April 16, 2024 • 52 mins
Evan Rachel Wood’s documentary Phoenix Rising paints a horrifying picture of abuse she experienced by Brian Warner, also known as Marylin Manson.
Bridget joins Sam and Anney at the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You to talk through why it’s also a tech accountability issue.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just a quick heads up. Today's episode talks about sexual
violence There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a
production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and
this is there Are No Girls on the Internet. Fifty
(00:21):
five year old Brian Warner, who you might know better
rest his stage name Marilyn Manson, is melting a big
comeback tour. He announced his first tour date since multiple
women came forward saying he sexually abused them, a now
familiar page from the Abuser playbook. Warner is actually suing
one of his survivors, actor Evan rachel Wood, for defamation
(00:42):
and emotional distress. The suit is ongoing, but back in January,
a judge ordered Warner to pay her court costs. So
why am I talking about this on a tech podcast?
I got into how this is actually a tech and
platform accountability issue with my friends Samantha and Annie over
at the podcast Stuff. Mom never told you.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't come to Steph.
I never told your protection of iHeart Radio and today
we are thrilled to once again be joined by the amazing,
fantastic Bridget Todd.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Hi, Bridget, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for
having me. Always such a pleasure to be joining you, ladies.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, and happy belated birth Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Thank you. Yeah, I had a birthday. I almost kind
of forgot because it happened at a weird time, but
thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
You were in the middle of your travels, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I was in Austin, Texas for south By Southwest. It's
not a bad place to spend your birthday, but it
kind of happened very quickly and I kind of forgot
about it. I was getting on the plane to go
back home and the person who checked my ID was like, oh,
happy belated birthday, and I said, oh, that's right. I
did have a person thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah. I think someone recently asked me how old I was,
and I like paused to think about it. Get back
to you on that, But yeah, how was your south
By Southwest experience?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It was good and it was interesting. You know, it
was the first time they had done it since COVID.
It was cool. I have to shout out the fact
that probably every other panel or like talk like speech
or talk that I saw was a trans person or
a non binary person really speaking out against some of
(02:39):
the like horrific legislation we've seen in Texas. And there
were lots of women speaking out about like the horrible
abortion legislation in Texas. So even though it felt a
little bit strange to be in Texas, I was, I
left so empowered and engaged and like leaned into the
fight to you know, really create change. So I have
(03:00):
to really shout out a lot of you know, abortion
advocates and trans advocates that I'm sure being in Texas
was like tough for them, but I really have to
shout out how incredible it was for them to make
space to open up conversations about legislation that is harming
their community. So it was good.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Yeah, I love that because I know, like it's kind
of so difficult to be in an area where it's
so toxic to you as a person as a human
being going through your life and then feeling like, yeah,
you know what, I can't leave because I have to
fight this. There's just that double whammy. But that is
amazing to hear that such an event, which is an
(03:40):
international event, was able to push forward that conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Absolutely, I really think, like shout out to all of
those people who I don't even say. I'm like, I
think they took the space for themselves and I think
that was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, awesome, that's that's amazing. And we were discussing before
this one. This is a topic that is so important
that you brought to us today. It's a bit of
a downer, but it's incredibly important and I think like
we're going to have a lot of there's a lot
of nuance with this that I appreciate that you brought
to it. So what did you bring for us to
(04:17):
discuss today, Bridget.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, as you said, it's a little bit of a
rough topic. So you know, we're going to be talking
about sexual assault and you know, domestic violence and abuse,
So just know that going forward. So you know, my
podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet is really
all about the ways that issues that maybe don't seem
like tech issues, issues that impact women and other traditionally
marginalized people. You know, they might not be seen as
(04:40):
tech issues, but they're very much tech issues. And today's topic,
I think is a really great example of what I mean.
So today I want to talk about the platform YouTube
and their failure to remove a video of actor and
activist Evan Rachel would being sexually assaulted. So it is
really important to me, you know, as someone who makes
a tech podcast and cares about technology and works on technology,
to talk about this and especially frame it not as
(05:03):
kind of a quote celebrity story, which I've seen it
really framed as, or even worse as a quote he said,
she said, which is obviously not correct because that kind
of framing, I think really lets tech companies that are
involved off the hook. I'm sure these tech companies like
YouTube would love it if this story was not framed
as a tech accountability story and was just a sort of,
(05:24):
you know, celebrity story, But unfortunately for them, that's I'm
not framing it that way. I am framing it as
a tech accountability story because that's what I believe that
it is.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
That's amazing because we literally were just talking about an
episode which came out with which TikTok I talked about
the fact.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
That are allowing these really bad, like.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Really misogynistic jokes about killing women on dates essentially and
allowing it and saying it's not violating anything is just
a joke, and it's kind of like, wait, where's the
accountability know you are allowing this rhetoric that people are
just latching onto, which is so toxic and harmful and
dangerous for women in general. So we need to have
(06:04):
a conversation about why you are accountable for these things.
But I digress. Let's hear about exactly what you're talking about,
especially with the Evan Rachel Wood. I think I know
a little bit about it, but if you can just
kind of go into.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That absolutely, So here's what's happening with Evan Rachel Wood.
Basically would have spent a few years now advocating for
survivors of sexual violence and abuse, and when she's done this,
she's often referenced her own, you know, heretofore unnamed abuser.
But on February first, twenty twenty one, Wood publicly named
her abuser in a message on Instagram. She wrote, the
(06:37):
name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to
the role as Marilyn Manson. He started grooming me as
a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I am
here to expose this dangerous man and call out the
many industries that have enabled him before he ruins any
more lives. And so a quick note for people who
are listening, you will probably be more familiar with Brian
Warner as his stage name as a musician Marilyn Manson.
(07:00):
But I am not going to call him Marilyn Manson
in this episode, and I have basically stopped calling him
Marilyn Manson in general, because I think it adds to
this mythology that Brian Warner has created around himself, and
I believe that he has exploited that mythology to continue
to abuse women. I'll talk a little bit more about
what I mean later in the episode, but when I
say Warner Brian Warner, I'm referring to the musician whose
(07:23):
stage name is Marilyn Manson, whose actual name is Brian Warner.
