Wednesday, April 20, 2022
The Accused
- Commentary: This movie turns on Sarah Tobias' (played with verve and extraordinary competence by Jodie Foster) dance in the game room of the bar she was in the night she was raped. The dance is joyously energetic, celebratory, expressive and, yes, seemingly provocative, except that it is clear she wasn't trying to provoke anything, she was merely expressing. That dance, more than anything in the movie, is what defines the criminal injustice in what happened to her next. The idea of rape was clearly present in the minds of the watchers even before the dance took place. The rapists were simply waiting for the opportunity to do the deed. It didn't matter on who they perpetrated the rape. It could have been any of the women in that bar. It just happened to be Sarah. It was Sarah because, if you notice, all the other featured women in the bar left as the rape took shape in the minds of the rapists and onlookers or as it commenced. This movie is, in my opinion, a brilliant commentary on male society's perspective on rape. To men, they are not the perpetrators, women are, for simply being, well, women. Although a dance preceeded this rape, rarely does anything objectively "provocative" preceed most rapes. Thus, the presence, or absence, of a provocative dance is not up for question. The movie clearly underlines that rape isn't something women, or men, for that matter, provoke, it's something that men perpetrate upon weaker members of the society, women, primarily, but not exclusively.
I initially saw this movie a long time ago, possibly on television, but I can't be sure. I'd forgotten about it until it popped up in a sale of film products featuring female actors and other crew. Suddenly, I was remembering the extraordinary effect it had on me. It did not make me afraid, so much, as disgusted at the shenanigans through which the legal system put this case. It smartened me up right quick, as they say in the trades. I've never had to participate in such a case, and hope I never do, but thinking, yet again, about this movie still kindles a sense of righteous anger in me.
Let me state this clearly: As a woman, and, only, as a woman, I neither like nor trust men. I learned this, first from my father, not explicitly, but implicitly, ambiguously. Even when some man, somewhere, says or does something with which I concur, which is often, I am guarded. I am always thinking, in the back of my mind, that at any moment that particular man is going to say or do something else that will completely undercut any act of seeming fairness or support. That's just what it is to be a woman in this society, and many others. It could be different but, in 1988, when this movie was released, and now, in 2022, as I just completed watching it for the second time in my life, this remains true. And, men wonder why in the world some feminists want to separate from, or get rid of, men.
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Jodie Foster Sarah Tobias Kelly McGillis Kathryn Murphy Bernie Coulson Kenneth Joyce Ann Hearn Salley Fraser
Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
Release Date: 1988
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan.
Labels: 20th-century-chick-flicks1, character-study, dramaE, feminist, jodie-foster, legal, violence4
