Brave

by Rose McGowan

Few in Hollywood, and no actress that I can recall, has gone rogue.

Improper grammar.

I saw an eleven-year-old girl being forced to sit next to a naked man, with his floppy dick on his leg.

Flippant.

Although the boys certainly got nailed, too.

Flippant.

I was taken to Denny’s, a chain restaurant with frankly terrible food, the worst that American cuisine has to offer.

Really cleaning out her closet here.

Probably the first time I ever saw anything sexual was walking into my mom and Lawrence’s bedroom. I didn’t even understand what was going on, when suddenly a shoe was thrown at me. That was my introduction to sex. A shoe to the head.

Nice to see some restraint for once.

The truth of it is, the shame was not mine, and for all victims in similar situations, it is not ours. The shame is reserved for every creep who has ever touched us inappropriately. The shame is on the abuser, not the victim, not the survivor. It is tragic that so many of us have to survive this kind of crap, and I’m so sorry if it has happened to you.

Actually poignant.

When we are trained from a young, young age, when we are steeped in that, we don’t learn to see our own worth. We don’t realize that it is us all along who are worth the gold; we are told that we have to settle for silver.

And THAT is how you fall into an abusive relationship: when you start acting in a way so as not to upset the other person or set them off. You’ve given away control of your own life, bit by bit, bit by bit. It’s incremental, until one day, you have hidden so much of yourself you get lost.

In hindsight, I was surrendered to a guy I barely knew. But even though I was abandoned and held a lot of anger about that, I now realize that growing up how I did, you go where the love is, and if the only love you’re getting is coming from men who say they want you, then of course a girl’s going to go to that. It sets you up for failure. It sets you up for loss of life.

You accept the love you think you deserve.

I have never met a female method actor. To me, “I’m a method actor” is usually synonymous with “I’m going to be a fucking dick to everybody on set.”

“Gentlemen, let me give you some truth. The second you can make a child feel less alone, the second you can move somebody to tears, the second you can make somebody feel, think, and live through you by being a creative, by being an artist, the second you can do that, you can discuss why I went out with somebody who is more creative in his little pinkie than you will ever be in your goddamn boring life with your fucked-up value system and your bloated ego that is not warranted for any fucking reason that I can discern. Alone in the dark at the end of your life, you will be an empty suit in a coffin. You will leave nothing and be nothing. Good night, gentlemen.”

And then the whole restaurant clapped.

All told I was fake married three times on film before my “real” marriage. By then, I was repeating an emotional scene I’d already played. Your entertainment comes at a cost to us performers. You should know this and acknowledge.

Okay.

That’s how dumb they think you audiences are. If a character changes their set look in any way, audiences won’t know who they are looking at. I wish you could all be flies on the wall when studio executives and producers talk about you all. Believe me, you are looked at as sheep with no minds of your own.

This kind of aggression I can get behind. That's not directed at me, the reader.

Yes, there are other industries where there is screaming, but you have to understand, there is zero federal oversight in Hollywood.

Back and forth.

I’ve found that when someone tells you they love you too fast and overwhelms you and wants to move in right away, it’s a trap. Know a man like that most likely wants to own you and control you in order to make himself feel powerful and significant. Know that things will change.

Yes, you had Zoe Bell, and Tracie Thoms, and Rosario Dawson kicking some ass, but look what’s done to the other women.

Missed the point entirely.

But rape as a plot device needs to be shut down. For starters, it’s lazy writing: there are plenty of other ways of developing a female character into a badass or motivating a female character to take action. Worse: it’s exploitative. Even worse: it’s retraumatizing to the women who have been molested or raped, and it’s damaging to the actress, who has to pretend she’s being assaulted while the cinematographer is on her ass trying to make viewers think, This chick’s hot. It’s nearly impossible to not feel like the violation is real.