And Evan rachel Wood is not alone. Several women, including
women who are not famous and don't have a public
profile like she does, have made similar claims against Warner.
So far, sixteen women have accused Warner of sexual abuse,
and four have sued him for sexual assault. So, you know,
I said earlier that people were mistakenly framing it as
(07:44):
that he said she said, so even though that framing
is not correct, Even if that is how you were
framing it, it wouldn't really be a he said. She said,
it would be more like a he said, she said,
she said, she said, she said, you know, sixteen times
up at the very least exactly. I mean, like who
even knows, you know, this is what we know about.
(08:05):
That's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, yeah, And I remember when this came out and
when it first came out this kind of news, but
it's recently I saw it come up again that Warner
is kind of pursuing a legal a legal battle of
his own against her. So can you go into more
like what is going on right now?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Right so this you know, we were talking about this
when Evan Rachel would first named Warner as her abuser
back in twenty twenty one. But the reason why we're
talking about it right now is because Evan Rachel would
just released a new documentary. But you can watch on
HBO Max the two part documentary called Phoenix Rising that
really chronicles her story. As you might imagine, it is
a difficult watch. I watched the first part of it
(08:51):
and I had to take a break from the second part,
which I was watching last night, because it's a little
I mean, as you might imagine, it's not the easiest watch,
So just if you're planning on a watching it, just
know that. So the movie, it's it's interesting in that
it starts ostensibly as a kind of Aaron Brockovich style
story chronicling Wood's successful campaign to pass the Phoenix Act,
which is an legislation that extends the statue of limitations
(09:12):
on domestic bias in California. But during filming, when Wood
publicly names Warner as her own abuser, the film begins
to follow that aftermath, and so the documentary really chronicles
her upbringing her her work to become a you know,
survivor advocate and a domestic domestic abuse advocate, you know,
trying to pass this legislation, and then kind of pivots
(09:34):
when we see her publicly name Warner as this person
who had abused her that she had been referencing as
her abuser for so long in that work.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
And I know when we were originally seeing all of
this come out, because I remember seeing her testify before
the name was coming out in front of the Senate,
trying to talk about the statute of limitations and going
into this whole conversation, and how quickly after the fact
she shown herself as the survivor advocate, and she named him.
How many people came behind her like, oh my god,
(10:17):
this is why this is familiar as well as the
fact when she described some of the events that happened
to her, many women already came out because they had
gone through some similar things, including how they met. So
can you kind of talk about their relationship specifically Warner
and Woods.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I really like how you have framed that, because I
think that in her situation, so many other women spoke
up and said, this was exactly what happened with me.
He did this to me, you know her, And I
also think just her situation is really familiar to me.
And I think anybody who has dealt with domestic violence
(10:52):
or sexual abuse by an intimate partner, the way that
he operated in the beginning might be kind of familiar.
So Wood and Warner met at a party at Chatau
when she was eighteen and he was thirty seven. They
maintained a platonic friendship where Warner would talk to her
about things like her favorite books and her favorite artists.
Then the two started to date. Now, she describes this
as a kind of grooming and love bombing situation where
(11:15):
you know early on, he was referring to her as
his soulmate and really was making her feel like he
was the only one who really got her, really loved her.
Early on, she describes him kind of starting to isolate
her from her friends and family, and that was the
beginning stages of their early romantic relationship. And so at
(11:36):
this point, you know, you might be thinking, you know,
why would someone like Evan Rachel would get involved romantically
with someone like Warner who was known for these shocking,
kind of gross antics on stage. And that kind of
really goes back to why I'm not going to call
him quote Marilyn Manson, And I think that big part
of that is because Warner's public persona, as Marilyn Manson,
(12:00):
it really helped him get away with gross abusive behavior
in public. So if you were a young person like
me in the nineties, you might remember that after the
Columbine school shooting in nineteen ninety nine, Warner was legitimately
unfairly blamed for the deaths of fifteen young people after
it was misreported that the Columbine shooters were big fans
of his music and that his music motivated them in
(12:21):
the shooting. At this time, politicians were lobbying to have
his performance as banned, citing these really over the top, exaggerated, outlandish,
untrue claims things like at his shows, that he would
have the security guards spike the drinking water at the
shows and give it to young kids in the audience,
or that he was engaging in bestiality on stage, or
(12:42):
like ripping apart animals. Warner's legal team actually sent the
American Family Association a cease and desist for saying that
he encouraged kids to engage in violent sexual acts from
the stage in the audience. And so none of that
was true, and Warner countered these legit unearned, unfair responses
to the that his music postes to kids by doing
(13:02):
these sort of very thoughtful, measured interviews where he was
able to portray himself indirect opposition to this outlandish onstage
persona that these politicians and conservative figures were sort of demonizing.
And so as he was being demonized by these people
and sort of you know, them making up these outlandish
exaggerations and claims about him, he was able to really
(13:25):
present himself as this measured, thoughtful, reasonable person And one
interview that really sticks out to me If anyone has
seen the documentary Michael Morris Bowling for Columbine, there's a
ZiT down segment with Marilyn Manson where he says things like, oh,
the young people who perpetrated at the Columbine shooting would
have been safer had they purchased my CDs, you know,
(13:47):
rather than buying guns. And so he came I remember specifically,
he comes off as this very thoughtful, measured, nuanced guy,
and it really created this, I don't know, this sort
of portrayal of him as someone who was being unfairly maligned,
and thus some of his other behavior was really able
(14:09):
to go unscrutinized because it was so clear he was
being unfairly demonized for this behavior that he never actually
engaged in, Like he wasn't actually spiking the drinking water
at his shows and having sex with animals on stage right.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And I know we're gonna get into this more later
because I have a lot of thoughts about all of this,
and as I said, you do such a great job
of like there are a lot of nuances to this conversation.
But I remember I listened to Marilyn Manson when I
was really young, and I had a friend who was
her parents were really conservative, and they know joke, showed
up at my mom's house and yelled at my mom
(14:45):
for letting their daughter listen to it, and it became
such a point of it, Like it didn't have to
become this point, but it became such a point of like, oh,
you you conservatives don't get it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
You're trying to like hold me town and you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Don't understand, and like, I feel so outcast and.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
You'll never get it.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And their kind of outrage made it into a bigger
thing than it would have.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Been if they had never said anything.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Oh my gosh, I had the same exact experience, right,
So I was a kid, I was in junior high.
