Let's Talk About Unstoppable
Disclaimer: I do not claim to know anything about the actual events on which this movie was based or the people involved. This post refers only to the fictionalized version of events and characters shown in the movie.
There is a TRIGGER WARNING for intimate partner abuse and violence for this post.
So yesterday, my dad, Nigel, and I went to see Unstoppable. It was pretty good--I'm pretty sure it doesn't pass the Bechdel test1, but I enjoyed the story anyway. Worth my two hours and my dad's $20; your mileage may vary, especially as regards what I'll talk about below. I have the privilege not to have been triggered by this. Not everyone does.
Then we went out for a late lunch and discussed the messages the movie sends about intimate partner abuse and violence.2
Before the events of the movie, Chris Pine's character engaged in criminal and if I may say so fundamentally stupid behavior involving threatening a cop with a deadly weapon because he thought the cop was hitting on his wife, Darcy. He describes the incident--which began when Darcy received a text message and wouldn't tell him whom it was from, and he tried to grab the phone away--in the characteristic way that abusers do, minimizing his own behavior and portraying it as a big misunderstanding.
He didn't hit her, he says. He scared her, but he didn't hit her.
They almost never admit they hit her. They only do it when they can't avoid it, and then they'll say it wasn't that hard, and they'll talk about how they didn't mean it or it was an accident or she deserved it.
Sometimes they will alternate between these minimizing lies.
The character then went to the home, I think it was, of this cop who had been friends with Darcy for years and who, according to Chris Pine's character3, has "always had a thing" for her, and took him for a ride in his truck with a gun on the dashboard to say, "Stay away from my wife."
So, well, the way he tells it, the cop and his cop friends prosecute him for this, and the court enacts a restraining order so he can't be with his wife and child.
Now, friends, I don't know. Okay? I don't know. Is it possible that the courts would enact a restraining order protecting Darcy and not the cop he actually threatened with the gun? Maybe. Is it probable that this would happen if she herself didn't also press charges? I don't know. I do know that for many, maybe even most, women who are afraid of men of their acquaintance, it's fucking hard to get a restraining order. You have to prove a lot of shit beyond "he tried to take my phone away", and sure, "he pulled a gun on my friend because he thought the friend had contacted me" will go a long way toward that in some courts4, but not if you, the victim, are standing there saying, no, there's no abuse, it's fine, it's all fine.
"I scared her," the character says, "but I didn't hit her."
I don't know whether to believe him or not, but for the purposes of this discussion I'm not sure it matters.
Because the scaring, the intimidation, that's abuse too.
I have been afraid of a lot of people in my life. I've been afraid of my mother, my sister, kids on the bus, guys at work5, guys at school, teachers, men on the street, men at the gym, you know, there are a lot of men on this list, but you know which man is not, has never been on it?
My husband. He fucks up sometimes but he doesn't intimidate me, he doesn't let his anger turn into something he can use against me to make me feel small and afraid. We argue--we argue a lot about money these days--and sometimes it gets loud, and sometimes we say things we shouldn't, both of us. And I wish it wasn't that way. But he doesn't scare me.
He certainly wouldn't scare me over a text message, even if it was a text message from someone he thought might want to sleep with me. Because you know what? My husband knows I'm queer, and he knows I'm still in touch with some of the women I've had things with in the past.6 This is a man who, when I came out to him, was so uneducated as to think it must mean I was telling him I wanted to sleep with women while I was with him; this is a man who knows that if I had lived closer to a woman named Nikki before I met him I would probably be in a relationship with her right now, and who knows that now I live within an hour of her and sometimes we hang out. He doesn't get jealous about it. He doesn't get possessive and controlling. He doesn't yell at me for talking to any of these women and he doesn't try to intimidate me or them into cutting off contact. Because he respects and trusts me.
In the movie, the incident is portrayed mostly from the abuser's point of view. When we see Darcy's side of it, what little we see is her visibly feeling conflicted and still loving him. Then he saves the day and she leaps into his arms.
The whole thing is portrayed as a big misunderstanding. It's heavily implied that she misunderstood what he was trying to do when he grabbed for the phone, because grabbing for someone else's phone out of their hand is supposed to be totally innocent and not a huge sign of disrespect for their belongings, boundaries, autonomy and personal space. Then the way he tells the story is perfectly tailored to make it seem like it was all blown out of proportion and we shouldn't judge him harshly for it, because what he did wasn't really that bad. But the real misunderstanding is his misunderstanding--the part where he lets regret color his voice--the part that means it wasn't even worth it.
The text message was from her sister.
Friends, the way this is revealed--the way he says it--we are meant to sympathize with the character, oh, he just made a mistake. But what that would mean is, if Darcy had received a text message from her cop friend, Chris Pine's character's behavior would have been justified. And it wouldn't. Nothing justifies abusive behavior.
