I’m guest-reviewing over at the always-excellent (and educational) ScriptShadow, talking about the wonderful Emma Forrest-penned ‘Liars (A to E)’. Lovers of wit, charm, and smart women: this is a script for you.

Check it out!

Wohoo! I’ve been keeping them under wraps for AGES now, but since Amazon is carrying them, I figure the jig is finally up and I can show you my shiny new covers for the SOPHOMORE SWITCH paperback and (drumroll!) BOYS, BEARS & A SERIOUS PAIR OF HIKING BOOTS!

Look!

Paperback published Feb 8th 2010. So. Damn. Cute! (I want those red shoes)

And… ta-da!

Feel the summer breeze. Hardback coming April 13th 2010.

You know, the Boys&Bears cover kind of reminds me of something….

That’s right: me, on my road-trip through the Canadian Rockies last summer, researching that VERY BOOK! How’s that for coincidence?

I’m so, so excited about this new look for my YA. Candlewick have done an amazing job with my  ’visual identity’, and I can’t wait to see them lined up on shelves together.

What do you think?

Last month I sat down with a lovely journalist from the Oxford Times, to chat about my books, and how my time there shaped my career and writing. The article has just gone up online, and I think will be published this weekend?

“Oxford University has always been a hotbed of literary talent, nurturing young, thrusting writers, eager to make their mark on the world of letters. But its bookish alumni are rarely associated with ‘chick lit’, that most female-focused and commercial of genres.

More’s the pity, says a defiant Abby McDonald, 24-year-old Oxford graduate and rising star of the chick-lit world.

“It’s wonderful that Oxford is this bastion of high art, where people take theatre, literature and classical music seriously. That’s important, but those really weren’t my interests while I was studying there. When I was sneaking off to write my chick lit, it felt rebellious.”

Read on for the rest!

Just a quick note to say I’ll be appearing on BBC FIVE LIVE tonight with Richard Bacon. He hosts a fun current affairs show, so I’ll be debating love, romance, and, umm, Russell Brand. 11.30pm. Listen online!

In my last post, I proposed that Hollywood might finally be lurching around a corner, taking note of the blockbuster success of a few female-orientated movies and diversifying their current and future productions to cash in on this – whether it was the SATC/Mamma Mia! money they were chasing or sparkly teen Twilight dollars. Granted, my optimism might be wildly over-stated, since I’m talking about the release of only a handful of films, but given the consistency with which Hollywood has failed to cater to women in the past, any progress feels like a victory.

Because when I looked at the data, I found that the production of female-orientated movies has been flat-lining for the last decade, REGARDLESS of box-offfice success.

Remember those common wisdoms?

1.  Female-orientated (aka, XX) movies are a hard sell, and underperform at the box-office.*
2.  There has been a long-term decline the production of female-orientated movies.

It turns out that they’re both wrong. Or rather, my highly unscientific survey of the top 150 films by box office gross each year since 2000 (and the top 50 grossing films in the 1990s) in fact show that:

1. Female-orientated movies are not, in fact, disproportionately unsuccessful, and
2. The number of major productions of XX films has flat-lined at an astonishingly stable rate, indicating that the choice not to pursue them might have more to do with perceived wisdom and a quota system than real box office basis.**

Again, this wasn’t a statistical exercise, so there’s a margin of error, but my basic tally showed that out of the top 50 grossing movies each year, only between 7 and 12 were female-centric productions – a 20% average figure which remained consistent throughout the decade.

I was generous. For example, 2008 was a good year: I counted ‘Twilight’, ‘Sex and the City’, ‘Mamma Mia!’, ‘Marley & Me’, ‘Four Christmases’, ‘High School Musical 3′, ‘What Happens in Vegas’, ‘27 Dresses’ , ‘Fool’s Gold’ and ‘Hannah Montana’ in the top 50. In 2007, I had to stretch to make seven: including two kids movies and two musicals. 2006 was typically solid:  ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, ‘The Break-up’, ‘Dreamgirls’, ‘Failure to Launch’, ‘V for Vendetta’, ‘You Me and Dupree’, ‘The Holiday’ and ‘Underworld:Evolution’.