I'd a heydamn, I'll say, and you know, I was
like an alte I wouldn't say I was like a
goth kid, but I was, say, say, very alty. And
I totally had the same experience. I ate up this
idea that he was being unfairly persecuted, and I, you know,
(15:35):
felt like I was being unfairly persecuted as this like
weirdo alty kid as a junior high student. Never mind
the fact that like that wasn't actually necessarily happening. That's
just like how I felt because I was a teenager,
and I think he really really used that exact thing
as a way to avoid accountability for his other behavior.
(15:55):
And I honestly I agree with you. You know, I
listened to Warner's music a lot as a youth, and
I really really liked him. Like at a poster, a
Marilyn Manson poster in my locker next to a Prodigy
poster to give me a whole Prodigy. Oh, I think that, Like,
I listened to all different kinds of music, but the
only music that had this kind of over the top, exaggerated,
(16:21):
like uh climate around it was Marilyn Manson, And so
that fed into the idea that he was being unfairly
persecuted at the time. You know, I don't know if
people remember what it was like to be a young
person after Columbine, if you were like a little all
te or if you were all black, it did kind
of feel like, you know, the powers that be were
cracking down on who you were in the aftermath of
(16:43):
that shooting. And so I think that had there not
have been such a backlash to the music Warner's music,
would it has been another in a mixed bag of
stuff that I liked. You know, I liked Prodigy, I
liked some Spice girls. I like so many different things.
But because of this over the top response to his music,
it pushed me that much further into this kind of
(17:05):
I don't know, dangerous vibe where he gets to position
himself as unfairly persecuted and anybody who doesn't like him
or his behavior is just you know, doesn't get it
and doesn't get you eduten.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Edreating. I'll like it. Well, I will say I was
older than y'alls. I'm like, yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Okay, we're not.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Going to at the time frame on this, but I
do find that interesting that we have this conversation because
absolutely remembering all of the politicians coming in and saying
this is this kind of that whole time frame around
the matrix as well as video games and blaming all
of these things, but also how they like to overdemonize
(17:43):
kind of like how it's happening with QAnon and when
we talked about sex trafficking and that they are doing
so much theatrical things that make no sense that it's
overshadowing the actual problems that are happening, and therefore exactly
like taking attention away from the true through crimes or
the things that are so horribly wrong, because it is
(18:04):
being overshadowed by the caricature of accusations merely for a platform,
merely for politics, and it's so obnoxious because yeah, because
of that, Marilyn Manson got this credibility for being misunderstood
a as you had already said. And then also he's
able to use that now as a part of his
(18:24):
defense today. But I know we're gonna be able to
talk about that in a.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Minute, absolutely, I mean. And then also, I mean, like
what you just said, isn't it interesting how the American
Family Association and all these politicians were trying to banish
shows We never did much about guns though. That was
just like we had the conversation about violent video games,
the Matrix, black clothing, trench coats, Brian Warner, but not
the guns. So it's exactly what you just said of
(18:49):
kind of an intense overreach that reaches to the wrong cause,
I guess. And then let's the real cause just go unanalyzed.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, And I think that's something that's been on our
minds a lot lately. Is this idea of consent and
how our environment is really set up where true consent
for women is almost impossible, and this situation being such
a grooming situation where you have this person coming in
(19:19):
who's much older and who is showing you with attention.
And I was saying recently on an episode, like I'm
ashamed to admit it, but I shouldn't be because I
was raised to be this way. But like when I
was eighteen and people can't call me, I'd.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Be like flattered. It's be good. Oh my gosh, I
have desirability.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
That means I have value, and that put me in
some unsafe situations.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So this.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I hate this.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I hate that she was young and there was this
older person that she respected and she was getting this
attention and it's just absolutely predatory, absolutely praying on her.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, I mean I I can really identify. I'll just
say that. And it's one of those things where you
don't necessarily realize it until you're older. And I mean
it applies in this situation too. I want to be
careful about how I speak about this because it is
part of the conversation. But when Evan rachel Wood was
(20:15):
in a relationship with Marilyn Manson early on, and keep
in mind, she's eighteen, she's very young. I remember very
clearly her in interview saying like, oh, people need to
stop saying that I'm being taken advantage of or groomed.
And I think it's easy for people to say, like, oh, well,
now we're supposed to believe her when she says that
she's being that she was being groomed or coerse. Well,
(20:36):
she was eighteen when that happened. She was eighteen when
they met, Like, you're so young, and so it's completely
tracks with my own personal experiences that you might not
have the world experience or just the life experience, or
you know, your own understanding of your place in the
world at eighteen. It might take a few years for
you to look back on that and say, hey, I
(20:58):
was being coerced, or hey, you know I is being groomed,
or hey, some things happened that shouldn't have happened, and
I didn't have the language or the voice yet to
say I don't want this to happen. And I think
that's one of the reasons why this story is one
that needs to be told, because I think that's all
of ours I think that's so many of our stories.
It's so common. I think it's completely unfair to use
(21:20):
that as a reason to not support survivors, not listen
to survivors, because it is so common.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Right, And I think that big portion of this conversation
is that the early sexualization of young girls point blank
is part of this problem because I know a lot
(21:47):
of this conversation. When Evan Rachel Woods came out in
her acting career, she was thirteen fourteen and came out
with this big indie film that pretty much talked about
young women growing older real quick, trying to survive and
think the way to survive is to be sexual and
grown like that was the whole basis of the movie,
which that's the whole conversation in itself. But because of that,
(22:09):
because of things like that, that's where she came into
the eighteen year old and no one listening to the
fact that this is grooming like I don't care if
she's legal now, which is which is a bullshit term.
The whole barely legal bulls that I really want to
punch everybody in the face every time they say it.
