If you’re on TikTok, you can’t have missed the 365 DNI (which translated from Polish to 365 Days) content. First it was videos of women – often teenagers – reacting to the film which has been condemned by sexual abuse charities for glorifying rape, kidnapping and domestic violence. They'd record themselves watching the infamous boat scene or the neck grab moment, their face, eyes-wide with shock and lust. ‘Massimo can kidnap me anytime,’ captions will read. ‘If you haven’t seen this film, you need to,’ others might encourage.
At the time, campaigners like We Can't Consent To This warned people of the dangers of this video trend romanticising a film that glorifies abuse. Now, their fears have been proven right. A disturbing video posted to TikTok by one user (who from her other videos we can only assume is still in school) shows her gleefully recording her battered and bruised video with the caption 'Decided to watch 365 Days with my "guy friend"'. The video, which now has over 33million views, has received 5.5million likes so far.
The reason this is so harrowing is not just because of the video itself, but because of the platform it's been posted on. TikTok is an app known for being ‘full of kids’, with a 60% audience of users aged 16-24, you need to be at least 13 to be on it – and the platform's most popular user, Charli D'Amelio, is just 15. Given the lack of sex and consent education, certainly in UK schools, this trend towards BDSM-based content on TikTok raises some worrying questions.
The reaction to 365 DNI is the perfect example of that, because the scenes so many are lusting after and now apparently recreating, are not 'sexy', they're rape.
Netflix describes the film as follows: ‘A fiery executive in a spiritless relationship falls victim to a dominant mafia boss, who imprisons her and gives her one year to fall in love with him.’ Already, you read the premise with a flinch. Googling it, you can see that after its initial February release in Poland it received criticism for romanticising kidnapping. But what it never received backlash for was its glorying of sexual abuse – for which the film does heavily.
Within 10 minutes of watching Netflix’s 365 DNI, there is a scene of sexual assault. ‘Dominant mafia boss’ Massimo, played by Michele Morrone, is on a private jet with two of his colleagues and one female cabin crew member. After being informed that their cocaine has been stolen, he gets up, closes a curtain and accosts the wide-eyed cabin crew member – his employee – who looks at him nervously before he pushes her on her knees to give him oral sex. The three-minute scene, which is intermitted with scenes of female lead Laura, played by Anna-Maria Sieklucka, masturbating alone, is rough - with him holding the cabin crew member's head onto him the entire time and choking her without letting her come up for air before finishing and walking back to his seat.
It’s this kind of 'rough sex' people seemingly watch the film for, but this is not simply rough sex, this is rape. Not only does Massimo never get verbal consent from the woman, the fact she’s an employee of his trapped on a place with three mafia bosses is an obvious and unsubtle abuse of power.
The abuse continues throughout the film after he kidnaps his victim, Laura, and threatens her with violence, warning her she will stay with him for at least a year so he can convince her to fall in love with him (side note: if we haven’t mentioned, the film is also absolutely awful).
He tells her he will never touch her without her permission, which she says he will never have, and yet in one scene puts his hands down her trousers and sexually assaults her in front of other people. In another, he restrains her on a bed and forces her to watch him have sex with another woman while she visibly tries to escape. After, she verbally begs him to stop as he licks and molests her – all the while with a look on her face that’s meant to convince the viewer she actually likes it – before he gets up, annoyed and leaves her.
As viewers, we're meant to yearn for him to rape her.
This is where the terrifying implication of what this movie is doing kicks in, because despite the fact he’s already assaulted her, we’re meant to think he’s a hero by not going on to rape her. The viewer is left with the impression that even though she said no, she secretly wants him – we’re meant to yearn for him to rape her.
Both scenes I’ve seen all over TikTok are examples of abuse too. The neck grab scene, something we’re meant to view as a sexy example of domination, is plain violence against a woman he has just kidnapped who is trying to escape. To underage viewers on TikTok, this sort of behaviour seems to be worthy of lust. According to the law, it's worthy of a criminal conviction (in theory: conviction rates for violence against women in the UK are woefully low).
The massively searched-for boat scene is where the abuse really becomes complicated though. While Laura initiates the sex in the 10-minute long scene, at this point she has been his captive for months - potentially suffering from Stockholm Syndrome - and she’s also still not allowed to leave for the rest of the year . Can you say that sex with a man who threatens you with violence if you escape him is consensual?
At this point, he's also just saved her from drowning after an argument saw her fall off his yacht. The argument ensued because he blames her for being sexually assaulted by a fellow mafia boss - a man he then shoots in retaliation because apparently, only he’s allowed to rape Laura. This, readers, is the scene in which she's meant to fall in love with him.
And that's the most terrifying thing about this entire movie - we’re meant to see this as a romantic film. We’re meant to root for Massimo and Laura. She’s an unhappy wife, stuck with a man who doesn’t appreciate her sexually or otherwise. He’s an orphan turned ruthless because of the death of his father, forced to run an empire he didn’t want a part in and spending his entire life seeking Laura, who he decides is the love of his life without knowing one thing about her except that she’s beautiful.
The film has been compared to its less graphic but similarly problematic counterpart Fifty Shades of Grey. Its success is virtually guaranteed, with reports that two sequels are already in the works. But we can't forget that films like this not only completely misrepresent the BDSM community – of which verbal consent is the main pillar – but perpetuate rape culture and miseducation around consent.
‘Romanticising sexual assault allows the audience to view this type of violence as acceptable,’ a spokesperson from the We Can’t Consent To This campaign said. ‘Violence against women is a longstanding, endemic problem, and attitudes are slow to change. We know that marital rape was a key feature of old romantic novels, from the time before this was made a crime in the UK - this might shock us now, but only because attitudes have moved over 30 years. Platforms like TikTok welcome users aged 13 and up - children are a core part of their user group, and are getting a clear message that sexual violence is ok, that it's ok if she doesn't consent.’
Equally, for people who watch the film unaware of the abuse – like I did – or see it on TikTok everyday – as I have – it can be a hugely triggering experience. Women I spoke to who have seen the film (unaware of the content without the warning) and experienced rape or sexual assault themselves said that they were left feeling scarred not just from watching the scenes but from the message the film sends to young viewers and the way it emboldens those who believe you do not have to ask for verbal consent.
It can be extremely harmful to sexual assault survivors.
‘Films like this diminish the traumatic impact of sexual assault,’ the spokesperson for WCCTT continued. ‘This normalisation of sexual violence - presenting criminal assault as sexy, romantic and desirable - can be extremely harmful to sexual assault survivors and can even discourage them, and future victims, from making sense of what's happened to them, and speaking out.’
At a time when MPs have finally responded to Grazia’s campaign to end the rough sex defence (also called the 50 Shades defence) and banned it for good, this should be when we’re celebrating the coming end of men literally getting away with the murder of women by using this defence. And yet, a film that glorifies the rape, abuse and kidnapping of women in name of a love of ‘rough sex’ is still sitting at the top of Netflix’s top 10 films recommended page over a month after its release and the subsequent backlash.
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