She wouldn't tell him whom the text was from when he asked. That could be nothing. Or it could show that he's been asking her that kind of thing and she resents it, and/or that "my sister" has been an unacceptable answer in the past, one he wouldn't believe.
It wasn't her who got the ball rolling on pressing charges. Maybe that's coincidence. Maybe it means he's already taught her she deserves his treatment or that there's nothing she can do about it, nowhere she can go.
She takes him back; he gets her pregnant again. Maybe he was sorry, maybe he learned his lesson, maybe they're happy and maybe she wanted this.
Or maybe, just maybe, he was on the news as a real life goddamn hero, and everybody was talking about how he couldn't let that train take out the town where his wife and child were living, and she didn't feel like she could stand up in the face of that and say she didn't want him back, knew she would be shouted down if she tried to say he was anything less than a fucking angel, that maybe someone could save a town but still be an abusive asshole. Because we don't, as a culture, believe that's possible.
Maybe she thought it was a sign he was going back to that sweet, caring, romantic man she fell in love with, that this was proof he had changed. Maybe he had; I don't know. It's never resolved, how he treats her, what happens with them.
The little epilogue text at the end of the movie tells us they have a second child on the way. I'm sure that we the viewers are supposed to see this as proof that she's happy with him, because obviously she wouldn't consent to sex or to getting pregnant if she didn't want to be with him.
And I guess if you ignore the reality of intimate partner rape and of men who browbeat and manipulate their female romantic partners into getting pregnant, that makes sense.
The character was abusive. The way it's presented in the movie, we're supposed to see the abuse as "not that bad" or possibly "not really abuse", but it is that bad and it is abuse. He saves the day and he gets her back. His past behavior is erased. We're not even shown that he learned any kind of lesson from the restraining order.7 There's no indication that he won't do exactly the same thing again, or worse. But he's A Hero, so it's all good now.
Abusers can be heroes. It's entirely possible. Someone can do something amazing and awesome in public and still be an asshole in private. It happens all the time. The problem comes in when, as a culture, we pretend this somehow makes up for the abuse. Because it doesn't.
So let's look at the story another way. For "oh how sweet, he doesn't want anything to happen to his wife and child," read, "he still sees them as his possessions even though she kicked him out". Remember that if he had failed, not only would he have been killed, but Darcy and the child probably would have too. It's not exactly the same as, but not entirely unlike, the abusive dudes who kill their wives or girlfriends and children before killing themselves because they don't want anyone else to have their possessions.
And there will be those who say I'm reading too much into this; save your breath. I've heard it before. You could be right; like I keep saying, maybe the character has changed, maybe he's learned something, maybe he really was doing it all to save her, maybe even to prove himself to her. Maybe he goes home to her and treats her, not like a princess, but like a human being, an equal partner, and trusts her and doesn't "let" her have whatever friends she wants because he knows it's not his to "allow".
But the movie should have shown us that, if that's what they wanted us to believe. Otherwise it's irresponsible storytelling. And more than that, it sends an irresponsible message.
By telling the story of abuse from the abuser's point of view, we legitimize the abuser and marginalize the victim. By taking him at his word when he says he didn't hit her and implies it wasn't really a big deal, we minimize the reality of abuse.
The reality of abuse is minimized enough already.
1. On the basis that while Darcy and her sister talk about the runaway train before they know Chris Pine's character is on it, I don't think the sister has an actual name; Denzel Washington's character's daughters only talk to each other about him; Rosario Dawson's character talks to at least one other women, but she is a nameless, faceless receptionist or administrative assistant on the other end of a telephone; none of the reporters are given names, nor, I don't think, do they talk to each other; and the diner server neither has a name (unless she was wearing a nametag I didn't notice) nor speaks to anyone but the dude with the ponytail and the big truck.
2. I love my dad. He doesn't always get it, but when he does, he really gets it.
3. The character's belief that this man wants to sleep with or date his wife, or whatever, is not evidence of anything either way. Abusive, controlling men are often very jealous and often believe that any man who talks to their intimate partner is trying to "steal" her. I'm not sure if this is just because of the controlling and possessive aspect to the abuse or if it is also informed by some kind of subconscious knowledge that not every man will treat her like shit and if she figures it out she'll leave. Or maybe that's conscious knowledge, I don't know.
4. There are courts where this won't mean jack shit. There are courts where "doesn't want another man talking to his wife" will be seen as evidence of "loves her deeply, puts her on a pedestal".
5. Not where I work now, but in the past.
6. I'm not in touch with any of the men--it just didn't work out that way.
7. One of the first, if not the first, scenes of the movie is Chris Pine's character stalking his wife and child. He drives his pickup truck over to where he knows they'll be and watches them from, presumably, just outside the restraining order's radius. And I thought, oh god, we have a divorced or broken up relationship and he's going to get her back by saving the day; I hate when that happens. I didn't know it could be this much worse.
