Recently, another sensational #Metoo sexual assault case was made into a documentary by Netflix.
Compared to Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, which swept the screen last month, the crime recorded in "Athlete A" is worse than —
It is considered one of the biggest scandals in the world of sports, with more than 300 women confirmed to have been violated by the same person.
USA Gymnastics Team Sexual Assault Scandal Tracking / Athlete A 2020
The development of the whole incident is more similar to the red, yellow and blue, Bao Yuming, and the infamous American priest sexual assault case:
Prisoners establish a noble image externally, deceive and gain trust internally, and carry out manipulation.
Taking advantage of the young ignorance of the victims, they extend their claws to the young girls again and again.
The process of whistle-blowing and investigation has been obstructed everywhere, and the money rights and harms involved in it have been constantly unclear until now.
What's more, at the center of the storm was the American Gymnastics Association, a place that has won countless honors for the United States.
Until the truth is truly revealed, few people believe that such a thing will happen here.
"Athlete A" unveils this fig leaf behind the honor.
It covers the entire process of investigation, from shocking statements of fact to uplifting and courageous revelations.
"He put the fingers of his left hand into my lower body, and my mother watched me being treated, and I thought she saw it, but in fact his left hand was covered by a towel and my mother didn't see anything."
"He treated me this many times. I thought he was my friend and he often complimented me on Facebook. I was only 15 years old, and I thought he was giving me a beauty."
"He gave me a chest massage. His aggression against me started when I was 13 and I retired when I was 18."
……
In the documentary, the testimonies of different girls appear in turn.
These gymnasts don't know each other, the age difference is close to 20 years at most, and they are all violated by the same person in their teens.
U.S. Gymnastics Team Doctor, Larry Nassar.
Larry has been the athletic coach of the U.S. gymnastics team since 1986, and to outsiders, he is highly respected, a good doctor, a good father.
He holds several medical degrees, has served on several university sports teams, is passionate about public welfare, and has 2 sons and 1 daughter with his wife.
When he ran for chairman of Holt's board of education in 2016, he also received 21 percent of the vote.
Even on the American Gymnastics Team, he was called "the only light."
"Larry was the only person on the gymnastics team at the time who was better off," said Jamie Danzecher, an interviewee in the documentary, recalling the gymnastics team's experience.
Therefore, when the sexual assault case was exposed, no one could believe that behind his glamorous appearance, there was a 29-year history of sexual assault.
From Michigan State University to the American Gymnastics Association, he extended his black hand to hundreds of female gymnasts on the grounds of treatment, leaving them with a lifetime of shadows.
He also uploaded some of the treatment videos to the Internet, accompanied by professional commentary.
But if you just look at the picture, you will find that his treatment almost does not wear gloves as prescribed, beyond the normal contact range.
According to a later indictment, Larry also sexually assaulted athletes at the Olympic Village during the 2012 London Olympics.
It's hard to imagine how many more girls would have been killed without someone coming forward to stop all this.
In the summer of 2015, Maggie Nichols became the first person to officially prosecute Larry Nassar, known as "Athlete A."
Her uptures, along with the Indianapolis Star's investigation, quickly caused an uproar.
Letters of denunciation from more than a hundred athletes flocked to the scene, and under the wave of #Metoo sports, the number soon rose to more than 500.
Whistleblowers even include Olympic medalists Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney.
But when they stepped forward, they were attacked by vicious words at the beginning.
"Why do you want to be called sexual assault?"
"Why didn't you come forward to report it until now?"
"Why didn't you reject him at that time?"
"Athlete A" takes Athlete A as the whistleblower as the core, and spends a lot of ink to answer these "whys".
To understand these issues, it is necessary to understand who she will fight under this system and the price she will have to pay to stand up.
"Athlete A" is the code name for Maggie Nichols in internal USA Gymnastics emails.
It is also a code name for bravery.
Maggie Nichols
Before Maggie, it wasn't that no one had the idea of reporting.
USA Gymnastics documents show that sexual assault complaints from 54 coaches and staff have been documented.
But these people can still move from one agency to another, and have been reported many times still doing gymnastics-related work.
Darkness and corruption within the Usa gymnastics can be imagined, and the price to pay to combat it is extremely expensive.
Unlike most other sports we know well, American athletes train on an individual basis.
Gymnastics in the United States has long implemented a concentration camp-style training method, because this project pays more attention to "boy skills".
Since 1976, when 14-year-old Romanian athlete Nadia Comaneci won the Olympic Games, "Boy Scouts" have flourished in gymnastics worldwide.
Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci (1961 -)
In the United States, it has long been the norm for gifted children to be sent to training camps for intensive training in their early 10s.
According to the description in the documentary, the child's parents are not allowed to enter the boot camp, and there is not even a signal near the boot camp.
The American Gymnastics Association is absolutely closed, with an almost independent management system, under which a group of underage girls.
The abuse of power is almost inevitable.
They block all negative information, digest it internally, and control this group of girls with violence and threats.
