My response to the article “Remembering Bowie: The Man, The Legend, The Sexual Abuser.”
The last thing I want is a heated debate, but I need to respond to the article Remembering Bowie: The Man, The Legend, The Sexual Abuser by Jody Allard and Margaret Corvid.
Read it here: http://www.theestablishment.co/2016...
My response:
I agree with the writers’ assertion that mourning can and should be nuanced. (In fact, my will stipulates that speakers at my funeral aren’t to ignore my shortcomings.) Here’s the rub: by “exploring the nuance,” the writers seem to mean “Bowie’s alleged wrongdoings should be emphasized.”
The article contains two links. The first (“accused of rape”) is of a 1987 newspaper clipping with the headline “Jurors clear Bowie in rape case.” Apparently the writers did an opposed reading of the facts and decided that “Jurors clear Bowie” means “Jurors found Bowie guilty.” Yes, I know that false rape accusations are a rarity-undergoing a sexual assault forensic exam and being cross-examined in court isn’t something one does for shits and giggles, but if Allard and Corvid are at liberty to suggest that Bowie was guilty and used his wealth and influence to get off scot-free, then I have the right to suggest that the plaintiff might have hoped that falsely accusing a moneyed celebrity would prove fortuitous.
The second link (“statutory rape”) leads to a video. I expected a heartbreaking interview with someone who was coerced into doing something she didn’t want to. (Scenes from the powerful 2011 film Trust came to mind.) Instead we get the now adult Lori Maddox talking with fondness and through bursts of cheerful laughter about her days as an underage roadie and losing her virginity to Bowie in the early seventies. Does Maddox’s consent excuse Bowie? No, it most certainly does not. The flipside is that neither the newspaper clipping about him being cleared of rape nor the video of a happy adult reminiscing justify the writers’ need to jot down the venomous, sarcastic sentence “[My editor] told me to wait awhile [with this article] and let the mourners mourn. [Bowie’s] fans are often members of marginalized communities, and they may be triggered by his death. It’s not triggering, I suppose, for the millions of rape and sexual victims to watch Bowie be venerated as an icon when we know he was an abuser, too.”
It’s triggering for millions of rape and sexual victims to watch Bowie be venerated as an icon when we know he was an abuser, too?
Whoa.