That's that conversation is really sexualizing these young girls and
telling them they are of more worth because they're acting grown,
(22:31):
because they are finally in their way of being a
woman and finding out and not having the support and
understanding or people even letting her know the whole concept
of consent and why that is a big conversation that
needed to be had way back when, and because of
that feeling trapped because she is being told this is
what you put yourself in. You knew what you were
getting into, which is the formula of all of the
(22:54):
victim blaming which we see today that has not gone away.
That's for some reason is used by everyone, not just men,
women all between you, because it's so hard to let
go of that internalized misogyny of saying, but you knew.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Absolutely, And she explicitly says that in some of the
things that experiences that happened to her that we'll talk
about in a moment, like she explicitly says exactly what
you're referencing that you know, she had internalized that she
was meant to just go along with whatever, and that
was that was like what she was supposed to do.
And that is something that I think that we all
internalize and we have to sort of like I know
(23:29):
that I have a lot of unlearning to do around,
you know, at like saying no when something doesn't feel
right or when you know. And for me it has
been a lifelong process, and so it sounds like for
her she had to learn that as well. And as
you said, I mean, it starts so early, and eighteen
really is so young.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
She talks about how when she first met Brian Warner,
she said that she really liked him and what he
stood for, and she wrote in his in her journal
that she thought that he was the hero and the
spokesperson of misfits, and I it just really does sound
like he did a very good job of making her
feel like that was true, that she maybe felt like
(24:08):
a misfit, and that he was an advocate for people
who felt like they didn't belong, and that he really
used that persona to continue to abuse women and girls
pretty much in public. There's this great piece in the
Atlantic that sums it up nicely called Marilyn Manson told
us what he was. It sums it up very nicely,
they write, if we believe would and more than a
(24:30):
dozen women who have accused Manson of abuse. Then a
strange twist is that the aftermath of Columbine seems to
have enabled Manson to become what Wood's brother describes in
the documentary as quote a wolf and wolf's clothing. The
hysterical invented accusations leveled at Manson then that he molested
children on stage, killed animals, had a security guard's drug underage,
fans with liquid ecstasy minimized other things that might have
(24:53):
been happening in plain sight. But they also allowed Manson
to detach his artistic persona from himself and allowed others
to infer that anything offensive he did was just performance art,
winking commentary on America's hypocritical and a moral core. And
that to me really sums up why I'm not comfortable
calling him quote Marilyn Manson, because you know, inventing this
(25:17):
persona and saying that it's performance art should not be
a way to avoid and excuse accountability for your own
abusive behavior. And I believe that's what the Maryland Manson
persona has allowed him to do.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Right, Hello, Kanye West.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Exactly exactly, thank you. I mean, it's all part of
the same, like abusive ball of yarn, right right, genius
artistic like it's I could talk all day about this,
but it's all like two sides of the same messed
up coin.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Well, that's what I'm referencing that Kanye literally is hiding
a little bit behind Brian Warner about bringing him on
stage and putting him as like he's an ally because
we're the same, and you're like, yeah, you are.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
That should tell you something.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I like, I remember, I had forgotten until you
just mentioned that he brought him up on stage during
his visas tour, and you know, I think it was
meant to be like all of these malign people who
don't understand our genius, and it's like, you're right, I
don't understand your genius.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
I think it's abusive, yes, yes, And I think you're
hiding behind that to get away with it.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
And that's problem.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Exactly, exactly exactly, this is his thing. In interviews, Warner
pretty much is open and in public about some of
the abusive behavior that he has put Wood through. You know,
he's in a pretty notorious Spin interview. He talks about
how he fantasized about smashing her head with a sledgehammer,
or how after they broke up and she stopped taking
(26:44):
his calls that every time I called her that day,
and I called her one hundred and fifty eight times.
I took a razor blade and cut myself on my
face and on my hands. But then later he is
able to say, oh, well, I didn't really mean those things,
or I didn't really feel those things. I didn't actually
do those I was just playing a character. And I
believe that that excuse allows him to skirt accountability for
(27:07):
his actual behavior. As Brian Warner. You can't say that, oh,
that was just me playing a rock and roll character
who was Marilon Manson when you have an actual partner
who is accusing you of abusing her.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, And it's really terrifying because we're also seeing this
in politics, where I'm seeing politicians being like, oh, that
was just a joke and you didn't get it right,
like doing that same sort of thing, and that's been
that's been really damaging. And also I again, I grew
up listening to a lot of like punk rock and
(27:38):
emo of the like two thousands, early two thousands, and
we were just talking about this, like the a lot
of the lyrics in that which is a lot of
men singing about like pretty much hating women and blaming
them for their sort of violent actions.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
And then and also the TikTok thing you were talking
about to man, this is the same thing.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
We're seeing it again like being like, no, I mean,
that's just that's just who I am.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
That's my art, that's how expressed myself. You took it
too seriously.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, I mean I completely agree. And maybe it's just
because I'm older now I'm going back and thinking, like, wow,
I was listening to music that was like there's this
brand new song where he's like, have another drink and
drive yourself home. I hope there's ice on all the rooms.
And it's like that's pretty like like I would say,
a very young person screaming along to lyrics that were
(28:26):
pretty dark, and I you know, I'm someone who like
I love I love music, and I think people should
listen to what moves them, but we should also be
a little critical about whether, like that what that was,
and if that was okay. There's actually a TikToker. I
can't remember her name off off the top of my head,
but she goes back and replays kind of like scream
(28:50):
o punk bands from or you know, from that era,
and unpacks the ways that they are really unfair to women.
And it's like, oh wow, I had no idea that
I was basically singing along happily for an anthem that's
like about disrespecting women. And I'm a woman, you know.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
Right, I mean any and I have been talking about
this for a lot while, about the romanticizing of abuse,
as if it's something like that that should be a
part of your relationship and not understanding this is really
not good. These like the constant phone calls not great,
the I'm gonna kill myself if you don't love me back,
(29:28):
like this whole level of like, oh my god, what
is happening? And we've allowed that to be because somehow
we've allowed that to be romanticized in our head?
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Is this is true love?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Right?
