and a broader public was made aware that he and his BOTN collaborator Jean Celestin had been charged with rape. Parker was acquitted, Celestin convicted, despite the fact that the college roommates allegedly acted together. Celestin’s conviction was overturned on appeal, because the prosecution could not re-gather the witnesses. The victim, years later, committed suicide. The conversation suddenly shifted from race to rape, and Parker’s film was torn down just as easily as it was propped up.
You might call it unfair. Here we have a filmmaker who had his moment stripped from him because of his behaviour 17 years prior, while at the same time, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States despite the fact that he made the term “grab her by the pussy” a thing.
Will Casey Affleck’s Manchester By The Sea Oscar chances be affected by allegations of sexual harassment?
Parker will likely be snubbed by Oscar, but Casey Affleck may still reign supreme as best actor for his performance in Manchester By The Sea. Affleck has his own appalling history of sexual harassment allegations (read about that here), which were brought up and quickly ignored.
The Academy awarded white (alleged) sexual offenders like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, but some have said that racism is behind Parker’s punishment and the simultaneous pass that Affleck is getting. Though that may be true, I would argue that it’s easier to appreciate Kenneth Lonergan’s gut-wrenching, sharply observed and comical film about grieving, regardless of your feelings toward Affleck.
Parker’s film was never that good to begin with – all the hot air, simply deflated. The main problem may be that the rape allegations against Parker make the film he wrote, directed and stars in as a messiah figure even more disturbing, especially given the way his movie objectifies female characters. Their main narrative function is to be raped by white men and precipitate Turner’s revolt.
Diversity issues at the Oscars will be temporarily eased without Nate Parker. We can thank Barry Jenkins’s sublime Moonlight for that, as well as a powerhouse performance by Viola Davis in Fences.
But how will consent be discussed? How should the public react if Affleck wins an Oscar?
Earlier this month, an interview with Bernardo Bertolucci resurfaced in which he admitted to surprising his Last Tango In Paris star Maria Schneider with the use of butter in the infamous rape scene. Some media outlets and Twitter played broken telephone with the story, leading many to believe Bertolucci had Marlon Brando literally rape the then 19-year-old actor. The true story is horrifying enough: a young female artist treated like a prop, denied the respect of being fully informed how an already uncomfortable scene would play out.
This story isn’t new. The outrage is. It’s a sign that the public is more willing to listen, believe and react to women’s stories and draw clear lines regarding consent. They’ve grown weary after Bill Cosby, Jian Ghomeshi, the Stanford rape trial and Trump.
It’s also perhaps the reason why Paul Verhoeven’s Elle struck me as the movie of the year.
To some, Elle, starring Isabelle Huppert, is one of the year’s best movies. To others, its perspective on women and rape is offensive.
Isabelle Huppert stars as Michèle, the magnificently enigmatic owner of a video game development firm that specializes in the vulgar. In the opening scene, she is violently raped but quickly dusts that off and carries on with her daily routines, adding a few safeguards to her schedule to prevent another attack.
Her interactions are telling, though, whether it’s the affair she’s having with her best friend’s husband, her flirtation with her next door neighbour, her animosity toward her ex-husband’s and mother’s lovers and her reaction when she discovers the assailant identity.
My editor, Susan G. Cole, panned the film and offered up very valid reasons why dealing with rape in a film so detached from reality (it’s got a lot of genre trappings) is offensive. I of course disagree, because every scene in Elle, as artfully manufactured as it might be, is a conversation starter about the relationship between sex and violence and the blurred lines when it comes to consent.
The movie is not just about Michèle it’s about our reaction to her. Verhoeven’s film is shocking and provocative for sure, but it also dares you to pass judgment on Michèle’s character and behaviour post-rape in the same way the legal system judges complainants in rape trials.
Ghomeshi got off because of judgments about the behaviour of the alleged victims. The Stanford rapist, Brock Turner, got a non-sentence because he had such a shiny resumé. Rape trials put women’s characters on the stand Elle does the same and lets us deliberate.
Can we dislike this woman and disagree with everything she does but still stand firm on the fact that she’s a victim who deserves justice? Can Parker be both a victim of racism and a perpetrator of rape? Can Affleck be a great actor and a hateful asshole toward women?
Let’s keep asking those questions in 2017.
movies@nowtoronto.com | @JustSayRad
