◎ Zhao Chen
Here she came, and Miss Downton Michelle Dockry came with the new Netflix series Anatomy of a Scandal.
In the opening scene, the camera follows Miss Kate's proud figure all the way through the courthouse hall and sets the tone of the series. Leaving the courthouse, the camera continues to follow. Along the way, through the wind and rain, through the darkness, she won again, and won a lawsuit that everyone thought was bound to lose, and the wine in the glass floated with victory bubbles, celebrating the victory and the beautiful appearance.
In the opening five minutes, neat camera editing, textured pictures, clever details, and just the right soundtrack all remind the audience that this is obviously a legal drama worth savoring. Lawyer Kate stands in front of the window, the low-saturated cold dark light and the rain curtain conceal the calm temperament, the transition, the camera is focused on Sophie in the warm light, a lively scene of floating light. The change of picture texture and the change of tone quickly outline the character of the character, and the transition of the window scene is closely related to the two. With Sophie's appearance, the question to be discussed in the main line of the series is also drawn, is Sophie's husband James a rapist?
Elite politicians, good men, prodigal sons
James Whitehouse, a promising young Westminster politician, a dazzling Conservative rookie, an Oxford graduate, a best friend of the Prime Minister, and a promising prospect. He is a hot political star, he has been in love with his wife for many years, and he remembers the marshmallow flavor that his children loved.
A rape charge shattered James' vision of a smooth life. The scene where James confesses his cheating to his wife Sophie is placed in the living room of the home, bounded by white flowers on the table, and the picture is divided in two, alluding to the cracks in this seemingly perfect marriage. The wife holds her head high on the left, and the picture contains warm bouquets of flowers and eye-catching family photos on the walls; The husband hung his head to the right, the wall behind him was empty, and the family photos were huddled in small frames and hidden in the shadows. In contrast, the family structure outside the male protagonist and the female protagonist is clear, and the importance of "home" to the two is also effectively distinguished, and the seemingly equal symmetrical structure is actually different in weight.
In the face of her husband's infidelity, wives often choose to endure in humiliation, which is a long-standing effective marriage formula.
James' cheating target, Olivia, filed a lawsuit accusing her of rape. After the incident, James rushed to the prime minister to check whether he had become an outcast due to the scandal, and the prime minister threw down the sentence "The prodigal son abides by the principle of silence" and turned away.
This is a playful line, the wandering son, in the play refers to the prime minister and James, who studied at top universities, have prominent families, act recklessly, and squander Bollinger champagne - the chief French champagne brand, a hundred years ago the British royal family - is just ordinary fun. They rely on privilege and have no lawlessness in their eyes, exactly: I take drugs, I indulge, I can't save me from death, but I am a good boy and will be a top elite in society in the future. Not only will the sex scandal not ruin James, but it will even win him the votes of older male fans, who see the number of female partners as clearly positively correlated with male attractiveness, after all, this is just a "mistake that men make all over the world".
This line is like a mystery, and to uncover the mystery is to uncover the cowardly true body of the privileged class of society, uncover its arrogance in playing with sex, power, and law, and uncover its exquisite coolness.
Marriage, cheating, rape
The central point of contention between the defense sides is whether the woman is consensual, and for the lawyers on both sides, who convicts the sex and who wins the match point.
It's not easy. First of all, Olivia's interference in other people's marriages makes her accusation suspected of "failure to ascend to the top, and thus deliberate revenge", and defending women's rights and interests can easily be reduced to personal love and private disputes; Secondly, the case occurred shortly after Olivia and James broke up, and the emotions of the two prevented the jury from believing that "the woman was involuntary"; In the end, James is in a high position and relies on the prime minister to take advantage of the coolness.
The generosity and ingenious maneuvering of the lawyers on both sides are a major attraction. Both defense lawyers happen to be women, but not all of their defended positions are women, and the gender similarities and positions make the series more intriguing. How the jury views rape in a relationship is a stalemate for both sides in this case, and marital rape was only criminalized in the United Kingdom in 1991, and women's autonomy has long been despised. In this case, the love of betrayal is also a kind of romantic relationship, and the grayscale of emotions makes the trial confusing, and the blurred boundary between "no objection" and "consent" increases the difficulty of the trial, and the two ups and downs tighten the audience's heart. A valid argument for James' defense counsel is that Olivia did not explicitly mention the word "don't" or explicitly express a refusal in the elevator; Kate believes that as long as you express a willingness to resist, even if you don't say the word "don't" directly, it is a rejection.