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Like, this is what it means to be in love,
to want to die if we're not together. And then
going beyond that for men, be like, if I really
want you, I have to show you my power, and
my power maids me hurting you maybe or someone else
for sure, in order to show you that I am
the man who can protect you quote unquote in so
many different ways, and like its kind of this whole
(29:58):
other trope that we've allowed to be Yeah, that's just
men being men. This is this is normal, this is good, right,
and no one really questioning until after the fact of realizing,
oh my god, there's so much trauma here.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Why did we think this was okay?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah? I completely agree, and we should really be asking
the question about what we depict as romantic. And I
think something that you said I can't stop thinking about
is that it starts so young, Like how many of
you all remember when if you're a girl and then
maybe a guy when you were a kid pushes you
(30:34):
on the playground, and some adult somewhere is like, well,
it's probably because he likes you that right, you know,
Like we should not be it happened so early that
we make it okay when quote unquote affection or love
is actually abuse and I should really be asking questions
(30:54):
about it.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
But honestly, I just one of my go to comfort
movies that I kind of tease about all the times
of Rabituy, and recently, I like, there's a scene in
it and I was like, oh my god, why did
we allow this? In which the rat comes through the
roof and do you see a couple fighting with a gun?
It goes off and he's like, oh my god, it
(31:16):
goes back and they're kissing and making out and he
just he just laughs and shrugs and walks off, And
I'm like.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Is that okay? This is wait.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Like we're not even gonna talk about how people are
really upset about periods, but this is okay.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
This scene has made it.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
But you know, like this is that level of like
it literally with just a blip in the screen of
a very g rated movie and it's romanticized, like ah,
but there they just love each other.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Oh, that's just one of those one one more couple
like that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, you know how you know how marriage is the
gun kissing, you know, the gun goes off and that
you forget about it.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Everything is fine.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
But that's the thing is, like what are we teaching?
I mean, I don't want to be one of those
people like that water is this movie teaching? But like
that is it's become so normalized in these conversations that
women really truly a girl, young girls really truly think
this is the epitome of being a woman. This is
the epitome of being in a relationship. Tough times means
he hits me, but I forgive him, Like that's that
(32:18):
conversation until you realize, oh my god, I couldn't see
it until I left, and until I figured out talking
to other women how it was not just him loving me,
that this is him controlling women in general, exactly exactly that.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, gosh, I feel like we could go. I we
need inventing session. We need a podcast for this event
because I'm like, yeah, let's talk about how we're not.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Allowing for consent and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So I know we're not going to go too deep
into the but could you go kind of briefly into
what Wood says about what Warner put her through.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, the list of abuses that he put her through
are truly horrifying. I honestly don't want to Like. This
is why I couldn't finish the documentary because it's a lot,
so I don't want to spend too much time on
it because they really are sickening. But among them are
the allegations that Warner, who Wood says, collected Nazi memorabilia,
so just a really great guy would whip her with
a Nazi whip and would her mother is Jewish and
(33:30):
she was raised Jewish herself, and so this is obviously
really messed up. She says that he also deprived her
of sleep, forced her to drink his blood in a
blood pack where he also drank hers, raped her while
she was sleeping, forced her to take drugs, and a
lot more of the abuse. She says, I felt my
brain change. I felt it almost calcify. And the world
(33:50):
is never the same, and it's just the list of
And I should also say that the kinds of things
that she says that he put her through, other women
who also so dated him say the same thing. And
so it's a lot of the same kind of stuff,
Like other women that she talks to have said that
he branded her or like carved things into their body
(34:10):
like it's horrifying allegations, and so I should mention that
Warner he denies these allegations, and he says that Wood
has been contacting and coercing women into saying they were
abused by him. He is currently suing Wood and her
Phoenix Rising contributor Il mcgore. According to Time, he is
accusing the women of a quote conspiracy in service of
(34:31):
which they supposedly quote secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured perspective
accusers to emerge simultaneously with allegations of rape and abuse
against Warner.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, I find it interesting that we have like sixteen
women at least coming out around the same time, and
we're as a society it seems so much more ready
to be Like, but there's this video of her at
eighteen saying she was into it, right, So that's all lies.
She manufactured this whole thing, and he is downtrouding and
(35:04):
once again the one that is getting unwarranted.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Exactly, women don't make this kind of stuff up. This
idea that they would be simultaneously trying to come together
to come up with these lies about him. Why, Like,
who would do that? Who would want the kind of
scrutiny that comes with being a public survivor of this
kind of abuse? Who would welcome that into their lives?
(35:30):
Some of these women are also, you know, not public figures.
People don't make this kind of thing up, Like it
is so rare for people to make up allegations of
this kind of abuse that it just let alone sixteen
different people just like it just doesn't cold water. It
just isn't the way it works.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
And again, probably more than sixteen that's coming out but
the conversation is too that the actual events and abuse
were so similar to each other. Even the Game of
Thrones act or somethink as may Bianca, I think it's
her name, she had similar stories to Woods, like being
deprived of food, being electrocuted, like there are so many things.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
It's like, this is beyond just Maybes.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
And I do remember that he had one partner who
actually was like that didn't happen to me, and people
latched onto that story. It's so hard and it was
kind of like, but that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't
mean It just negates the entirety of the story of
who he is at this point in time. And I
can't stand this because it also comes back to the
point of demonizing these women and shaming them in every
(36:35):
way possible, taking any work of art that they did
so as actors who may have portrayed a nude scene
at any point in time, See, she's a slut, how
she obviously.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
She knew what she was getting into.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
This whole level of conversations where they just completely try
to discredit someone based on this and really feeling like,
obviously these women are doing it for attention, when it
actually hurt a lot of their careers. Evan Rachel was
for a long time, was out of so many things,
out of projects because of the trauma alone.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, so he did have a ex partner say he
was always nice to me. And I'm not going to
discount what she's saying. But as we know, you know,
someone being nice to you doesn't mean that they are
never abusive to other people. And so people absolutely latched
onto that. And you're absolutely right that it certainly has
not helped the careers or the trajectories of the people
(37:24):
who are speaking out. And it's just like that's not
how it works, Like people don't lie about this kind
of thing. It does not help. It hurt Evan Rachel
would to come out, She risked a lot to come out,
and this idea that, oh, they're doing it for attention.
