i was once a promising young man.
Watching the buzzy ‘Promising Young Woman’ through the lens of survival.
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CW: Sexual assault
Going in to watching the new film Promising Young Woman (available now on VOD), I purposely knew little about what to expect. I knew the film starred Carey Mulligan. I knew the songs “Toxic” and “Stars Go Blind” were somehow involved. I knew baddies Jennifer Coolidge and Connie Britton both cameoed. And I knew the theme of sexual assault was involved. Knowing all that going into it, a week after watching the movie, I’m still floored.
This is one of those movies where the less known going in the better, but to offer a very brief synopsis: in Promising Young Woman, Mulligan plays a character named Cassie Thomas, a 30-something woman who is seeking revenge for her best friend, who was a victim of rape.
Cassie is an incredibly complex character — she’s funny, she’s sad, she’s sexy and, above all, she’s pissed. She is impulsive, selfish and not prone to making good decisions. For many people watching the film, she will probably come off as totally unlikable. But if you’re a survivor yourself of sexual assault — or love someone who is — you won’t be able to stop watching her, even for a second, because she’s living out your fantasy. And frankly, I’m not all that interested in what anyone has to say about this movie if they haven’t themselves been in that situation.
I’m not going to dwell on it because I’ve written about it before, but in 2004 at the age of 18, I was raped. On my very first night on campus at the University of Wisconsin, I got very drunk at a party and was sexually assaulted by a classmate I’d met online over the summer and was beginning to date. I was so ashamed and afraid that I didn’t tell anyone about it at the time. In fact, I didn’t tell anyone about it for almost eight years. But I thought about it every day, and think about it every day still, over a decade and a half later.
If you’re like me, a few things happen when you are violated by someone you trusted. For one, it becomes difficult to trust people in your life, romantically or otherwise. Secondly, it’s nearly impossible to let go of the anger it breeds. And finally, thoughts of revenge can sometimes consume you.
I remember that for years afterward I would occasionally Google my rapist. As much as it pained me to see his successes, to bear witness to his happiness and apparent normalcy, I craved it. I wondered if he ever thought about what happened. A few years ago, I found out through a mutual friend that he had landed a prominent job at a corporate attorney’s office in Chicago. He joined influential professional groups. I feared one day running into him. For several months, I visited the firm’s contact page regularly. There he was with a smile and a professed love of house music and travel. At one point, I drafted an email to his boss. Another time, I dialed the firm’s number in my phone, but never pressed send. Sometimes I daydreamed about emailing his entire office about what happened.
These were all fantasies I never acted on, because I like to think I’m a relatively reasonable and stable person. I’ve obviously moved on. I have a fiancé and a career, I own a home and I am lucky enough to have a large network of family, friends and co-conspirators. I feel privileged and fulfilled. But occasionally still I catch myself wondering, especially after watching the empires of monsters like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and others come crumbling down, what it would be like to seek something resembling justice or closure in the attack that forever altered my course. What it would be like for this man, this self-styled “nice guy” to face consequences for the years of harm he caused.
But that’s not what survivors are supposed to do, right? The onus is on us to seek expensive and time-consuming counseling to rewire our brains, to ensure we can be productive and profitable contributors to society. It’s on us to “move on” — that’s why I felt compelled to write that about myself literally one paragraph ago, I suppose. We must be “strong” and carry on. To ensure that we don’t become someone else’s problem. We are to keep our struggles to ourselves, because everyone has struggles too, right? Of course they do, of course.
We just go on living, because the other option intrinsically means that the bad man won. He’ll be promoted, pull in those six figures and probably will hurt countless others like he hurt us. And we just have to accept that, in our reality, bad men are almost never held accountable for their actions.
I can’t speak for all survivors, of course, but to watch Cassie take on her bad man in Promising Young Woman was the purest rush for me. Yes, it’s dark, depressing and sometimes doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but to see those feelings mirrored back on the screen? It was priceless and cathartic, similar to the experience of watching Michaela Coel’s gutting I May Destroy You this past summer. In order to heal, we pass through the shredder of memory and pain. All we can hope for is coming out the other side still whole — and art like this helps make that a little easier.
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2021 has been tough, so far. While I’d intended a more consistent output here and am cooking up something special for the year ahead, it’s taken a bit longer to get off the ground than I’d hoped. But I’ll try again tomorrow, and the next day and the next day. In the meantime, another link dump:
What an inauguration, from Lady Gaga’s Hunger Games realness to Michelle Obama looking positively divine in a head-to-toe burgundy Sergio Hudson look. But what I’ll truly never forget are: (a) Jennifer Lopez sneaking in a bizarre reference to her 1999 hit “Let’s Get Loud” in her patriotic performance, and (b) National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s incredible reading.
If you know me, you know I’m obsessed with the Architectural Digest YouTube channel’s “Open Door” celebrity home tour series, and one of my all-time favorites among the canon belongs to “That’s not true, Ellen” Dakota Johnson. But apparently, it was all based in lies: Though Johnson said she “loved” limes while standing in her green kitchen, she now says she’s allergic to them. Is it wrong to be in awe of the sheer ease of her lies?
The Daily Mail reported that 30 Rock star Jane Krakowski and right-wing feather-brain MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell had a secret relationship. Both vehemently deny the report. Lindell is threatening to sue and says he’s hired the same lawyer — Charles Harder — who brought Gawker to its knees. But shouldn’t Krakowski be the one who’s principally offended here? We all knew Lindell was scum, right?
Did Grimes give Dave Chappelle COVID-19? According to Joe Rogan, the answer is “no,” but all signs point to “probably, maybe.”
In another win for the Alphabet Mafia, teen YouTuber JoJo Siwa appears to have come out as gay. But I still worry about her hairline from wearing her hair in that severe ponytail for most of her life now.
Apparently Trump had a Diet Coke button installed at his desk in the Oval Office. President Biden had the button removed. I’m not proud of this fact but I were president, I’m not sure I would have.
Riverdale star Lili Reinhart was featured in an interview with Seventeen magazine which the publication just came out to say (in a now-deleted tweet) was with somebody impersonating the actress. Apparently the same thing happened to a reporter at the Daily Express, a UK publication. Somehow I’m both surprised this happened and also shocked this doesn’t happen more often?
Season four of the brilliant Search Party just dropped on HBO Max, and the equally brilliant Cole Escola is featured prominently this season in a Psycho-meets-Misery role that has Kathy Bates shaking. It’s queer villainy at its finest, so you’ll want to watch the show and also read this LA Times profile of Escola if you want to know what’s good.
I’m a big sucker for the Sade-esque breathy sultriness of the R&B musical project Rhye, which just released a new album called “Home.” Here is the latest single: