It’s been a little over a week since the news about Ghomeshi went viral. Since the news first hit, nine women have come forward anonymously to the media and three have already reported their case to the police.
Courtesy of Canadian Film Centre
The increasing number of testimonies has pretty well solidified his guilt in the public eye, and everyone from the PR firm he hired to the musician he managed have withdrawn their support from him.
Since Ghomeshi was a familiar presence in most Canadian homes, many Canadians felt personally betrayed by his actions. When my husband, John, tried to identify his own interest in the case, he explained it like this,
“When you hear someone’s voice so often, you start to feel like you know who they are. So when you discover the truth about terrible things they have done, it’s shocking to realize that you never really knew them at all.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve have heard about the terrible things familiar faces (or in this case, voices) have done. The difference is, in the past, we have tried to forget the monsters hidden in the public men and women we admire.
We remember The Cosby Show, rather than the 13 women who have accused Bill Cosby of rape.
We try to enjoy watching Annie Hall, rather than think about the 1992 sexual assault investigation when the state attorney had probably cause to press charges against Woody Allen, but chose not to “due to the fragility of the child victim”.
Given the way we have ignored the transgressions of famous men in the past, it is almost a relief to see Ghomeshi demonized by almost everyone who has ever come in contact with him. It has opened up an incredibly important dialogue on the reasons why many people don’t report sexual assault and has forced us to start taking victims seriously. Finally, we are looking beyond what we want the truth to be and trying to discover what the truth really is.
Yet, for any of us who have known our own “monsters”, demonizing men like Ghomeshi is just a little too simple. It also allows us to ignore some of the root issues.
In her video addressing why many sex offenders claim they are innocent, Dr. Nina Burrows addresses how our cultural disassociation with certain evil acts discourages sex offenders from acknowledging the depth of their problem.
No one wants to believe that they are evil. We all justify actions that we know to be unhealthy or wrong. We rationalize having one more donut. We find a way to blame the cop who pulled us over. That’s the same thing many sex offenders do, only their actions have much more damaging consequences.
When we demonize those who commits the most disgusting kinds of acts we make admitting guilt that much more terrifying. Additionally, it becomes nearly impossible for anyone struggling with a similar problem to seek help before they hurt the people around them. In a culture where we believe only a monster would commit certain acts, we set ourselves up to be blinded by the “good” in these so called monsters. Then we are shocked, again and again, when a “nice” person does something terrible.
In the post I wrote on Ghomeshi last week I ended by mentioning the statement Owen Pallet made on Facebook. Throughout his short post, Pallet kept repeating two seemingly contradictory facts: “Jian Ghomeshi is my friend” and “Jian Ghomeshi beats women.”
These two statements seem contradictory to us because we do not want to believe that people we like, people we can associate with, people we can see ourselves in, could possibly do the kind of things we believe only a monster would do.
But there is a reason why many wives do not immediately leave their abusive husbands. Or why so many individuals do not report an assault. Or why, sometimes, victims allow their abusers to remain a part of their lives.
It’s because no matter how terrible a person’s acts may be, they are still human.
They can be funny. They can be sweet. They can be intelligent. They can be likeable. Often, they are someone the victim loved. None of these traits make what they have done any less terrible, but it does make it more difficult to view them as entirely one-dimensional.
I don’t know if forgiveness is possible, and I am 100% against forgetting because it only sets us up for future failures. At the same time I don’t want to be part of a culture where we only punish in the aftermath, creating an environment where there is no room for prevention.
What I want to know is this, what should we do with our monsters?
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I agree — but the Woody Allen part bothers me. The difference between Woody Allen and Ghomeshi is that Allen has no prior or following allegations against him of child molestation — just that sole instance — which never made sense in the first place. He even went so far as to submit himself to a lie detector, which he passed — Mia Farrow on the other hand refused to take one herself. Even her son, who is a Family Therapist has admitted that Mia berated the children into turning against Allen and literally making up fictional stories to make her children hate him even more. Allen didn’t run away — he did his part in the investigation — they found nothing. As for Dylan, based on police and other reports, her story changed significantly. There is even a report from Mia’s Maid that she would coach Dylan into making up stories to tell police. In fact, Mia’s brother is a convicted rapist, and I believe he was at the very party that Allen was attending where the alleged assault occurred. So, I have no choice but to believe that she had a vendetta against Allen and tried her best to ruin his reputation.
Hey Casey, I think you definitely make a feasible argument. From what I read in the case notes (which I linked to in that section), it seems to me that Allen is also quite probably guilty. Especially considering how rarely sexual assault victims lie about their experience (something I touched on in my last post).
That said, I also agree that Terry Richardson would also be a prime example of a powerful man taking advantage of his position and suffering little to no consequences.
A much better famous individual to focus on and who has has multiple accusations against him would be fashion photographer Terry Richardson. There are multiple allegations, but zero charges pressed.
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