Who would want this kind of attention?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Who?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Right?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
And also let's talk about the side that.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Warner is not in jail exactly right if he was
on a damn Kanye West show.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Ugh, I hate it, I need it. So you might
be wondering, well, okay, in what way is this a
tech issue? And so there is one specific incident in
the abuse that Wood talks about that I want to
focus on right now, and that is the music video
for Warner's song heart Shaped Glasses. That music video features
(38:09):
Evan Rachel Wood. She was in that video when she
was nineteen years old, and he kind of casts her
as a modern day Lolita because apparently the story goes
that she was wearing these heart shaped sunglasses at the
party where they met, and in you know, Lolita wears
heart shaped sunglasses in the book, and so in the documentary,
Wood says, to the music video, we were doing things
that were not what was pitched to me. We had
(38:31):
discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling,
he started penetrating me for real, and she goes on
to say it was a really traumatizing experience filming the video.
I didn't know how to advocate for myself or how
to say no because I had been conditioned and trained
to never talk back to just soldier through I felt disgusting,
like I had done something shameful, and I could tell
(38:52):
the crew was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do.
I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses.
That was first crime committed against me and I was
essentially raped on camera. And so, according to Wood, the
music video for Heart Shaped Glasses is actually a video
of her rape, and that video is available, not to mention,
(39:13):
monetized on the platform YouTube as we speak. Anybody who
wants to go see it can look it up. And
so Warner's campus they deny these allegations, and they say
that Wood was coherent and involved in the planning of
the video. They say, of all the false claims that
Rachel Evan Woods made about Brian Warner, her imaginative retelling
of the making of the Heart Shaped class As music
video fifteen years ago is the most brazen and easy
(39:35):
to disprove because there were multiple witnesses. So they maintain
that the scenes in that video were actually simulated. However,
Rolling Stone spoke to a crew member from the video
shoot under the condition of anonymity, who corroborated Wood's claim saying,
I do believe that there were some moments of actual
intercourse and so that for me is really how this
(39:56):
becomes a tech issue and a tech accountability issue, is that,
according to Wood, YouTube is promoting housing and monetizing a
video of where she says she was being sexually assaulted,
and frankly, I'm inclined to believer. And so the question
is what is YouTube going to do about this? Are
they going to just allow a video of a sexual
(40:18):
assault to be on their platform and continue to profit
off of it? I would say if that's the choice
they're making, it's pretty questionable.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, I'm afraid to ask. I'm going to said the
choice they're making.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I you know, YouTube, they quickly took the video down
and then they made a donation to anti rape organizations.
Oh wait, just kidding, they do any of that. They
basically so there's a change dot or petition with over
fifty thousand signatures calling for YouTube to remove the video,
and Evan Rachel would share this petition and they pretty
(40:53):
much have signaled that they're not going to take it down.
Their spokesperson, Jack Malone says, we're monitoring the situation closely
and will take a appropriate action if we determine there
is a breach of our creator responsibility guidelines. And so
this is really why I see this as a tech
accountability issue. You know, YouTube, like most online platforms, have
community guidelines that users have to follow, and according to
(41:14):
those community guidelines. Content that includes quote non consensual sex
acts and unwanted sexualization is very much against their own
stated community guidelines. The community guidelines in terms of service
says that a user can have monetization suspended or have
their entire channel terminated if their behavior away from the
platform harms YouTube users, and so to me, it seems
(41:36):
pretty clear they have publicly stated that their community guidelines
prevent non consensual sex acts or unwanted sexualization in their content.
And here we have a video where Evan Rachel Woods
says this is exactly that, and yet they're continuing to
host this video and profit off of it because we
know that's how YouTube makes their money. It's from advertisements
(41:56):
that are on the content hosted on their platform. And
so yeah, I think that YouTube is really expecting people
to only grapple with this as a quote celebrity story,
not an issue of YouTube and their own adherence to
what they say their community guidelines are. And you know,
I really take issue with that. I really have not
(42:17):
seen a lot of folks in the tech community talking
about this story as an example a really clear example
of YouTube, I think failing to create a reasonably safe
environment for its users, and just for the.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
World right and out of curiosity, because I don't know
much about how YouTube works, not tech savvy. Is Warner
making money from this as well when he gets all
these views?
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Oh, that is a good question. I actually wouldn't really,
I'm actually not totally sure if he specifically is making
money from these videos being hosted, but I do know
that he has a YouTube account, and so just how
monetization works, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not able to
say one way or another, but I wouldn't be surprised.
I check to see if the video was on the
platform before we started this talk, and you know, right
(43:04):
before the video played there's ads, and so I can
imagine I wouldn't be surprised if he is making money
from that as another income stream. And yeah, I guess
that's That's really the crux of why I wanted to
talk about this is that this is what happens when
women and other traditionally marginalized people are not really meaningfully
(43:27):
centered and reflected in tech. It allows one platforms to
harm us and make money from our harm, and be
able to do so without any kind of real accountability.
And two, it allows for there are so many tech
publications that are that are missing an opportunity to spotlight
this as a tech issue in terms of the harm
(43:48):
that YouTube is allowing to be spread on their platform.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Right, I mean, that's the cole big conversation is that
who is making money off of someb's trauma? And this
is absolutely what is happening, is that they're making money
off of it and giving views and giving credibility to
the abuser once again as a musician. And this is
such a whole other conversation of like, you have a
responsibility in making sure that people are not continually re
(44:13):
traumatized and or being harmed by your content. And yes,
if it is your platform, you are responsible, point blank exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
And I also think you know YouTube in their community
guidelines to say, oh, we can take things down if
there is a confession or a conviction. YouTube is owned
by Google, right, Google is one of the biggest companies
in the world. And how things work in the platform
accountability space, when a huge player in the space does something,
it creates pressure for other people to do things. And
(44:43):
so if Google was to do something that would create
the conditions for other smaller platforms to follow a suit
because big platforms really do set the tone, and so
I believe that a company like Google, who owns YouTube,
should be able to say, we don't need to wait
for Brian w to confess that he sexually assaulted Evan
(45:03):
rachel Wood on the side of this video. We don't
have to wait for a legal conviction. We are Google,
and we can set the standard for what is it
is not appropriate on our platform, and a video of
someone being sexually assaulted is not appropriate. I believe that
they're really just throwing up their hands and saying, not
our problem. Call us when he confesses. Call us. If
(45:23):
there's a conviction. We're gonna just ignore this and hope
that you do too. I think they are absolutely just
abdicating responsibility. And guess what, you don't get to do
that when you're Google. When you're a huge company like Google,
you have a responsibility that is very, very powerful, and
you don't get to just say it's not our issue,
(45:44):
We're gonna wait for the course to figure it out.
