Unbelievable
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
What will get you is the repetition.
So heres what Marie says happened.
She was talking to her former boyfriend, now friend, Conner on the phone late at night.
How she pants, helpless and face-down on her bed.
The way her rapist pinches her hips as he moves on top of her.
Here they come, here comes help, Judith assures Marie as that first officer comes through the door.
But no specialized advocate joins her side.
No reassuring hand squeezes her shoulder.
Nobody flat out asks what exactly the thing is that she needs.
And the process is interminable photo after photo, followed by needles, jabs, and more questions.
She cartwheeled, the tabloids reported.
She even gasp stretched.
In serious situations, young women, it seems, are meant to grow hysterical or maintain perfect seriousness.
Its all distressingly clinical and dry nearly 30 minutes of procedure and questioning.
And yet its also some of the most moving television Ive seen in years.
Unbelievabledoesnt stop there in its indictments of how bystanders handle the rape of a friend or loved one.
But she is determined that Maries trauma look and sound like what she expects.
Marie doesnt want to live in the reality of her rape.
The specifics are slim, but in general, this was not the story of a happy childhood.
Its cruelty in the guise of kindness, but theres plenty of blame to go around.
Inherent inUnbelievables premise is that, well, Maries story is unbelievable.
Though not for any of the reasons we so commonly associate with disbelieved women.
Shes poor and young and doesnt have a stream of lawyers sitting next to her in the interrogation room.
First the detectives come at Marie with her family-services file, brandishing sympathy as a sword.
You havent been cared for or protected, they say without a hint of awareness.
This is a waste of our time, the detectives say to berate her.
What do you think should happen to someone who would lie about something like this?
Meanwhile, the young woman theyre meant to be protecting is dangling, physically and emotionally.