Seeing that the balance of victory was about to tie in James's favor, a dramatic turn came when an Oxford teacher called the police to accuse James of raping his female classmate Holly during college. This person is Sophie's school companion and Kate's history of her identity that Kate deliberately hides. Past memories and current reality are intertwined, hidden identities and forgotten facts emerge together, so far the series has two narrative threads, the bright line is the rape case sued by Olivia, the dark line is James' assault on Holly in college, and the two lines are integrated by Kate's identity.
The wife's reaction is another attraction in the trial scene. To defend James in the face of voters
Sophie had to accompany her to the court, and Sophie, who was in the audience, was able to examine everything that happened from a high place. With the possibility of transcendence and detachment with a high perspective, Sophie has the opportunity to re-examine her husband and twelve years of marriage. Previously, Nicole Kidman has shown in "Do Everything" what a wife who knows her husband's guilt and accompanies her to testify in court looks like, broken and neurotic. This time, Sienna Miller performed the swaying of a well-nourished noblewoman in the face of her chameleon husband, and the tenacity and sobriety of trying to rebuild her life and self in the fragments of scandal.
In order to exonerate himself, James accepted the defense lawyer's offer to use love as a guarantee and define the violation with a moment of passion, so James had to speak out about love in court. The wife's undoubtedly hurtful act of listening to his untouchable love when she stood up for her husband was undoubtedly deeply hurt. The trust of the wife helps the husband to cheat with peace of mind, and also to accompany the unfaithful husband to deal with the complaint, cruel irony.
More than half of the six episodes focus on the trial process, peeling back the cocoons and detailing them, looking at the reality inside and outside the courtroom and the complex subtleties of human nature like a magnifying glass, unveiling the evasion veil of the "principle of silence of the prodigal son", and crushing the mannerism, disrespect, and unequal power wrapped in the name of "Merry Flow".
Challenge, revenge, taunt
At the end of the trial, Kate, who will not lose, loses, and her loss means that Olivia and her past self have failed again after suffering a second tear and injury. The outcome of the trial made the audience aware of the difficulty of obtaining evidence and defending a rape case, the difficulty of an ordinary person wanting to challenge privilege, and the difficulty of a woman wanting to challenge an elite man.
Time will not erase the traces of violence, mute violence is still violence, and James twice inflicted sexual violence on women, destroying the lives of both women. As the French writer Inés Bayar described in the novel "Hidden Pain" about the great harm caused to women by sexual assault: "She was only thirty-two years old, her life was already wasted, and sometimes she felt that the blood in her body was no longer flowing, frozen in her weak limbs." ”
Unscathed, James rose to the top, in the words of the original novel: the door to his social and political recovery was wide open. After the victory, Sophie discovers that her husband has no intention of repentance, and he lies again, just like the Merry Night of the Oxford talents in college, they are indifferent to death and the collapse of the other's life. The privileged elite is good at several, and is not good at accepting rejection. Therefore, James believes that what happened between him and the two raped women is a voluntary act, and naturally has no resentment. He saw the woman's rejection as tease, so in both assaults James said, "Don't be such a prick-tease." (Don't play with me.) Such words are not only a neglect of women's wishes, but also a manifestation of the high inflation of self-personality. The people of the Whitehouse family, good at everything, right in everything, this is the elite family principle that James has followed since childhood, and he now teaches this rule to his children. When Sophie saw this scene, her heart was shocked. She was both a wife and a mother, and the latter made her more aware of her husband's horrors.
When a good wife's dream is broken, it is also when a woman wakes up. Sophie, fed up with all the forbearance of Mrs. Whitehouse's identity, reported her husband to the media. Not only did James not escape prosecution, but the prime minister was also held accountable for the Oxford case in college, walked out of Downing Street, and was taken away by the police under the public gaze.
However, it is ironic that a single phone call from Mrs. Whitehouse solves what the gold medal lawyer, Miss Kate, has failed to do in five and a half episodes. The victory of the ending is not a victory for the media, nor a victory for women, but just another form of the triumph of privilege: defeating magic with magic, overcoming privilege with privilege. What really worked was Sophie's surname; This is not only a gender challenge, but also a question of privilege.
The ending of "Anatomy of a Scandal" is so ideal that the audience will have to return to reality after watching it, after all, reality often stops at a failed trial. But that's not a reason for us to criticize the show, and "Morning News" starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon also took this way of closing, two female anchors took the risk of telling the truth about sexual assault within the company to the public, and they trembled and insisted on telling the truth, and that moment was a victory for truth, a victory for humanity. Despite the differences, both series explore a path of female voice, a path that gives women the strength and confidence to speak boldly.