And I feel like “Requiem for a dream” really made me feel what it is like to be raped, from a woman’s perspective, more than any movie I have seen.
And there is not even a “rape” per se. Merely men using a woman as a sexual object, and doing so cruelly and cynically. Jennifer Connolly does an excellent job as an actress.
And I think I get, to some extent, all the women saying “Christina Blasey Ford is ME”. Old, long suppressed frustrations are brought to a boil when they see people like the people before, saying “I don’t believe you.” Or misunderstanding, emotionally, the depth of the hurt.
It is easy for women to be wounded by men. I have hurt women myself, multiple women. Not on purpose–I can be an asshole for moments, but sustained or conscious cruelty is something I can’t do–but the hurt was just as real.
Women exist in a much more interactive world than most men. They feel more, which causes them to see more, but also be wounded more.
And as I’ve said often, you really can’t describe trauma to someone who has not felt it. My trauma is not precisely the trauma of being raped, but I can relate to feeling things you cannot speak, but which you can show others in your eyes.
And I think this gets to the core cynicism, the core cruelty of what Ford is doing. It may well be that what she describes did happen. That has been my feeling all along. And the two men who came forward should be interviewed, because they have zero reason to accuse THEMSELVES of a crime in such a charged atmosphere, other than that they are telling the truth, and presumably because they feel remorse and guilt. When you are young, drunk and stupid, you sometimes do things which make your adult self cringe. This is perhaps a time they have long looked for to redeem themselves, and atone for their real crime, which they rightly surmise terrified their young victim.
But what FORD is doing is creating a manufactured portrait of victimhood. She has, to my knowledge, shown no interest in these two men. She is up there, lying, but invoking the picture of Every Women, every “this could happen to you” or “this happened to you too, didn’t it?” She is consciously pulling strings, and evoking latent emotions.
Put bluntly: she is manipulating worthy sympathies for partisan political purposes. She is USING the women who feel sorry for her to advance an ideological agenda.
It is like what Obama did. He said “look at me. I’m a black man, just like you. I feel your pain. I will work for you. Things will get better for you with me as President. You can trust me. Finally we got one of our own in the White House”.
And then he ignored black people for two terms, with brief exceptions of periodic rah-rah sessions where he dropped his “g’s” (sittin’, droppin’) so as to, you know, CONNECT with those people so he could keep them in the tent.
It was abusive and cynical. Everything these people do is. There is no goodness, no concern for ameliorating human suffering. It is a church of moral self congratulation with all the perks graft, fame, quid pro quos, and sweetheart book, speaking, and consulting deals grant. It is a license to be amoral because of public grandiose moral pretension.