After having read that, I guess we now have an opportunity to either believe the victim or the alleged perpetrator. Clearly, they disagree with one another. I'm going to bet that everyone currently on this forum backs Schneider--that we are all just arguing fine points, not the basic problem, as domino reminds us--because I trust you all.
Maybe one explanation for Soothsayer's rage is the fact that he or she is reaching back in this thread to 2007, the actual year of Schneider's interview, when the following lovely comment followed Barmy's link:
Will she never shut up about this? I am seriously beginning to query her sanity. She manages to exploit her own supposed exploitation.
In my mind, this is classic rape culture minimizing: "My God, when will this woman stop whining about the time Marlon Brando sexually assaulted her ass with a stick of butter!" This comment is followed by tasteless jokes that I won't quote, but it's pretty clear that criterionforum.org failed the sensitivity-to-sexual-assault test at least ten years ago.
We have to spend far more time trusting, believing victims of sexual assault, right? Schneider said, "I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but at the time, I didn’t know that. Marlon said to me: ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie.’" She also said, "I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci." This is unambiguously sexual assault, which, last time I checked, is a felony, as well as being a moral outrage and a crime constantly underreported in this country because we dismiss claims too often. Maybe no one got into a huff ten years ago on this forum because it would have seemed to run against the grain of the more dominant, jocular attitude toward the incident. Again, that's text-book rape culture stuff, not just me sermonizing.
And before we start banking our arguments on the penetration-or-not mitigation factor, imagine someone saying, "Trump ain't
that bad, because he didn't say, 'Put your hand
in her pussy'; he just said 'Grab her
by the pussy.' No penetration, see?" It's ridiculously evasive. Sexual assault is sexual assault, even if it isn't legally rape.
Having said all this, I repeat: I don't think a single person on this forum would disagree with the fact that Brando and Bertolucci sexually assaulted Schneider with impunity. We know and trust how people stand here on these issues. Yet if all I had to judge were the comments following Barmy's link ten years back, I wouldn't be so sure.
I do think Soothsayer should indicate precisely whom he or she has a problem with, be more specific, quote examples, avoid sweeping rage rhetoric, etc. Mr. Sausage is trying to pin things down admirably, which is the care people must take when they discuss inflammatory issues like these. Otherwise, we're just going to melt into a gooey mass of defensiveness and nothing will be accomplished or learned.