The power of the media is real. At the end of August, almost 200 photos of celebrities, most of them nude and of women, were obtained and disseminated through the Internet by an incisive attack on Apple users’ account information. Many of those targeted have denied the legitimacy of the photos, including Ariana Grande, but others have confirmed them. After a long silence, Jennifer Lawrence’s recent response, in particular, to the scandal, or as she calls it, “sex crime,” is extremely powerful and serves as a reminder of the utter dominance of the media today – including over invasion of privacy, which is a constitutionally protected right.
Lawrence is on the cover of Vanity Fair’s November issue and spoke in great detail about the incident with the magazine. Often, celebrities are not afforded the same privacy as other individuals because they are just that: celebrities in the spotlight by choice. Still, Lawrence argues, “Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this.” She elaborates that since it is her own body, it is supposed to be her own personal choice of who gets to see it. The fact that she was deprived of this choice is “absolutely disgusting,” she said.
Lawrence even declares those who just glanced at her photos are participating in a sexual crime. “You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, ‘Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.’ I don’t want to get mad, but at the same time I’m thinking, I didn’t tell you that you could look at my naked body,” she said.
Dylan Schlesinger heard about Lawrence’s response and called it eye opening – “I want to apologize to her, that this happened to her,” she said.
Lawrence concluded her interview by saying time does have the ability to heal and her own happiness cannot depend on catching the perpetrators. Life does go on. A lesson though, for all, is that these celebrities are real women and women are given the right to privacy under the Constitution of the United States.
Sources:
http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/2014/10/jennifer-lawrence-cover
http://mic.com/articles/100674/everyone-needs-to-read-jennifer-lawrence-…