Billie Eilish dressing up as a baby and her ten-year-old senior boyfriend Jesse Rutherford dressing up as an old man for Halloween sounded like a satirical take on “playing the victim”: an off-putting joke that has fans buzzing.
The sentence above centers on Eilish without acknowledging that Rutherford may have pushed her into the publicity stunt, if we’re talking hypotheticals. We’re so quick to suspect grooming, but until anything is admitted, we should all take a second to educate ourselves on how society, tabloids, and social media tend to skew our level. of confidence in victimizing a woman by controlling the perspective that they want us to. to focus on.
Society and, shockingly, many women have a tendency to jump at the chance to bring another woman down or ignore her altogether by focusing on supporting the man.
For example, if we look at how hated Amber Heard was throughout her libel lawsuit with Johnny Depp, which influencer and essayist Rayne Fisher-Quann wrote forcefully in “Who’s Afraid of Amber Heard? ” “Popular discourse acts as if there are only two possible options when it comes to a woman’s innocence,” she writes. “Either she’s an evil, psychotic manipulator who’s guilty on all counts, or she must be a perfectly innocent angel who’s never done anything wrong.” When women do not fit into this image of model victim, the media fabricate them.
We start to forget that women don’t have to be perfect. We forget that experiencing abuse or the effects of power dynamics in a relationship (such as age gaps) can cause a woman to do questionable things: lie, use violence, or think a costume couple consisting of a baby and an old man is appropriate.
These questionable behaviors are opportunities for some people to immediately lose their respect for, in this case Heard or Eilish. If they are suspicious of Heard for not being fully in control of her emotions, physical actions, or mental state due to the abusive situation she was in, then the chances of them trusting n any woman, without fame, beauty, access to resources, money, but just her word, in a situation of abuse, is pathetically low.
This Vox article states, “If this case has proven anything, it’s that Johnny Depp is still a star and still capable of capturing the nation’s attention.” If that’s the only thing you took away from this peak of celebrity drama, then we need to do better by refocusing the conversation on how women are designed to be silenced.
Assuming Eilish is being treated, then reminding her of her song “Your Power,” which is about women’s abusive experience with power dynamics in the entertainment industry, commenting on her social media posts, n has no purpose other than to call Eilish a hypocrite and make herself feel like a better and smarter woman than Eilish.
It is not confirmed that Rutherford is treating Eilish. People suspect the grooming, however, as the pair have known each other since Eilish was fifteen. If the grooming is ever admitted by Eilish or Rutherford, this detail that Rutherford and Eilish have known each other closely since she was a minor would be better used to acknowledge that Eilish is in the manipulation cycle of an aged power dynamic and gendered for more than six years. years.
We can’t use that fact months or years from now if Eilish reveals she suffered abuse or specifically blames Rutherford. We shouldn’t use it to make Eilish seem less trustworthy or less worthy of your empathy if claims arise like “why now does she just want to shoot Rutherford in an effort to save or revive her career /image” or “why didn’t she speak sooner if it’s been an *empty* number of years” or “she was an adult since the actual start of their relationship; she should have known better, especially since she wrote a song about sexual misconduct We can’t let the media manipulate us into seeing Eilish through the lens of the inaccurate archetypal victim model so to keep the abuse of power in the entertainment industry quiet by silencing women.
I encourage you not to feel cut off on this issue. Keep looking for sources and building links, as I plan.
Ceci Brown is a sophomore in Media Arts Production at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The post office. Want to talk more about it? Let Ceci know by emailing her at [email protected].
