A Few Thoughts on the Stories We Don’t Know

Earlier today, I watched the heartbreaking video that real-life Supergirl Melissa Benoist posted on social media, detailing her history with intimate partner violence and her long journey to getting out. First things first: all the love and admiration to Melissa Benoist for being brave enough to speak up about her experiences and use her platform to promote awareness about domestic abuse. I can only imagine how difficult it was for her to compose those thoughts, read them out loud, and upload them for everyone to see. Like so many have, in truth for ages but much more visibly in the MeToo/TimesUp era, Benoist made herself incredibly vulnerable in order to 1) bring truth to light, 2) help others struggling in silence, and 3) reclaim power from someone who tried to take it from her. Truly, a hero onscreen and off.

Seeing that video and following some of the news/responses from it helped me coalesce some thoughts I’ve been ruminating on periodically for basically the last two years. When the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the floodgates opened in Hollywood and other industries, a lot of attention understandably was focused on the abusers who carried out this despicable behavior, sometimes for decades, and the systems that helped cover for and enable them time and again.

But rightly, thankfully, a lot of attention has been on the survivors as well – many of them women, but not all of them (much respect to Anthony Rapp, Terry Crews, Brendan Frasier, and other men who’ve come forward.) As celebrities have opened up and shared their stories, they’ve help create a space in which more voiceless victims in less high-profile positions can be heard. I’m so thankful to all of them for having the courage to share such personal details of their lives and help make it okay for others to speak up as well.

One recurring thought I’ve had these last couple years is about all that goes on in secret that we’re not privy to. For the sake of this blog post, I’ll focus on the pop culture side, but it applies to any space in which people are touched by harassment or violence. Despite “casting couch” jokes as old as movies themselves, I (naively) never thought much about these things really happening until I started reading about Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, Matt Lauer, and all the others. But since I have, my mind has repeatedly turned to so many “whatever happened to her?” stories, performers on an exciting rise who suddenly just seemed to drop off the radar for no clearcut reason. I now know of powerful abusers like Weinstein who blacklisted actresses who tried to fight back, and I continually wonder how many talented, passionate people left their industries because of harassment or abuse. This is a selfish way to frame it, and obviously the safety and well-being of the survivors in question is of foremost importance, but I do ask how many incredible performances we’ll never see or songs we’ll never hear because singular talents left their dream careers, realizing their respective industries would rather protect predators than support the victims?

Benoist’s story brings to mind another thought I’ve had, about those who do remain on our screens or in our playlists, and all that they go through that we don’t know about. I think of Gwyneth Paltrow being harassed at a time when she was one of the most famous actresses in Hollywood. I think of Eliza Dushku, who was abused on set as a child, being hyper-objectified as the “sexy bad girl” Slayer on Buffy. And I think of watching seasons 4 and 5 of Glee, with a large contingent of fans dragging Benoist for playing “Mary Sue” Marley.

Because these are faces we see on TVs and billboards and these are people we dissect on social media, we have a sense that we know them, that their lives in part belong to us. But there’s so much happening in celebrities’ lives beyond what we see, some of which we may not learn until years later, some of which we may never know. When people online groan that Paltrow is overrated, or sexualize Dushku, or vilify Benoist for getting divorced, we don’t know what else might be behind the face they present to us. I know that I for one am going to try harder to be mindful of that now, and try to conjure up a little grace before I speak.