‘But wait!’ I hear you cry, ‘Pointing to the success stories is all very well, but what if there are dozens of XX movies languishing at the bottom of every chart? Wouldn’t that justify Hollywood’s reticence?”

Fair point. Are there legions of female-centric movies cluttering up those lower reaches of the charts, forcing execs to swear off producing any more?

I really don’t think so.

Another survey of the full lists showed again, remarkably even distribution. Each year of the decade, XX movies scored approximately 10 movies out of rankings 50-100, and then another 10 out of 100-150.*** So, of all the female-centric movies released in a year, it’s a surprisingly safe bet to say that around 10 will earn $10m-20m, 10 will earn $20m-60m, and 10 will earn $60m- $120m, with an occasional superstar breaking that ceiling, and, of course, some falling short.

One of the underwhelming returns of 2009

So what does this tell us?

First up, what we already know: the woeful state of women on-screen in mainstream Hollywood productions. That is to say, they accounted for only around 20% of characters featured in the top 150 movies produced every single year – and regardless of the success of productions in the previous years, this didn’t increase.

Let me repeat. This isn’t just that 20% of reasonably-grossing movies  were romantic comedies, or that 20% had a big female cast or strong female lead, or positive portrayal of women (I counted Fool’s Gold!); this is that a maximum of only 20%  over the past 12 years have acknowledged women in the most fundamental way, as anything more than a token background girlfriend, wife, mother or rescue victim.

1 IN 5

I’m not even touching on the content yet – of what kind of women are up there on-screen; this is just the basic fact of presence and viewpoint. Clearly, Hollywood has a problem acknowledging that women

i) exist,
ii) with perspectives, that should
iii) feature in the wealth of stories we share with each other.

But as the figures show, from a purely business perspective, this attitude is just plain wrong. Female-centric movies consistently score healthy, if not excellent returns, and given the typical lower budgets (because Hollywood still thinks that putting a woman in a movie requires it to be a romantic comedy or cheap drama, not a big-budget action film), the financial risk attached to them is lower – better a $30m flop that earns $15m than a ‘Speed Racer’ style debacle, where a $120m production budget has barely scraped $93m in international gross. Or, worse still, ‘Land of the Lost’, which cost $100m and has limped to $63m worldwide.

$100m production budget/ $7m opening weekend

So why have these numbers prevailed, year in, year out?

In an industry where the bottom line is supposed to conquer all, the consistency is baffling. When I started browsing the charts, I expected to find a number of big-budget female-centric flops looming over the charts, deterring all and any to follow in their path; but there are none. Or rather, some movies fail, some succeed, but there seems to be no greater likelihood that if a movie features women in a meaningful way it will fall short at the box office – especially with the weight of a studio behind it. In fact, a movie starring men is far more likely to fail for the simple reason that more male-driven movies are made to begin with. What’s more, in comparison to the nay-saying that surrounds those few faltering female-centric movies, the big male-driven flops seem to have no effect on future productions: The International, The Informant!, Year One, and Funny People all released to worse-than-expected receipts, yet is there a chorus that Clive Owen, Jack Black, and Adam Sandler can no longer open a film? Do we question if Judd Apatow or Steven Soderburgh have lost their touch? Did Rian Johnson face the same criticism that Diablo Cody met – that their original debuts were obviously the only trick they had?

Evidently not. If I were in the industry and wanted to secure my investment in these uncertain times, I would set about doing what Drew Barrymore has done: rolling out a series of female-centric movies and laughing all the way to the bank. ‘Fever Pitch’ cost Flower Films $30m and took over $50m internationally. ‘Never Been Kissed’ had a production budget of $25m and took $85m; Charlie’s Angels 2: $120 budget, $260m international gross; ‘Music & Lyrics’ took 145m world-wide. There are misses, sure – Charlie’s Angel’s 1 made ‘only’ $20m profit, and Whip It has come out low early on its $15m budget, but overall, the figures are there. What’s more, compared to movies like ‘The Ugly Truth’, Flower Films productions are practically feminist manifestos.

