Hollywood should step aside from this movement. I mean, how fucking problematic is #BelieveAllWomen? Who came up with this ridiculous hashtag that absolves people from critical thought?
And please don’t, in turn, belittle or reduce me by believing what I say simply because I’m a woman. What a risky message to be spreading. I and everyone else should treat women the way I treat men: I am suspicious of all of you. It doesn’t matter what anatomy you were born with.
We recently saw firsthand why this type of believe-all-women mentality is so hazardous and unhelpful. Case in point: Asia Argento.
On August 19, the world learned that the Italian actress/director was paying hush money to Jimmy Bennett, a former child actor who Argento allegedly sexually assaulted in 2013, when Bennett was 17. All this happened, of course, in the wake of Argento claiming to have been raped by Harvey Weinstein, becoming a #MeToo figurehead and the voice of sexual-abuse survivors everywhere.
As if the bombshell news wasn’t bad enough, Argento denied the allegations and decided it would be best to drag the name of her late boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, into the mess she created, putting the blame on him along with her alleged victim.
“Subsequent to my exposure in the Weinstein case, Bennett — who was then undergoing severe economic problems and who had previously undertaken legal actions against his own family requesting millions in damages — unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money from me,” Argento wrote in a public statement on August 21. “Bennett knew my boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, was a man of great perceived wealth and had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect. Anthony insisted the matter be handled privately and… personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life.”
But then, one day later, TMZ published a series of leaked text messages between Argento and a friend, along with a photo of Argento and Bennett in bed, confirming the allegations.
So, guess what, ladies? We can be just as conniving, cunning, cut-throat, and manipulative as men. Why is this so painful for women to admit? I find it empowering to know that my gender is as stunningly vicious — if not more so — as the opposite sex. We might not be as violent, sexually or otherwise, but what we lack here we make up for in other ways. Argento is a perfect example of this.
After my article “Can We Talk About Toxic Femininity?” came out in the August issue of Penthouse, a group of Argento’s supporters and fellow Weinstein survivors — Rose McGowan, Rosanna Arquette, Mira Sorvino, and Zoë Brock, to name a few — quickly came to her defense. They were up in arms. How dare I question a survivor? How dare I suggest that Asia was using #MeToo for personal advancement? How dare I share an opinion that doesn’t align with their claims? How dare I think for myself!
Just as many women who press charges against their rapist are then slandered — discredited by things that have nothing to do with the case in hand — these victims of Harvey Weinstein quickly perpetuated this same behavior. There was not one logical response to me from any of them. It was only things like: “You’re a cunt,” “Anthony would despise you,” “Get fucked,” and “You write for Penthouse.” I was called a misogynist, alt-right, and many other derogatory and untrue names that people use to discredit others these days. Argento’s lawyers even sent a letter demanding the article be taken down, and an apology issued.
This group is clearly not a fan of the free press.
A now-vanished blog was created in support of Asia, though it was basically a burn book about me. It was supposed to highlight Argento’s activism work; they ran out of material quickly. These women shared it on Facebook and Twitter. They had a friend, Louise Godbold, who calls herself a “trauma nerd” in her Twitter bio, write an article about me, which said: “You are protecting yourself from feelings that the primitive part of your brain has long repressed, believing that they will literally kill you, you become an enemy to yourself… and in doing so, you have internalized the abuser.”
Then on July 12, to show their support of the courageous whistleblower Argento, dozens of these “silence-breakers” wrote an open letter to the Los Angeles Times, which stank of self-righteousness and faux martyrdom.
“One of the most vocal and unwavering figures in the #MeToo movement has been Asia Argento,” it stated. “At the center of our community, Asia has stood, her fist in the air, fighting daily not just for justice for those of us she has come to know, but for abused people the world over. Asia has now found herself on the receiving end of vicious cyberbullying and repulsive slander at the hands of internet trolls who hold her responsible for Anthony’s death. She has been accused of everything from causing her boyfriend’s suicide to trying to use her ‘survivor status’ and the #MeToo movement to advance her career.”
Hollywood’s self-appointed leaders of #MeToo went on to show just how disconnected they are from sexual assault — unless it has to do with rich, powerful, famous men. Mira Sorvino asked me why I hadn’t gone “public” with my own rape that occurred at age 15. She said she found it “awfully convenient” of me to mention my rape in my article, now of all times. This is the same woman who claims to have so much love and compassion for all survivors and “broken people.” Mira, I have a question: What if Harvey Weinstein is a survivor? What if he is a broken person? Should we have compassion for him? Would you? After all, you say you stand by ALL survivors.
Like most rape victims, I didn’t get to go “public” with my rape. I didn’t tell anyone about it, besides my boyfriend at the time, until a few years later when my therapist at drug rehab helped me painfully tell my parents what had occurred and had been a catalyst for a major drug addiction at a young age.
