The Rape Myth that is the Real Problem with Dennis Harvey’s Promising Young Woman Review
By: Dovie Jenkins
Tags: Women, Rape, Rape Culture, Rape Myths, Promising Young Woman

The Rape Myth that is the Real Problem with Dennis Harvey’s Promising Young Woman Review Dovie Jenkins Jun 11·6 min read

The film Promising Young Woman is a candy-colored justice fantasy in which a med school dropout on the precipice of 30, Cassie, plays drunk at various nightclubs, allowing herself to be assisted by a variety of Nice Guys. The aforementioned Nice Guys invariably attempt to sexually assault her in her inebriated state. Once the Nice Guy has made his intentions plain, Cassie reveals that she is sober. The Nice Guy, shocked and frightened by the sudden reveal, attempts to deal with this newfound knowledge through a variety of mechanisms including, but not limited to, gaslighting, insults, back-peddling, self-justifying rationalizations, and so on.

Cassie’s escapades are motivated by guilt and a desire to avenge the rape- perpetrated by a fellow med student- of her best friend, Nina. Nina and Cassie attempted to report the crime to the university but found the administration unsympathetic. Their peers were likewise uninterested in supporting Nina, instead blaming her for her victimization. The combined weight of rape-related trauma and the subsequent indifference demonstrated by others ultimately drove Nina to take her own life. Cassie found herself unable to cope with Nina’s death and the injustice that precipitated it, leading Cassie to abandon her dreams of becoming a doctor and pursue justice without the aid of the legal system.

The setup reflects many of the real-life dynamics at work in sexual assault cases. According to a comprehensive DOJ report on acquaintance rape on college campuses, women in the 16–24 age demographic are raped at four times the rate of women in other demographics. Women attending university are at a greater risk of rape and sexual assault than their counterparts. The report also cites the familiar statistic that an estimated 25 percent of college women are raped. The percentage of women that experience sexual assault is considerably higher, 54 percent, and both percentages dwarf the figures officially reported by universities. This makes rape the most common violent crime on college campuses.

The DOJ report also highlights the fact that 90 percent of these victims know their attacker and only a small minority of acquaintance rapes, about 13 percent, occur on dates. Alcohol is involved in over two thirds of acquaintance rapes on college campuses. Most acquaintance rapes occur in a non-date setting, like parties. These uncomfortable realities are reflected in the movie’s plot. The depiction of rape’s psychological consequences for the victim, shame, depression, and suicidal thoughts, are also in line with the documented aftermath of real sexual assaults. Even the film’s depiction of common attitudes towards acquaintance rape falls neatly in line with reality. Acquaintance rape is often not taken seriously, in contrast with “real rape,” aka stranger rape. Additionally, peer support for sexually abusive behavior, as well as misogynistic beliefs regarding female sexuality, played a role in Nina’s assault much as it does in non-fictional counterparts.

Enter the reviews. Or rather, the review. Dennis Harvey’s review in Variety, in which Harvey insinuates that Carey Mulligan is not attractive enough for the role of the protagonist. Since some of Harvey’s defenders have claimed that Harvey is being misrepresented, his review cherry-picked, taken out of context, I will offer the entire paragraph:

In fairness to Harvey, he does offer praise for the film and Mulligan’s performance. In an interview defending himself from accusations of misogyny, Harvey claimed that “”Robbie is a producer on the film, and I mentioned her just to underline how casting contributes to the film’s subversive content — a star associated with a character like Harley Quinn might raise very specific expectations, but Mulligan is a chameleon and her very stylised performance keeps the viewer uncertain where the story is heading.”

If this was Harvey’s intended message, he sure dropped the ball. It seems that the easiest way to communicate the intended message, “Mulligan’s chameleon-like, stylized performance underscored the film’s subversive content,” would be to use those words. Instead, Harvey opined on the “odd choice” of casting Mulligan, as opposed to Robbie, and likened Mulligan’s efforts at sexy glam to a drag performance. Idk, Dennis. Feels like gaslighting to me.

However, even if one gives Harvey the benefit of the doubt, his words are still troubling. The danger becomes apparent when one wonders what exactly makes the casting of Mulligan, as opposed to Robbie, subversive? Is it difficult to believe that someone like Mulligan, someone for whom pickup-bait gear is “bad drag,” would be targeted for sexual assault? One might answer that one simply expects to see women who look like Robbie on the screen, so seeing otherwise shocks the viewer. This seems doubtful. This isn’t Mulligan’s first time onscreen. Hell, Mulligan played Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. I suspect that a menacing notion lurks beneath the surface of Harvey’s criticism- the idea that rape is about desire, rather than power. If one were to assume that sexual assault is primarily about lust and gratification, then it follows that a woman who elicited less lust from men would be less likely to become a target of assault. Hence, casting Mulligan rather than Robbie would be “odd” and “subversive,” since Mulligan’s performance elicits less lust than Robbie’s would have (or so the logic goes).

If the notion that presumed sexual attractiveness impacts one’s credibility as a target of sexual assault sounds familiar, that’s because it is. When Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault Republican Lanny Lancaster, GOP chairman for Cabarrus County, shared a fake photo of Blasey Ford to Facebook with the caption, “This is the alleged sexual assault victim. Wow.” The implication is clear: at the time of the alleged sexual assault, Blasey Ford was simply too unattractive to be assaulted. Unlike Harvey, Lancaster did not attempt to distance himself from the implications of his actions. Instead, he doubled down, saying, “The media wants you to think she was a beautiful young lady who was on her way home from the tennis courts … I just wanted you to see the real person. I wanted people to see that this is really her.”

Trump is also notorious for using variations of the “too ugly to rape” myth as a defense against allegations of sexual assault. When author E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of sexual assault Trump dismissively crowed that Carroll was “not my type.” When Jessica Leeds accused Trump of running his hand up her skirt on a flight, Trump responded by saying, “Believe me, she would not be my first choice.” When writer Natasha Stoynoff said that Trump forced his tongue down her throat Trump enjoined his supporters to “look at her. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”

Look at her?

In 2017, an Italian appeals court overturned the rape conviction of two Peruvian men because the court deemed the victim too unattractive to be a target for sexual assault. The judges decided that the victim lacked credibility because her appearance was “too masculine.” The judges also noted that the suspects indicated that they found the victim unattractive, with one victim labeling her “Viking” in his phone. To Italy’s credit, the decision was met with massive outrage. Italy’s highest court subsequently reinstated the convictions, declaring that a victim’s appearance has no bearing on their credibility. Yet, the ultimate resolution could have looked very different.

I suspect that Harvey’s take on Mulligan-as-Cassie inadvertently expresses our culture’s deeply embedded rape mythology, specifically the belief that rape is about sexual desire. It’s important to recognize when these myths are operative because recognition of these myths is the first step towards meaningfully challenging them. You can’t fight what you don’t see. That’s not to say that there’s nothing wrong with publicly opining on the comparative hotness of actresses (or appearing to do so). Critiquing an actor’s appearance rather than the substance of her performance reinforces the notion that women are decoration first and person second. However, in this particular case, the most pernicious idea is not that women are decorative, but that one’s perceived sexiness, or lack thereof, has some bearing on whether one might become a victim.