Brian Peacock wrote:A more apt version of the analogy would be something like; 10 years ago Brad Pitt bought me some drinks in a hotel bar and persuaded me to go up to his hotel room to talk about my aspiring career as an actress. He seemed like a nice, reasonable sort of guy, but once the door was looked he started to lay it on about how, if I wanted to get ahead in the business, I had to let him punch me in the nose. I really wasn't sure about letting him do that and was telling him that I didn't feel comfortable with that whe all of a sudden he just whacked me really hard in the face, and afterwards, as I was crying on the carpet, he stood over me with his fists clenched and said that if I went to the cops nobody would believe me, that he was a powerful man and one word from him and I'd never get a job in the movies, not even emptying the bins. Then he gave me $50 for a taxi and shoved me out of the room.
Certainly a fine analogy.
What are we to do with it if someone reports that to the media 10 years after the fact and says "I just think someone needs to expose Brad Pitt - what the authorities do with it [now that its 10 years later, memories are ten years old, and any witnesses that might have something to say are either gone or hard to find...] is their business..."?
Since it was published in the news, we'd pretty much be left to evaluate the story, and things that might come to mind include whether the accuser went to the police at the time, or went to a doctor at the time to have his/her face examined. Is there a medical report to at least corroborate that a facial injury occurred? Are their surveillance cameras to show that he or she was in the hotel where Brad Pitt was staying? Can we place Brad Pitt there at the time, or was he in Majorca at the time on holiday? What taxi company was used? Is there a receipt?
You know, the kinds of things police do when they look to corroborate someone's story. Only, now, if you ask those questions and suggest that such information is relevant, then you're victim blaming and looking for the "perfect victim."
Yes, your example is quite appropriate, and even better in that it is a more extreme example, yet it still makes my point. Am I supposed to trust that the accuser is accurately narrating the allegations about Pitt? Why? Is the accuser more trustworthy? Is the accuser's memory not prone to distortion or loss? Is the accuser's perception not open to question? Is the accuser's ability to narrate not imperfect?
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