What’s been happening here? It can’t be that they believe women will only go to a small number of films ‘for them’ each year, since clearly, they don’t think that men will tire of comic book reboots and sequels/crime thrillers/big loud actions movies any time soon. I know I don’t. And although in my last post I suggested that finally box office success was having an impact on new acquisitions – the results of which we’re beginning to see rolled out this year – we’re still only talking about a handful of projects in the face of a decade of prescribed wisdom and stable production habits.

So, if you have any ideas to contribute, I’d really love to know. Is the number of suitable scripts really that limited? Is there a fixed internal quota on the number of female-centric movies a studio will produce in any given year? What has been driving these solid numbers, year in, year out? And, most importantly, besides showing up to every movie that offers an interesting perspective on women – or hell, and perspective on women at all – what can be done to change this?

footnotes
* By ‘major production’ I mean major studio or large indie, prominent star, reasonable budget – not shoestring smaller endeavors. In other words, movies we might reasonably expect to have wide-scale theatrical release.

** Since I haven’t seen all the movies concerned, I had to judge via promo, trailers, reviews etc whether a woman featured in any meaningful way, or just an object of desire. Obviously, I could be mistaken, but this survey is only supposed to be a rough indicator – I doubt my errors would make more than 5% in either direction.

*** The cut-off for the top 150 seemed to be around 8m-11m total gross domestic, so beyond that, I don’t know.

Dear Hollywood,

Given the recent lacklustre box office of both Jennifer’s Body and (my most-anticipated movie of the year) Whip It, I spy plenty of handwringing and trend pieces ahead about women in Hollywood and the struggle to make a healthy return on your investment by catering to them in a more than perfunctory way.

So, I’m going to make it simple:

Writers – write more damn movies about women.

Producers  – buy more damn movies about women.

Studios – greenlight more damn movies about women.

And now, the final part of the equation – the one on which the success of the previous steps clearly now depends:

Marketers – find a way to sell the aforementioned damn movies about women.

It shouldn’t be hard. After all, you somehow managed to shift $32m worth of tickets to ‘All About Steve’ despite vitriolic reviews at every turn – evidently, you are evil geniuses. But if the TV, music, and publishing, and hell, entire consumer goods industries can find a way to get women to buy their products, then surely, SURELY, it’s not beyond you.

Do better. Try harder.

Yours,

50% of your potential audience.

I’m actually pretty disappointed: thanks to ‘Whip It’s $5m opening weekend, it’s unlikely to make it to theaters here in the UK. This is an epic fail on many levels, none of which have to do with the film itself; I hunted down the script, and have to confirm what all the reviewers are saying: it’s smart, enjoyable, pacy and fun – a rare gem of a film. My best friend (a jaded film critic) said she was practically weeping through the screening because it was everything she wanted from “an awesome girl movie”.

The fact that this is so rare and precious a thing rather makes me want to weep myself.

Both ‘Whip It’ and ‘Jennifer’s Body’ are useful failures, however, because they highlight how the problems facing women in Hollywood don’t end the moment the final edit is done – they stretch right the way through marketing and release too. Much of the focus on this issue has been fixed – quite rightly – with how few female writers, directors, and execs operate in the food-chain, and what insulting, limited female stories are allowed screen time; but both these movies had original, interesting stories told by female scribes and high-profile female directors, yet still, they fell short at the box office. So what went wrong?

Thinking about this issue, I kept running into two perceived truths when considering women and Hollywood:

1.  Female-orientated (aka, XX) movies are a hard sell, and underperform at the box-office.*

2.  There has been a long-term decline the production of female-orientated movies.

These common wisdoms about women and Hollywood are patently wrong (and I’ll explain how and why in Part 2 of this post), but they seem tangled in a sad feedback loop: XX films don’t perform at the box office, they say, so fewer are made. This then has the consequence of elevating the few which are produced to some kind of symbolic status, which means if they then fail, it’s not simply an isolated incident, but a blanket statement on the viability of XX movies in general. Hence ‘Whip It’ and ‘Jennifer’s Body’ become mascots for the ‘don’t even try, you’ll fail’ school of pre-selection because they ‘haven’t found an audience’.

But just because they haven’t, doesn’t mean that they can’t.