"Corporal punishment and violence are prevalent, and mental and physical blows are the norm, so much so that all athletes become submissive and helpless".
In this environment, Dr. Larry becomes the only "good guy" in the minds of the girls.
But his "good people and good deeds" now seem creepy:
"He would hide snacks under the girls' pillows and sing and tell them jokes during the treatment."
Why didn't many of the girls refuse Larry's aggression?
Because they are in their early teens, many of them don't even know what sexual assault is.
Because they have absolute trust and dependence on Larry, they don't want to believe that Larry will harm them.
Why don't the girls in the know report Larry?
Because they don't dare.
Some of them come here are poor people, and some people with gymnastics dreams. The American Gymnastics Association, on the other hand, has enough power to put an instant end to anyone's career.
To fight against it means to gamble on one's own life and dreams.
Maggie Nichols became the first person to dare to stand on this "life table".
Prior to that, she had won medals in international competitions four times and was a rising star for the U.S. national team.
The 2015 whistleblowing directly led to her losing the 2016 national team race.
But her courage to stand up against the system and the system in exchange for more medals than for this place that doesn't care about herself is obviously much more meaningful.
More victims have been encouraged by her, and with the confidence and opportunity to stand up, the evil people will eventually have bad retribution.
Larry's ending has been seen on the news in recent years.
The FBI arrested him in December 2016 after discovering more than 37,000 images of child pornography at his residence, as well as a video of him molesting underage girls.
Larry will serve 300 years in prison and is guaranteed to die in prison.
Alleged sexual assaulters involved in USA Gymnastics Association documents have also been sentenced.
In 2018, Missouri State University compensated $500 million to 332 victims, the highest amount a university paid for a sexual abuse case in history.
But the matter is far from over, the corruption and darkness of the American Gymnastics Association remains, and Larry's downfall does not fundamentally solve the problem.
"Unfortunately, for many other USA Gymnastics victims, we still don't have a final solution."
Film directors Jon Schenck (left) and Bonnie Cohen (right)
In an interview with the BBC, the film's director Jon Shenk said that the documentary still has regrets, and the marketization of gymnastics may be the culprit:
"Many organizations, including the U.S. Gymnastics Team, have no policies in place to protect athletes. With the marketization of gymnastics, I fear that the evil deeds of those in power will be ignored."
The whole documentary has a considerable proportion of depicting the drawbacks of the marketization of gymnastics.
Jon Schenck believes that the market-oriented layout of gymnastics has accelerated the collapse of the entire American gymnastics system.
Young gymnasts are all packaged as national heroes and staunch dreamers.
In fact, however, from the moment they entered the gymnastics team, they lost their other options under sticks and threats.
In an interview, one athlete said, "I'm not proud of the U.S. team."
Under this premise, looking back at some of the glory moments of the American Gymnastics Team, the discomfort suddenly arose.
There was a classic moment at the 1996 Olympics when Kerri Strug won a gold medal in vaulting for the U.S. team.
She seriously injured her ankle during the first jump, but still endured the pain to complete the follow-up performance.
Her courage and dedication were universally praised at the Olympics and became the focus of the overwhelming marketing of the American press that year.
But when I saw this scene again, I couldn't relate it to courage and dedication.
Only one girl could be seen suffering, and Coach Caroly did not check the injury, but just shouted sternly, "You can do it."
At the 2016 Olympics, McKayla Maroney, who won the silver medal, showed a twisted expression on the podium.
This expression was made into an emoji in that year, which was considered to be a manifestation of not accepting defeat.
President Barack Obama even imitated her.
But as McKayla's name appeared on the list of whistleblowers of the American Gymnastics Association, claiming that she had been forced to sign a "gag agreement" with the American Gymnastics Association, I couldn't laugh at the meme.
All the glory of the American Gymnastics Association is based on the dreams and health consumption of these girls, and their efforts eventually become marketing tools.
In their minds, athletes seem to be just code names like "Athlete A" and "Athlete B".
The shocking poster for "Athlete A" has this sentence:
Is it worth paying for it all to win?
Was winning worth the cost？
For this disregard for human rights and athletes' health association, it is not worth it.
The brightest moment in my personal mind fell on "Athlete A" Maggie Nichols.
The image of her just entering the gymnastics team and the video of her playing out of the darkness were edited together.
She walked into the gymnastics training ground with her dreams, the girls behind her shouting her name, and smiles almost covered her entire face.
Coming out of the darkness, she stepped onto the field she aspired to and became the 9th NCAA (National University Games) Grand Slam athlete in American history.
On the podium, the smile returned to her face.
This smile is where the light comes in.
Although the darkness of the Usabolic Gymnastics Association has not completely dissipated, the light will never appear without the courage of the AthleteS to let the world see this darkness.
In the film's review, I saw the following sentence: "No matter how much darkness is piled up, you can't see any light."
This can almost be the attitude of some people to the series of Netflix documentaries.
But the question is: if even the darkness cannot be seen, how can we know the direction of the light?
This article was first published in the Adventure Movie: Cinematik
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