Spotlight: It Takes a Village

Warning: Spoilers.

Spotlight is a film that follows the Boston Globe as they uncover the systematic abuse and cover up of young children by Catholic priests. It is a brilliant film that understands its topic well and the impact of the abuse and its cover up, rather than simply sensationalising it. It has a good cast and is well acted by all. The reason I’m writing about it for my feminist blog is because it understands abuse very well and what it does to people; but also it displays the systematic nature of abuse brilliantly which is something films can struggle with. Often when we talk about abuse people have a certain idea of it in their head, they think that it happens and you go to the police and they believe you, investigate, and if they can arrest the person and then that’s it. But unfortunately if anything that is the exception to the rule. As is shown in Spotlight it is more like you’re abused, continuously, you try to get help but those who should listen don’t, your friends tell you to stop talking about it, the very people who should be there for you are the ones who turn their backs on you because they’re people and they believe rape myths, or want to keep their power, or are simply so arrogant and entitled that they think you deserved it and that they have the right to abuse and get away with it.

The film covers the topic from many angles as it wasn’t simply about the abuse from priests, or about the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team investigating it, but about them uncovering a large cover up, first in Boston and then stretching all through the system of the Catholic Church, of this same abuse. It looks at how it was done, how it affected the victims, and how individual men time and again tried hard to brush it under the rug. As it was men, by and large, that this film focused on; when we talk about systems its important remembering we live in a patriarchal world and this means that almost all, if not all, institutions are run by men. That’s not a value judgement or a myth or conspiracy but simple fact. Men run everything, they’re in the top positions of power almost everywhere and even where they’re not they still make up the majority of the rest of the powerful positions and even non-powerful positions. It’s worth remembering this because men on a patriarchal level feel entitled to most everything and this translates to their desire to control, abuse, and not even question it or the cover up.

In the film there was one priest in particular who Rachel McAdam’s character spoke to who simply, with no shame clarified that yes he’d molested young boys but that the focus of his actions should not be on what he did but that he isn’t gay. It was important to him, as a Catholic man, that his sexuality not be questioned as being homosexual was a much worse crime than the systematic abuse of children. But this also brings up a very important point that the film also slightly touched upon, that this abuse isn’t about sexuality or sexual desire but about control and power.

Though there was a part where one person who had studied these men somewhat blamed priest’s forced celibacy on their abuse it is, in my opinion, a misplaced blame. Celibacy was brought about for priests simply to stop the nepotism that was happening within the church. It is a very big lie that men have told themselves, and the rest of us, that men need sex; water, air, warmth, shelter and food are the things humans need but notice how sex isn’t one of them? Women account for 1% of rapes, a small percent of paedophiles, and a small, small amount of those who pay for sex and that is because all of those things are nothing to do with sex but to do with power and control. There are many women not having sex and they aren’t abusing because humans don’t need sex and men are not some special case they’re just kidding themselves.

It is clearer then that the abuse of young boys and girls is about a desire to manipulate, ruin lives, exercise control and power over vulnerable – often the most vulnerable – children as you follow the cover up. These men in the Catholic Church, the news, and other institutions such as law, spent a lot of time, effort and no doubt money to hide what these men did because they had the power to do so and they didn’t want to lose that power and face the consequences of their actions. This desire for power, the abuse that stems from having this power, and the evading of the consequences is a very common theme in films it’s just often not named, pointed out or used as the focus point of the film.

In Spotlight it has its Bad Guys who have clearly done wrong time and again but also it makes clear how the people you thought were Nice Guys were horrible all along. For instance, there is a character who is in the church who is friends with one of the reporters, Michael Keaton’s character, and we watch them do simple things like play golf, attend an event, have a beer and all the while this man knows the=at what his friend is investigating is real, widespread, and he too has been complicit in the cover up. This is another thing that often gets caught up in the myth that systematic abuse is some strange, unique scandal, these men are ordinary men not monsters, they have friends and wives and eat toast and brush their teeth during the times they’re not covering up abuse or committing it. It is important to remember these are ordinary men because it means they can be stopped, they can be caught by the police and brought to justice – but only if the other ordinary people help.

This is where it’s important to note that systematic abuse relies on many things but most importantly it relies on others believing that abuse isn’t really that bad, that the victims brought it upon themselves, and that the problem is someone else’s to deal with. Often when a victim comes forward with an accusation of abuse large amount of the public can be very quick to accuse them of lying, to make them the villain, and to choose to live in a world where women and children are horrible liars rather than a world where a portion of men are horrible abusers. The reality is the second world but it won’t go away if we pretend we live in the first, it’s that simple. People responded to this scandal, as is shown in the film, with shock that all of this happened and that it got covered up time and again but when you see how victims are treated it’s not that shocking; it’s actually pretty standard, even when its children coming forward, and it just helps things like this happen again.

The film is set in 2001 and there have been jokes about it being a historical piece, with technology so out of date and something so established and acknowledged being new and shocking but in terms of how people respond to victims it may as well be set today. As a public, as the institutions of law, and of newspapers many still respond to victims with the automatic response that they are liars, out of money and fame – as though any of these things are what meet victims, instead of hatred, death threats, and ruined lives. We still have so far to go in believing survivors, listening to their stories and trying everything we can to get them help, justice and men being held accountable for their choices and actions. Until we do we are helping nourish a system that can abuse freely and hide it for decades. We need to be more like Spotlight, thinking critically and reaching out with empathy and listening to those who have important stories to tell.