See, I started research for this post feeling resigned and frustrated. We’ve been having the conversation about women in Hollywood for years, and yet little seems to change. But crunching the numbers, and reviewing the charts, I’ve begun to see signs of hope…

Remember these?

Mama Mia! – $610m international gross.

Sex and the City – $415m

Enchanted – $310m

The Devil Wears Prada – $326m

My Big Fat Greek Wedding – $369m

Serious money, you’ll agree, and, more interestingly, returned from smaller initial budgets.** And they had an impact. The break-outs of 2006, 7 and 8 made studios snap to attention. They might not care about equality or representation, but they care about profit. So, what we’re seeing now are the risks they decided to take to grab a slice of that female audience share. Because 2009, despite WI and JBs stumbling performances, has actually been a banner year for XX films, with ‘The Proposal’ grossing $163m, ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ making $100m, ‘Julie & Julia’ doing $91m of domestic revenue, and ‘The Ugly Truth’ banking $89m.

These are not small numbers.

What they are all, tellingly, are more typical women’s movie fare: using familiar templates of romance, family, fairy-tales, and TV shows. ‘Whip It’ and ‘Jennifer’s Body’ aren’t traditional chick-flick offerings, they’re smarter, edgier, and more subversive than that. (Although obviously, out-subverting SATC isn’t too great a reach). And they’ve faltered.  Clearly, it’s been so long since anything new was thrust into the megaplex that audiences and marketing suits alike are baffled at how to deal with them. How do they market a feminist movie like ‘Whip It’ without sending boys screaming for the exits? How can they position ‘Jennifer’s Body’ in a horror marketplace that prefers its women plucky or slutty victims? Thus far, they don’t have any answers, but I can only hope that they come up with some soon. Because those movies are important, if for no other reason than they bring something different to the portrayal of women on-screen. Different is scary, yes, and a risk, but – to put it bluntly – it’s about bloody time.

—

Diablo Cody: if women aren’t being represented in a diverse way in movies, they’re going to remain marginalized.

—

Take a look at the top 10 grossing movies so far this year:  a boy battling killer robots; a boy battling evil wizards; four men in vegas; men negotiating space, class and destiny; a superhero figuring out his place in the world; a man in a fantastical museum. Imagine any of those roles, in those movies, with their budget, as a woman. It wouldn’t have been made. Hollywood has been stuck in its outdated script of what female characters concern themselves with, and while they may not be to your taste, ‘Whip It’ and ‘Jennifer’s Body’ are at least expanding the repertoire of what women do on-screen, aside from be a girlfriend, mother, wife, or hostage; shop, date, wear vibrating panties, or try to be famous.

If studios can crack the marketing; if writers, directors and producers can continue undeterred, then we might actually, finally, see some variety in women and their stories on-screen. And I honestly believe that the signs are good, thanks to one world-conquering, sparkly vampire phenomenon: Twilight. Because as much as I’m against everything it represents on an ideological (and, thanks to 7 hours on a plane with just Breaking Dawn for company, literary) level, it has done one wonderful thing, which is send Hollywood execs piling on the bandwagon for the next blockbuster YA book adaptation. And the majority of these lead characters? Young women.

Carrie Ryan’s ‘Forest of Hands and Teeth’ is about a girl venturing beyond her village wall to battle zombie-like foes – currently in development for Kristin Stewart at Seven Star. Lionsgate are setting up Suzanne Collins’ amazing Hunger Games trilogy – in which a teenage girl fights to the death in a dystopian reality TV battle royale. Unique Features have bought Maggie Stiefvater’s ‘Shiver’, which follows a girl fighting to keep her werewolf boyfriend human. Aprilynne Pike’s ‘Wings’ will be a Disney vehicle for Miley Cyrus, about a fairy teen. A darker fairy story, Melissa Marr’s ‘Wicked Lovely’, has gone to Universal. Scott Westerfield’s Uglies series is another dystopian tale, bought by 20th Century Fox.