There is a TRIGGER WARNING for intimate partner abuse and violence for this post.
So yesterday, my dad, Nigel, and I went to see Unstoppable. It was pretty good--I'm pretty sure it doesn't pass the Bechdel test1, but I enjoyed the story anyway. Worth my two hours and my dad's $20; your mileage may vary, especially as regards what I'll talk about below. I have the privilege not to have been triggered by this. Not everyone does.
Then we went out for a late lunch and discussed the messages the movie sends about intimate partner abuse and violence.2
Before the events of the movie, Chris Pine's character engaged in criminal and if I may say so fundamentally stupid behavior involving threatening a cop with a deadly weapon because he thought the cop was hitting on his wife, Darcy. He describes the incident--which began when Darcy received a text message and wouldn't tell him whom it was from, and he tried to grab the phone away--in the characteristic way that abusers do, minimizing his own behavior and portraying it as a big misunderstanding.
He didn't hit her, he says. He scared her, but he didn't hit her.
They almost never admit they hit her. They only do it when they can't avoid it, and then they'll say it wasn't that hard, and they'll talk about how they didn't mean it or it was an accident or she deserved it.
Sometimes they will alternate between these minimizing lies.
The character then went to the home, I think it was, of this cop who had been friends with Darcy for years and who, according to Chris Pine's character3, has "always had a thing" for her, and took him for a ride in his truck with a gun on the dashboard to say, "Stay away from my wife."
So, well, the way he tells it, the cop and his cop friends prosecute him for this, and the court enacts a restraining order so he can't be with his wife and child.
Now, friends, I don't know. Okay? I don't know. Is it possible that the courts would enact a restraining order protecting Darcy and not the cop he actually threatened with the gun? Maybe. Is it probable that this would happen if she herself didn't also press charges? I don't know. I do know that for many, maybe even most, women who are afraid of men of their acquaintance, it's fucking hard to get a restraining order. You have to prove a lot of shit beyond "he tried to take my phone away", and sure, "he pulled a gun on my friend because he thought the friend had contacted me" will go a long way toward that in some courts4, but not if you, the victim, are standing there saying, no, there's no abuse, it's fine, it's all fine.
"I scared her," the character says, "but I didn't hit her."
I don't know whether to believe him or not, but for the purposes of this discussion I'm not sure it matters.
Because the scaring, the intimidation, that's abuse too.
I have been afraid of a lot of people in my life. I've been afraid of my mother, my sister, kids on the bus, guys at work5, guys at school, teachers, men on the street, men at the gym, you know, there are a lot of men on this list, but you know which man is not, has never been on it?
My husband. He fucks up sometimes but he doesn't intimidate me, he doesn't let his anger turn into something he can use against me to make me feel small and afraid. We argue--we argue a lot about money these days--and sometimes it gets loud, and sometimes we say things we shouldn't, both of us. And I wish it wasn't that way. But he doesn't scare me.
He certainly wouldn't scare me over a text message, even if it was a text message from someone he thought might want to sleep with me. Because you know what? My husband knows I'm queer, and he knows I'm still in touch with some of the women I've had things with in the past.6 This is a man who, when I came out to him, was so uneducated as to think it must mean I was telling him I wanted to sleep with women while I was with him; this is a man who knows that if I had lived closer to a woman named Nikki before I met him I would probably be in a relationship with her right now, and who knows that now I live within an hour of her and sometimes we hang out. He doesn't get jealous about it. He doesn't get possessive and controlling. He doesn't yell at me for talking to any of these women and he doesn't try to intimidate me or them into cutting off contact. Because he respects and trusts me.
In the movie, the incident is portrayed mostly from the abuser's point of view. When we see Darcy's side of it, what little we see is her visibly feeling conflicted and still loving him. Then he saves the day and she leaps into his arms.
The whole thing is portrayed as a big misunderstanding. It's heavily implied that she misunderstood what he was trying to do when he grabbed for the phone, because grabbing for someone else's phone out of their hand is supposed to be totally innocent and not a huge sign of disrespect for their belongings, boundaries, autonomy and personal space. Then the way he tells the story is perfectly tailored to make it seem like it was all blown out of proportion and we shouldn't judge him harshly for it, because what he did wasn't really that bad. But the real misunderstanding is his misunderstanding--the part where he lets regret color his voice--the part that means it wasn't even worth it.
The text message was from her sister.
Friends, the way this is revealed--the way he says it--we are meant to sympathize with the character, oh, he just made a mistake. But what that would mean is, if Darcy had received a text message from her cop friend, Chris Pine's character's behavior would have been justified. And it wouldn't. Nothing justifies abusive behavior.
