Last week, Emma Thompson told the BBC in an interview that she hoped the Harvey Weinstein scandal has revealed that s*xual assault is “endemic” in the Hollywood industry—and in society—saying that she “spent [her] 20s trying to keep old men’s tongues out of [her] throat.” At Elle’s Women in Hollywood event in Beverly Hills Monday night, Jennifer Lawrence proved just how right Thompson was when she shared her own story of s*xual assault and abuse early in her career,
Lawrence, who received an Oscar nomination for her first film,
Winter’s Bone, at 20, said that when she first began acting as a teen she
was made to take part in a “n*ked line-up,” where she and a group of other,
“much, much thinner” women “stood side-by-side with only paste-ons covering
[their] privates.” Lawrence said it only got worse from there: “After that
degrading and humiliating lineup, the female producer told me I should use
the n*ked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet.”
When she went to a producer for the film (she did not name the
title), to inquire about the odd casting process, “he responded by telling
me he didn’t know why everyone thought I was so fat; he thought I was
perfectly ‘fuckable.’” She went on to say she felt “trapped” because she
didn’t have any power in the situation as an unknown actress.
“I
have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly, and I found
it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate,” she said. “A
lot of the feelings I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the
guilt for not speaking up earlier or taking action. True disgust at the
director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger that I felt at
the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition
of my employment.”
Stories like Lawrence’s and Witherspoon’s have cropped up
across the Internet as part of the “#metoo” campaign that actress Alyssa
Milano has encouraged s*xual assault survivors to take part in. Youth
activist Tarana Burke began the campaign in 2007. America Ferrera has added
her own story to the fold via an Instagram post Monday night. In it, she
wrote that she was s*xually assaulted when she was 9 years old.
“I
told no one and lived with the shame and guilt thinking that I, a 9-year-old
child, was somehow responsible for the actions of a grown man,” she
said.
In her remarks Monday, Lawrence added that as her career went
on, she began to understand the problematic truth that notoriety could
protect her from assault. As a budding actress, a regular girl, she had no
power to shut down an abuser. But as soon as she became a star, featured in
the multi-million dollar Hunger Games series, her “no” suddenly carried a
lot more power.
She told the audience, “in a dream world,
everyone is treated with the exact same level of respect. But, until we
reach that goal, I will lend my ear. I will lend my voice to any boy, girl,
man, or woman who does not feel like they can protect
themselves.”