We're gonna wait for him to confess. When you're Google.
That is so irresponsible, and it sets up a dynamic
where other platforms can follow suit. So it really is irresponsible,
cowardly and also just harmful. And again, they're making money
from this inaction. They're continuing to just let this video
(46:06):
wrap up millions and millions and millions of views that
are being made from a video of someone being sexually assaulted.
Speaker 5 (46:12):
And let's also point out that it's a video, not
the entire artist, not his whole genre of music.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
One video. That was the request. It shouldn't be that.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Hard, exactly, and I guess I just I mean, yeah,
it shouldn't be this hard. And I want so desperately
to believe that a different world for survivors is possible
in the scheme of things. So small asking for one
music video to be removed in the scheme of things,
what is that, you know? I feel like that is
(46:45):
such a small ask that a survivor has clearly made,
and they're just able to say no. I want to
believe in a world where survivors can expect more, survivors
can expect dignity and respect and to be listened to
and meaningfully centered. And I believe Google has a chance
to do that that they're just giving away.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Right, And it's exactly what you were saying, that this
is a question of believing women respecting women. Let's say
it was considual, just for the sake of argument, And
she's like, I don't like this, because whatever happened beforehand
in this relationship, it was traumatic.
Speaker 4 (47:25):
Please take it off. That should be enough.
Speaker 5 (47:28):
That should be enough without having to regurgitate the same
experiences and tell them exactly how it hurt you, which
is also traumatizing. It shouldn't have to be that we
have to put on a fanfare for someone to believe
that we are in pain point blank.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
I mean, we shouldn't have to scream just to be heard.
You know. Today this week's episode of my podcast There
Are No Girls with the Internet, we talked to a
survivor and an advocate, Alison Turcos, who was sexually assaulted
in a lift, and she talks so eloquently about how
she is to regurgitate the most traumatic, painful thing that
(48:04):
happened to her over and over and over again, and
that we create a world where that is supposed to
be the pathway for survivors to get justice. And I
don't think that survivors A owe you their stories or
B should have to relive this pain just to get
anyone to do something. YouTube has the power. They could
decide to take this one video down tomorrow. They take
(48:26):
things down all the time for all different kinds of reasons.
And I believe that making a survivor retell her pain
in this way to then do nothing is just Survivors
des are better, Survivors should be able to expect better.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yes, yeah, I mean that's an excellent point because as
someone who used to like upload YouTube videos a lot,
and they'd get taken down all the time because the
music was too close to other music. So it's like
we're clearly I've been thinking this whole time as we've
been talking about this, the messages that young girls are
picking up from witnessing this from a celebrity that they
and this is the response that she gets. And you know,
(49:04):
we care more about copyright infringement than survivors and how
that influences you and what you think is normal and
what if you're going to report, which again that is
very personal and complicated and does have a lot of
fallout often, but also just this idea of men getting
(49:26):
this kind of genius artistic card and the like women
that they've left behind, this path of trauma that they
left behind that we've determined is okay because we've got
this art out of it. And that's what it takes.
And I've done I've done some work in acting before,
and it is very you will get that messaging hardcore
where it's like, but this is going to be great,
(49:47):
and this is going to launch your career, and this
is what it takes. This is what you have to
do because it's so competitive and oftentimes it's just like
an excuse to take advantage of you and then you'll
never hear from them again.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
God, like if you were in a So that's how
it is in a lot of entertainment industries. Let's say
that you were an accountant and someone was like, well,
Joe is a really gifted accountant, so you're just gonna
have to put up with him sexually assaulting you and
physically abusing you and treating you horribly because he's just
a really talented accountant. Uh No. And it should be
the same way across industries. There shouldn't be these huge
(50:22):
card outs for men to get away with abusive behavior
and have that abusive behavior be repackaged and sold back
to us as genius.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
I completely agree that whether you are a musician, an actor,
or an accountant, there should be some clear standards for
how you are expected to behave. And you know, a
music video is a workplace. You know that's that has
a crew, It has people who are paid to be there,
and you know, there's just no excuse for that. And
I'm unwilling to accept that that's, you know, the marker
(50:55):
of genius, or that we have to put up with
men's powerful men, bad or abusive behavior to get great art. No,
I'm just unwilling. That's unacceptable to me.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Greed, Agreed, I can't wait. We gotta have a venting
session on what I need it.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Obviously I need it. I feel like we all do.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I can feel it in me. Well.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
In the meantime, thanks so much for bringing this topic
to us, Bridget and giving it the nuance that it deserves.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
Always appreciated. Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Well? I would love it if you listen to my podcast.
There are no girls on the internet. Not all of
our conversations are about heavy, sad issues, but we would
love to have you listen. You can check it out
on this very network. iHeartRadio. Can follow me on Instagram
at Bridget Marie and DC or on Twitter at Bridget Marie.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yes, and definitely do that and we can't wait to
talk some more Bridget.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
Maybe we got some other things in.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
The works coming up, very exciting, so look out for that.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Listeners.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
If you would like to email us, you can. Our
email is Seputia mob Stuff at hurt me dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at most podcasts, or
on Instagram a stuff owner I have told you. Thanks
is always to our super producer, Christina. We love you, Christina, Yes,
and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Underver totally production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Just a quick heads up. Today's episode talks about sexual
violence There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a
production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and
this is there Are No Girls on the Internet. Fifty
(00:21):
five year old Brian Warner, who you might know better
rest his stage name Marilyn Manson, is melting a big
comeback tour. He announced his first tour date since multiple
women came forward saying he sexually abused them, a now
familiar page from the Abuser playbook. Warner is actually suing
one of his survivors, actor Evan rachel Wood, for defamation
(00:42):
and emotional distress. The suit is ongoing, but back in January,
a judge ordered Warner to pay her court costs. So
why am I talking about this on a tech podcast?
