This is likely to be an unpopular opinion, but I am not as
angered by Casey Affleck winning the Oscar for Best Actor as many people are. I
think it is a more complex situation than what we want to admit, but I am going
to try and explain my own perspective on it.
First of all, I want to be clear that I am in no way blaming
the victims or discrediting their allegations. However, I’ve seen posts and
stories calling Affleck a rapist and accusing him of sexual assault. We need to
be clear about the case. The accusations were part of a civil trial for sexual
harassment. This is not the same of sexual assault in legal terms. Civil cases
demand less rigor in terms of burden of proof. That is, in order for someone to
be found liable in a civil case, it does not need to be without reasonable
doubt. Because there is not the same level of evidentiary support required for
a jury to find for the plaintiff, it can be easier for a defendant to settle a
case simply because he/she cannot prove that it didn’t happen. In this case, it
was a he said/she said situation. Basically, all of this is to say that the
fact that Affleck settled the case with his accusers does not necessarily
indicate guilt. The fact is that we simply don’t know the truth other than what
was stated in the legal briefs as part of the initial accusation and
accompanying depositions. As part of the settlement, both parties agreed to a
nondisclosure agreement in which they were not permitted to discuss the case.
That brings me to next point. There are those who have
criticized Affleck’s lack of remorse over the incident. The truth is that we
don’t actually know how Casey Affleck feels about the incident. We don’t know
if he actually repentant because according to the legal agreement he isn’t
permitted to discuss it. Now, I know that this is giving him the benefit of the
doubt, but it is possible that he does regret his actions. It’s also possible
that he is the jackass that he is being labeled and doesn’t regret his actions.
We just can’t say with any certainty.
Then there is the question of redemption and mercy. Provided
that Casey Affleck does feel remorse for his actions in sexually harassing
those two women, do his actions mean that he must be blacklisted from receiving
accolades for his craft? Where do we draw the line? Is it possible for people
to change and grow? Should we condemn all those accused of sexual harassment
for the rest of time? This is a complex question. As a society, we are
certainly more likely to forgive Casey Affleck than we were Nat Turner,
director of the recent Birth of a Nation.
Now, with Turner, we were dealing with allegations of sexual assault and not
sexual harassment. However, that adds another level of complexity. Is there a
difference in terms of how we treat issues of sexual misconduct based on the
gravity of the offense? It certainly doesn’t feel that way for the victim in
any situation. Then there is the question of whether or not we are more willing
to forgive Affleck because he is white and more likely to hold it against
Turner because he is black.
Casey Affleck is certainly not the first time that this type
of controversy has followed an accolade. There was a similar controversy
several years back when the Golden Globes decided to award Woody Allen the
Cecil B DeMille Lifetime Achievement award. This brought the decades old
accusations of sexual abuse of his adopted daughter. Criminal charges were
never filed in that case, so we also need to consider if accusations or
allegations are enough to reject an artist. Within the criminal justice system,
we adhere to the principle that all people are innocent until proven guilty.
This is not the way the court of public opinion works. People are usually
presumed guilty until proven innocent and perhaps not even then. So how do we
proceed in this type of situation? Can we separate the art from the artist?
I think we need to look at what we have done as a culture.
For example, is it fair to label Casey Affleck as a sexual abuser based on
these allegations when we do not ignore the contributions to the literary
tradition of a confirmed alcoholic misogynist like Ernest Hemingway? Or
consider F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the greatest American novelist when he
plagiarized whole sections of his novels from his wife, Zelda’s unpublished works?
The truth is that there is no easy answer to the questions
because if we begin to condemn every person based on their misconduct, we may
just find that we deserve to be lumped into the same category. If I am honest,
there have probably been times when I have done or said something that could be
considered sexual harassment. If I were a man, I would likely get called on it
more. You can argue that, in part, the reason we don’t call women out on this
behavior is because men hold the power in the social structure. However, if we
believe that men and women should be treated equally, then we have to
acknowledge our own shortcomings and misdeeds as well.