They call themselves “silence breakers,” but they didn’t break their silence until it benefitted them to do so. Until their careers in Hollywood had dwindled down. After they had been in movies produced by Weinstein. What about this is supposed to make me feel as if these people are victims, silence breakers, advocates, activists, or any of the other names they use to describe themselves? Most abuse survivors don’t get to be angry when their survivor label doesn’t get them invited to the Golden Globes.
The response from these crusaders to Argento’s alleged sexual assault of a minor — a kid she’d known since he was seven years old, when he played her son in a movie — has shown how badly certain members of Hollywood need to step aside from the #MeToo movement.
Rosanna Arquette blamed it all on Harvey Weinstein. Maybe Weinstein put a gun to Argento’s head and made her have sex with Jimmy Bennett? Meanwhile, Rose McGowan asked people to “be gentle” with Argento in a now-deleted tweet, a stark contrast to her usual demands of how to treat people (men) who have been accused of sexual assault.
McGowan had been Argento’s No. 1 enabler, rushing to her side after Bourdain’s suicide. She even intervened and spoke for Argento for days after his death, calling her “a remarkable human and brave survivor,” reminding us how Asia is a “victim,” and disclosing private information about Bourdain without his family’s consent.
But what I find even more pathetic and most telling is how quickly McGowan has distanced herself from Argento. She quickly tweeted that she only got to know Asia in the last ten months — when last November Argento was calling McGowan “my sister.” Later, after TMZ leaked the incriminating text messages between Argento and a “source” (who turned out to be McGowan’s partner, Rain Dove), McGowan got on her digital soapbox to reprimand her so-called friend.
“Asia you were my friend. I loved you. You’ve spent and risked a lot to stand with the MeToo movement. I really hope you find your way through this process to rehabilitation and betterment,” she said. “Anyone can be be better- I hope you can be, too. Do the right thing. Be honest. Be fair. Let justice stay its course. Be the person you wish Harvey could have been.”
This really makes me wonder: Do any of these women actually stand for anything? British GQ just awarded McGowan the Inspiration Award for her “bravery.” They must not have seen when McGowan was unable to handle being asked a simple question about her experience with Weinstein by a group of women. I guess the trauma therapy she received on her reality show didn’t work.
Another completely illogical excuse these actresses have been spewing after Argento’s sexual assault became public is that “victims become victimizers.” Since when did this shit become acceptable or have any kind of relevance? The Boston Strangler was a sexual-abuse victim, so does that exonerate him? There are many people who suffer abuse, sexual and otherwise, and do not go on to hurt others in the way they’ve been hurt. This is a pathetic attempt to justify Argento’s behavior. Watching the women who have been leading the celebrity side of #MeToo use this defense is cringe-worthy to say the least.
But what’s even sadder is the fact that thousands of women who have actually been raped and assaulted believed Argento was a voice for them. Women who maybe hadn’t had the chance to get justice or feel any type of closure or healing had found a hero in her. Argento preyed upon these women and victimized them yet again with her lies. I said it in “Toxic Femininity” and I will say it again: I do not believe Asia Argento was raped by Weinstein. I don’t believe Rose McGowan was, either. Their own accounts of what transpired do not constitute rape.
Has this affected the case against Harvey Weinstein? Absolutely. Has this affected #MeToo? Without a fucking doubt. I often wonder why Ronan Farrow even included Argento’s problematic story in his Pulitzer Prize-winning piece for the New Yorker. How did an award-winning investigative journalist not know about what happened between Argento and Jimmy Bennett?
Anna Silman, senior culture writer at New York magazine’s women’s site The Cut, is a perfect example of someone who’s been brainwashed by this glorified victim-centric rhetoric that’s poisoning our younger generation of women.
In a published conversation between Silman and a much more logical and reality-based thinker, The Cut’s editor in chief Stella Bugbee, Silman states that she finds it hard to be angry at Argento because she’s a victim of Weinstein and because her boyfriend, Bourdain, just died. She says her first impulse was to defend Argento. She does admit this impulse is hypocritical and I respect her honesty, but the entire convo also makes me sad to see how many young, successful, smart women have fallen victim to being a victim. Silman also says, “Asia Argento is ‘our’ girl. We have a vested interest in her narrative. But I think what we’ve learned in the past year is that a lot of these narratives are not as simple as victim and perpetrator, good vs. evil.”
For me, I choose not to call myself a “victim” or “survivor” or any other word that wraps my identity into what happened to me when I was 15. That is my personal choice. Though I certainly respect and understand why someone else would absolutely identify using these words.
What I don’t respect is co-opting a movement about something very real and very important for self-serving personal gain. What I don’t respect is taking words like trauma, victim, assault, rape, and activist and diluting their powerful meanings in order to manipulate the masses. I do not respect the idea of blindly believing someone simply because she’s a woman.
While the media and internet continue to offer up think pieces about the #MeToo movement being derailed by egos and lies, the silence of Anthony Bourdain’s friends and family is deafening. We now know Argento is capable of lying about, well, everything. The content of her and Bourdain’s last phone calls and text exchanges remain a mystery, but if recent events are any indication, it’s most likely that Argento has more victims than Jimmy Bennett and #MeToo.