Just look at that list. I don’t know if this focus will last through the script stage, or if any of the properties optioned will ever see the light of day, but for now, that’s a wealth of interesting, complex, varied female narratives potentially coming to our screens over the next few years. Sure, they’ll be aimed primarily at a teen market, which is a different demographic when it comes to marketing, but it’ll widen the sphere from high-school teen flicks at least. And if any of these do well, then that will mean another wave of acquisitions, more stories, more variety, in addition to the seeds we already have in the older age-range. Imagine!

Up next PART TWO: the numbers. Why female-orientated movies don’t actually underperform at the box office, but why the stats will still make you wince.

footnotes:

* In no way do I assume women will or should like these ‘female-orientated’ movies, any more than a man will or should like a movie that happens to feature a man. My own taste is wide, and my most-enjoyed picks of the year include Duplicity, Fast and Furious, Star Trek, and State of Play. Nonetheless, the extreme gender bias in Hollywood output (laughably) makes being female a noteworthy issue, hence the classifications required.

This whole idea of a female-orientated movie is also rather straight-forward, in my book, and for the sake of brevity, I’m going to call these ‘XX’ movies (almost kinky, yet not! Like when I describe my book as ‘adult’ to distinguish from my writing for teens).

When I talk about XX movies  I don’t just mean marketed to women like the ghetto of chick-flick romantic comedies, ( although they clearly make up the majority of Hollywood output). I don’t even demand they pass the Bechdel test, in which two women talk about something other than men.  I simply mean a movie that

(i) features a major female character, and

(ii) tells at least part of the story considering her perspective.

In this way, ‘(500) Days of Summer’ doesn’t qualify, because although Zooey Deschanel is the a lead character, and the movie is ostensibly ‘about’ her, the film is told entirely (and excellently) from the male perspective. So, ‘female-orientated’ doesn’t refer to genre or branding: ‘Doubt’ is a female-orientated, ‘Flightplan’ is female-orientated, ‘Aeon Flux’ is female-orientated; ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’ isn’t.

The fact that I need a special name to mark out these films for the grand achievement of acknowledging half the human race in their narrative is, quite frankly, ridiculous, but on we go….

**. Mamma Mia made 11 times its $52m  production budget; so while Pirates of the Caribbbean: Dead Man’s Chest banked over a billion worldwide, it cost $225m to get there – the profit was 4 times a very hefty, risky upfront investment. Even moving down the scale, comparable grossing movies tend to be big-budget action type affairs, requiring long production time-frames for SFX, and bigger upfront risk.

(Taking a break from depressing Polanski matters on this blog), my novel THE POPULARITY RULES has been out for a week or so, and I’m thrilled to see it getting great feedback. As well as lovely mentions in Glamour, Heat, and Closer magazines, the book bloggers have been giving it some love too, most recently this 5-star review by Bookalicious:

“…What I particularly appreciated about this novel is that it features feminist characters, which means that instead of ditzy (albeit adorable) girls you get smart, independent, ambitious and strong female characters whose lifelong mission is not to find Mr Right in order to be able to exist; instead, they focus on themselves and pursue their own dreams…”

My whole reason for writing this book was to create a fun, chick-lit, escapist novel that didn’t compromise on character, so I’m really glad to see it pay off! In other news, winter – OK, autumn – has descended, and with it the first bleugh headcold of the season. I’m holed up with chicken soup, snug blankets and a nice backlog of Mad Men episodes to catch up on, so I think I’ll survive it just fine…

Here’s the thing: I wasn’t even going to write that Polanski piece. As awkward as it is to admit – given that I think of myself as a fairly political, active feminist – the majority of the time, I can’t bring myself to even get invested in these issues. I don’t throw myself into writing impassioned articles, or spend my time and energy poring over the latest developments; if I pay attention at all, it’s with a fleeting, detached attitude: skipping over the surface of events enough to feel informed, but not emotionally engaged. I can’t take the unblinking strain it requires to constantly be fully aware of the state of women’s experience in this world – let alone any wider issues – so, shamefully, regretfully, I choose not to.

But I have to ask myself if this form of self-defensive denial is any better than the one I was talking about in my last post – constructing a certain reality or truth in my own life in order to function with any sense of normalcy. Because as much as those petition-signers and Polanski-supporters are being vocally, directly undermining of rape victims and the legal system, the silent head-turning, eyes-down, move-along attitude that we all seem to employ (myself included) to get through the daily news cycle is just as bad in its own way; more so, I could even argue, because it’s the widespead daily reality, not just an occasional loud burst of protest. Silence is also an anathema of justice, so aren’t we all, every day, just as bad as them?

