Jennifer Lawrence has put a foot wrong in Cannes. And we don't mean just tripping over an expensive gown she's been loaned for the evening. She's caused a whole lot of controversy by making a throwaway rape joke at the Vanity Fair party.
Vulture reported that, at the party, they witnessed Jennifer screaming over to someone – Alfonso Cuarón, the director of Gravity who won, like, a billion Oscars this year. '"I broke out my rape scream for you!" she cried and grabbed his shoulders and screamed "Ahhhhh!!!" shaking her head like a crazed fan, or a woman in distress, into his face,' they report. 'Cuarón seemed quite pleased with his greeting.'
Now, it's tempting to have a massive go at Jennifer for trivialising a rape scream, which is not only wrong but bizarre, too – even if she probably never expected to be reported. But we're not sure how that's going to help anyone.
The thing is, when even media-trained celebrities like J-Law and Miley Cyrus (who recently said at G-A-Y that 'everyone's a little bit gay' and, if they're not, you could always 'sprinkle something in their drink' to turn them) are making these sorts of comments, well, we've got a big problem. A problem that goes way bigger than celebrities. But perhaps goes some way into explaining the grim statistics that police are failing to even log a record number of sexual assaults and that although 90 per cent of rape victims said they knew the identity of their attacker, just 15 per cent went to the police, saying it was ‘too embarrassing’, ‘too trivial’ or a ‘private/family matter'. The so-called banter that exists around rape can only help fuel those feelings.
So while celebrities aren't alone in trivialising rape – and perhaps a wider point is to ask why that's happening in the first place – they do have a massive influence. And if it's okay for them to get away with saying something offensive, then other people feel it gives them licence to do so, too. Besides, surely these forward-thinking, thoroughly-modern young women like J-Law and Miley need to catch up with themselves. These jokes are positively medieval.
** Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson**
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.