Tonight I watched Channel 4’s documentary, Revenge Porn in which Anna Richardson speaks to the victims and the perpetrators of revenge porn, and investigates the platforms that allows for people to upload explicit photos of others. Such websites are for the purpose of “seeking revenge”, being abusive and humiliating those who are depicted in the photos.
Revenge Porn in the context of this documentary was the act of someone using photos that they had been sent, in one case filmed without consent, and posting them online, on websites without the persons consent that are involved. An example used in the programme was Ex’s using old nudes that their previous partner had sent them giving it the term “revenge porn”.
Anna Richardson, who is well-known for her “entertaining” programme on the taboo subject of sex on Channel 4, like her previous series The Sex Education Show, where she offers candid information and advice on the subject. I thought it was somehow ironic that she has been the center of a subject that she has little experience of the topic, until she proceeds to in the documentary , take nude photos of herself enhance them so that her face is not recognisable, creating a fake profile with a different name and story to her own uploads them to a revenge porn website to ” understand what she is investigate”. I fully appreciate that it took, to a degree, guts, courage, bravery (and so on) to upload your naked body for a community of online people who you do not know, and comment on these picture in order to humiliate and abuse you, I acknowledge that. I would have found more condescending if she hadn’t of carried this out then I already found her, I still do not think this was necessary to create a succesful documentary about the experiences of Revenge Porn.
Firstly, she did not have to post those pictures so that she could experience what the people she interviewed was feeling to create a succesful documentary on the subject. Secondly she can not have experience the same emotions that those people were feeling in the same way, Anna Richardson had the power of choice and authority over the images that she chose to put up, she could not experience the loss of that authority or choice.
Authority is such a big theme in this programme, for me it has so many issues – authority in this programme to tell and document this topic has been given to a privileged white woman (although I would have been more angered if this documentary was voiced by a man) who can have no full understanding of what it is like to be in that position. Instead of having an in-depth documentation and researched programme about individuals sharing their own experience and investigation the industry that is created, we receive experiences that are mediated through the authoritative voice of a privileged woman who has no full understanding of what she is mediating, instead we have this mediation and her own manipulated story of what she is “investigating” and the focus is shifted from experiences of others and centered around Anna Richardson. I feel that in a way her creating the profile with the pictures manipulates the audience to empathise with her which I find sick (which is a production issue not necessarily down to Anna Richardson) when the audience should be empathizing with those who have not been paid to create the documentary and post picture of their own free will on a revenge porn website. I suppose it derives from part of this celebrity culture where the authority voice of the white privileged women means that it is acceptable to talk about and gives the topic authority where is the documentary had been produced with a faceless narrator or a faceless journalist it may not have had the same authority or publication.
For me, I feel I would have gained a lot more from having experiences told to me from people who had experienced the loss of their choice in comparison to a privileged woman who has been given a platform, been paid and chosen to take pictures and put them online, plus towards the end of the programme we understand that the pictures were then taken down mysteriously by the website for reasons unknown.
Again, I am not fully bashing Anna Richardson, as I do think that to some degree she has risen awareness of what can happen to people and some people may benefit from information from the programme.
As i was watching the programme, I was on social media looking at the hashtag RevengePorn and some of the reactions were absolutely disgusting and vile they do not even worth mentioning. I found others quite infuriating, a lot of the tweets I saw involved things like “It’s a female problem” or “educate the younger female generation”. This frankly, pissed me off. It is not or ever will be a female problem. END OF. I have tried to be gender neutral throughout this post because it involves everyone on every side. Females and Males can be the victim just as much as the perpetrator, in the case that they showed where a girl posted a video of her best friend who also was a girl, there a lots of different situations that means you can not make a generalised statement as a fact, according to the programme it did seem however, that a large majority of the shaming was carried out by men on images of women, doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t happen the other way round. Also, age, when did this become a factor in deciding an issue that is rooted in society carried down through generations? You could argue that an older generation may know less about technology, so are less likely to know where pictures may end up? It is not a younger generations problem – yes by all means educate them – but educate everyone so everyone is aware male and female, young and old.
Another reaction went along the lines of “if someone sends nudes to someone else, you should expect them to end up on the internet, therefore its their own fault” HELL NO! If you DID NOT get permission or consent to do anything other than look at them on your phone or app or whatever you are receiving them on, then you are a criminal and can be persecuted by law. Just because someone sends a nude does not mean it is acceptable for it to be posted for an entire community online to see. In my eyes it’s like saying that if a woman is wearing a revealing top or skirt or looks at you, she wanted it. NO its called RAPE. Same thing, it is ABUSE to use someone else image especially for the sole person of humiliations.
What frustrates me more is the fact that the platforms that the images are being posted on and allows for people to make comments that are sexual, threatening and violent are not illegal and therefore are allowed to exist. it is not “just how things are” or “how the internet works” it is wrong plain and simple and if you feel like you would like to learn more about how to stop revenge porn then there is a campaign and a website that you can find out more from. >>> End Revenge Porn
B x
Pieces of My Mind 