See, there was a time I wanted to be a lawyer; hell, there was a time when I wanted to be Amy Gardner, that magnificent character on the West Wing who fought constantly for women’s rights and policy: never bowed, never giving up. She was my teen role-model, and so I followed that path, all the way to Oxford to study politics, with great plans to be in lobbying, or a pressure group, or non-profit. But somewhere along the line I realised the scope of the challenge: the sheer terrible weight facing us on abuse and violence and rape and poverty and reproductive rights. And, I have to admit, I decided that I couldn’t make that my life.

I’m not strong enough, I’m not selfless enough, and I’m not brave enough.

Now, six years on, I write novels as my career. I love it, yes, and I make it my mission to create smart, funny, feminist books for adults and teens (because indoctrinating the youth of America with feminism strikes me as an excellent calling, and don’t get me started about the state of mainstream entertainment for adult women..), but whenever these lightening rod issues/events come around, and I find that my heart burns with anger, and I can’t help but wade in, I’m reminded of how little I really do, and how much I should. I do use my time to volunteer at a feminist campaign office, but that’s stuffing envelopes and updating databases. I know, deep down, I could be out making a real difference, had I chosen differently – if I still would.

But instead, my own self-defensive denial sees me – most of the time – stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly when faced with most of these tragedies. I put my blinkers on and glaze over the news – not letting the truth of these stories have a real impact, because it just inspires anger and frustration and a deep sense of powerlessness about the true state of things, and how little ever changes. I look at the campaigners and activists with amazement, that they can somehow engage with these issues in an honest way, fully comprehending their damage, and then get on with their lives with any measure of normalcy. I can’t.

If I can’t be brave, how can I expect anyone else to be? How can I get enraged over the annual Amnesty survey over attitudes towards rape, or domestic abuse statistics, or ever-tightening abortion restrictions on the poorest women who need the most control over their lives, when I’m turning my head away as much as the next person?

What I’m saying, I suppose, in my rather rambling fashion, is that these signatories make a convenient focus for our outrage; but at the end of the day, we all fail these victims too, in our own small ways, and we all construct a careful version of reality that lets us view the world as we wish it to be. Inevitable, perhaps, but worth remembering, so that maybe we can try to do a little more in whatever way we can.

Ideologies shouldn’t be theoretical; our beliefs – whether political or moral – should have some practical impact. Let’s have this case be a reminder of that.

The international film-making community is rallying to Polanski’s cause, according to their petition, and public condemnations of the biased, double-crossing-judge, and odes to Polanski’s tragic past, and the fact that he’s spent years on the run (wherein ‘the run’ actually means traveling happily between his European properties, making Oscar-winning films and generally continuing his life uninterrupted). Tilda Swinton, Sam Mendes, Steven Soderburgh, Pedro Almodovar among other respected artists are all pledging support to this man who – to state the obvious – admitted raping a child.

I should be surprised, or outraged, but I can’t be; because they’re just doing what everyone does, which is desperately perpetuating the myth that Rapists Are Not One Of Us.

While society seems to be able to process the idea that we could all conceivably be murderers, given the right mix of anger, hatred, desperation, or otherwise pressured circumstances, we can’t bring ourselves to admit the wide range of men who have, will, would, or could rape. Rape, the myth goes, is something Other. It is separate, and dramatic, and above all, perpetuated by men we don’t know.

Rapists are not loving fathers, or supportive brothers, we tell ourselves – and each other. Rapists don’t go home for the holidays and help with the tree, and watch the big game with their father, and throw the football around with their nephews. Rapists don’t tip the homeless guy, because they have some spare change from Starbucks. Rapists don’t survive the Holocaust. Rapists don’t sit in the cubicle across from us at work, and send us funny xkcd cartoons. Rapists don’t have uneventful, long-term relationships with their college girlfriends. Rapists don’t show up on set every day, directing a critically-acclaimed movie. Rapists don’t get married, nervous in a tux at the end of the aisle. Rapists don’t spend their weekends browsing at the farmer’s market, and then stop for brunch and do the NYT crossword. Rapists don’t co-write this screenplay with us. Rapists don’t hang out at the pub with their friends, watching football and drinking just half a pint of beer, because they’re driving. Rapists don’t meet us casually at an awards ceremony, and charm us with wit and wry humor.