She wouldn't tell him whom the text was from when he asked. That could be nothing. Or it could show that he's been asking her that kind of thing and she resents it, and/or that "my sister" has been an unacceptable answer in the past, one he wouldn't believe.
It wasn't her who got the ball rolling on pressing charges. Maybe that's coincidence. Maybe it means he's already taught her she deserves his treatment or that there's nothing she can do about it, nowhere she can go.
She takes him back; he gets her pregnant again. Maybe he was sorry, maybe he learned his lesson, maybe they're happy and maybe she wanted this.
Or maybe, just maybe, he was on the news as a real life goddamn hero, and everybody was talking about how he couldn't let that train take out the town where his wife and child were living, and she didn't feel like she could stand up in the face of that and say she didn't want him back, knew she would be shouted down if she tried to say he was anything less than a fucking angel, that maybe someone could save a town but still be an abusive asshole. Because we don't, as a culture, believe that's possible.
Maybe she thought it was a sign he was going back to that sweet, caring, romantic man she fell in love with, that this was proof he had changed. Maybe he had; I don't know. It's never resolved, how he treats her, what happens with them.
The little epilogue text at the end of the movie tells us they have a second child on the way. I'm sure that we the viewers are supposed to see this as proof that she's happy with him, because obviously she wouldn't consent to sex or to getting pregnant if she didn't want to be with him.
And I guess if you ignore the reality of intimate partner rape and of men who browbeat and manipulate their female romantic partners into getting pregnant, that makes sense.
The character was abusive. The way it's presented in the movie, we're supposed to see the abuse as "not that bad" or possibly "not really abuse", but it is that bad and it is abuse. He saves the day and he gets her back. His past behavior is erased. We're not even shown that he learned any kind of lesson from the restraining order.7 There's no indication that he won't do exactly the same thing again, or worse. But he's A Hero, so it's all good now.
Abusers can be heroes. It's entirely possible. Someone can do something amazing and awesome in public and still be an asshole in private. It happens all the time. The problem comes in when, as a culture, we pretend this somehow makes up for the abuse. Because it doesn't.
So let's look at the story another way. For "oh how sweet, he doesn't want anything to happen to his wife and child," read, "he still sees them as his possessions even though she kicked him out". Remember that if he had failed, not only would he have been killed, but Darcy and the child probably would have too. It's not exactly the same as, but not entirely unlike, the abusive dudes who kill their wives or girlfriends and children before killing themselves because they don't want anyone else to have their possessions.
And there will be those who say I'm reading too much into this; save your breath. I've heard it before. You could be right; like I keep saying, maybe the character has changed, maybe he's learned something, maybe he really was doing it all to save her, maybe even to prove himself to her. Maybe he goes home to her and treats her, not like a princess, but like a human being, an equal partner, and trusts her and doesn't "let" her have whatever friends she wants because he knows it's not his to "allow".
But the movie should have shown us that, if that's what they wanted us to believe. Otherwise it's irresponsible storytelling. And more than that, it sends an irresponsible message.
By telling the story of abuse from the abuser's point of view, we legitimize the abuser and marginalize the victim. By taking him at his word when he says he didn't hit her and implies it wasn't really a big deal, we minimize the reality of abuse.
The reality of abuse is minimized enough already.
1. On the basis that while Darcy and her sister talk about the runaway train before they know Chris Pine's character is on it, I don't think the sister has an actual name; Denzel Washington's character's daughters only talk to each other about him; Rosario Dawson's character talks to at least one other women, but she is a nameless, faceless receptionist or administrative assistant on the other end of a telephone; none of the reporters are given names, nor, I don't think, do they talk to each other; and the diner server neither has a name (unless she was wearing a nametag I didn't notice) nor speaks to anyone but the dude with the ponytail and the big truck.
2. I love my dad. He doesn't always get it, but when he does, he really gets it.
3. The character's belief that this man wants to sleep with or date his wife, or whatever, is not evidence of anything either way. Abusive, controlling men are often very jealous and often believe that any man who talks to their intimate partner is trying to "steal" her. I'm not sure if this is just because of the controlling and possessive aspect to the abuse or if it is also informed by some kind of subconscious knowledge that not every man will treat her like shit and if she figures it out she'll leave. Or maybe that's conscious knowledge, I don't know.
4. There are courts where this won't mean jack shit. There are courts where "doesn't want another man talking to his wife" will be seen as evidence of "loves her deeply, puts her on a pedestal".
5. Not where I work now, but in the past.
6. I'm not in touch with any of the men--it just didn't work out that way.
7. One of the first, if not the first, scenes of the movie is Chris Pine's character stalking his wife and child. He drives his pickup truck over to where he knows they'll be and watches them from, presumably, just outside the restraining order's radius. And I thought, oh god, we have a divorced or broken up relationship and he's going to get her back by saving the day; I hate when that happens. I didn't know it could be this much worse.