We tell these myths to ourselves and each other often, but of course, they are lies. A rapist is nothing but a man who doesn’t listen when you say stop. No screaming or kicking or dark alleyways; but when you’re just too drunk; when you realize in a flash of clarity that it’s easier to lie there and wait – they won’t be long, you’re sure – because otherwise this might get worse. A rapist thinks – in that moment – that it doesn’t matter, or maybe they refuse to think at all, because it’s quick and casual and you were enjoying the rest of it weren’t you?

A rapist is not a Rapist – neatly signified with a big capital letter, as if this were his occupation pinned on a name-tag on his threatening outfit: “Hello, my name is X, I am a Rapist”. They exist, of course – the serial offenders, who thrill in it – but the majority by far, the everyday tragedies, are simply men who rape. They might only do it once, or a handful of times, and they might never call themselves by that word, but they are rapists nonetheless. They have lives, jobs, friends, and families. They are, in every other way, perfectly ordinary – or, in this case, an Oscar-winning auteur. And you can never tell, until their hand grips your arm too tight, and they don’t let you pull away, and you realize it’s late, and you’re alone in their apartment, and the first feeling isn’t fear or panic, but that wave of resigned disappointment. Because how were you supposed to know?

You can’t.

And that is the terrifying thing, and the reason we tell ourselves this myth, and why, on some level, otherwise moral people are signing up in Polanski’s defense. Because they’ve met him, worked with him, pity his tragic past, and hell, found his charming and sweet and a devoted father to his own kids, they need to rationalize him out of the ‘child rapist’ category, and into something safer and vague. It wasn’t ‘rape-rape’ (thanks Whoopi), he’s atoned, it was so long ago, and the victim (quite understandably) doesn’t want this to be the defining event of her life anymore. Let’s not think of this man as a Rapist, he can’t be; because if he is, then a rapist could be any other charming, talented man I’ve met, or admire. And that’s the heart of it: because to acknowledge the scale of risk, of the sheer number of men who might possibly – deep down, in the heat of a make-out session, after the drawn-out build of a flirtation, let alone with drugs, alcohol, and a fearful thirteen year old – see your consent as an inconvenience, not a priority, is a painfully, fearfully huge issue.

I’m not saying that all men are rapists, of course I’m not. (And obviously, this whole post neglects the subject of female rapists) But this myth we build and perpetuate or the rapist as Not Like Us is almost one of self-defence – to allow us to have functioning relationships with seemingly normal men, not admitting to ourselves how many of them have, would, could, or will rape, given the circumstances. The painful irony is, of course, that while the myth might allow us not to be paralyzed by fear or doubt in our everyday encounters, it grows so strong that prosecutions are rare, and victims stay silent, because when it comes to court, or the police, well – he couldn’t have done it, he’s just like us. So rapists go unpunished, and there’s no legal disincentive for the crime, and it stays underground, the thing of which we do not speak, just deal with, and move on.

The myth may make us feel safer, but every time we tell it or, in this case, rally to Polanski’s defense, we’re making it easier for men to rape, and harder for women to say that they do. Polanski’s victim isn’t the only one to suffer in this case, and that’s why he must face sentencing. And that I even have to say it – that these fucking truths need to be spelled out – is a small tragedy all of its own.

UPDATE: The majority of comments for this post have been wonderful and thought-provoking, so thank you. I welcome debate and disagreement, but this is a personal blog, so while I value free debate, I don’t feel an obligation to print every comment that is submitted; I have not, and will not approve comments that are clearly trolling, offensive or inflammatory. I don’t believe that they add to the discussion, and will try to keep offensive material off this thread.

To celebrate the upcoming release of my adult debut, I took to the streets of London to talk about popularity, friendship, and the strategies for success!

Come join the conversation!