I got into how this is actually a tech and
platform accountability issue with my friends Samantha and Annie over
at the podcast Stuff. Mom never told you.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't come to Steph.
I never told your protection of iHeart Radio and today
we are thrilled to once again be joined by the amazing,
fantastic Bridget Todd.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Hi, Bridget, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for
having me. Always such a pleasure to be joining you, ladies.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, and happy belated birth Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Thank you. Yeah, I had a birthday. I almost kind
of forgot because it happened at a weird time, but
thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
You were in the middle of your travels, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I was in Austin, Texas for south By Southwest. It's
not a bad place to spend your birthday, but it
kind of happened very quickly and I kind of forgot
about it. I was getting on the plane to go
back home and the person who checked my ID was like, oh,
happy belated birthday, and I said, oh, that's right. I
did have a person thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah. I think someone recently asked me how old I was,
and I like paused to think about it. Get back
to you on that, But yeah, how was your south
By Southwest experience?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It was good and it was interesting. You know, it
was the first time they had done it since COVID.
It was cool. I have to shout out the fact
that probably every other panel or like talk like speech
or talk that I saw was a trans person or
a non binary person really speaking out against some of
(02:39):
the like horrific legislation we've seen in Texas. And there
were lots of women speaking out about like the horrible
abortion legislation in Texas. So even though it felt a
little bit strange to be in Texas, I was, I
left so empowered and engaged and like leaned into the
fight to you know, really create change. So I have
(03:00):
to really shout out a lot of you know, abortion
advocates and trans advocates that I'm sure being in Texas
was like tough for them, but I really have to
shout out how incredible it was for them to make
space to open up conversations about legislation that is harming
their community. So it was good.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Yeah, I love that because I know, like it's kind
of so difficult to be in an area where it's
so toxic to you as a person as a human
being going through your life and then feeling like, yeah,
you know what, I can't leave because I have to
fight this. There's just that double whammy. But that is
amazing to hear that such an event, which is an
(03:40):
international event, was able to push forward that conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Absolutely, I really think, like shout out to all of
those people who I don't even say. I'm like, I
think they took the space for themselves and I think
that was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, awesome, that's that's amazing. And we were discussing before
this one. This is a topic that is so important
that you brought to us today. It's a bit of
a downer, but it's incredibly important and I think like
we're going to have a lot of there's a lot
of nuance with this that I appreciate that you brought
to it. So what did you bring for us to
(04:17):
discuss today, Bridget.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, as you said, it's a little bit of a
rough topic. So you know, we're going to be talking
about sexual assault and you know, domestic violence and abuse,
So just know that going forward. So you know, my
podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet is really
all about the ways that issues that maybe don't seem
like tech issues, issues that impact women and other traditionally
marginalized people. You know, they might not be seen as
(04:40):
tech issues, but they're very much tech issues. And today's topic,
I think is a really great example of what I mean.
So today I want to talk about the platform YouTube
and their failure to remove a video of actor and
activist Evan Rachel would being sexually assaulted. So it is
really important to me, you know, as someone who makes
a tech podcast and cares about technology and works on technology,
to talk about this and especially frame it not as
(05:03):
kind of a quote celebrity story, which I've seen it
really framed as, or even worse as a quote he said,
she said, which is obviously not correct because that kind
of framing, I think really lets tech companies that are
involved off the hook. I'm sure these tech companies like
YouTube would love it if this story was not framed
as a tech accountability story and was just a sort of,
(05:24):
you know, celebrity story, But unfortunately for them, that's I'm
not framing it that way. I am framing it as
a tech accountability story because that's what I believe that
it is.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
That's amazing because we literally were just talking about an
episode which came out with which TikTok I talked about
the fact.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
That are allowing these really bad, like.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Really misogynistic jokes about killing women on dates essentially and
allowing it and saying it's not violating anything is just
a joke, and it's kind of like, wait, where's the
accountability know you are allowing this rhetoric that people are
just latching onto, which is so toxic and harmful and
dangerous for women in general. So we need to have
(06:04):
a conversation about why you are accountable for these things.
But I digress. Let's hear about exactly what you're talking about,
especially with the Evan Rachel Wood. I think I know
a little bit about it, but if you can just
kind of go into.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That absolutely, So here's what's happening with Evan Rachel Wood.
Basically would have spent a few years now advocating for
survivors of sexual violence and abuse, and when she's done this,
she's often referenced her own, you know, heretofore unnamed abuser.
But on February first, twenty twenty one, Wood publicly named
her abuser in a message on Instagram. She wrote, the
(06:37):
name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to
the role as Marilyn Manson. He started grooming me as
a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I am
here to expose this dangerous man and call out the
many industries that have enabled him before he ruins any
more lives. And so a quick note for people who
are listening, you will probably be more familiar with Brian
Warner as his stage name as a musician Marilyn Manson.
(07:00):
But I am not going to call him Marilyn Manson
in this episode, and I have basically stopped calling him
Marilyn Manson in general, because I think it adds to
this mythology that Brian Warner has created around himself, and
I believe that he has exploited that mythology to continue
to abuse women. I'll talk a little bit more about
what I mean later in the episode, but when I
say Warner Brian Warner, I'm referring to the musician whose
(07:23):
stage name is Marilyn Manson, whose actual name is Brian Warner.
And Evan rachel Wood is not alone. Several women, including
women who are not famous and don't have a public
profile like she does, have made similar claims against Warner.
So far, sixteen women have accused Warner of sexual abuse,
and four have sued him for sexual assault. So, you know,
I said earlier that people were mistakenly framing it as
(07:44):
that he said she said, so even though that framing
is not correct, Even if that is how you were
framing it, it wouldn't really be a he said. She said,
it would be more like a he said, she said,
she said, she said, she said, you know, sixteen times
up at the very least exactly. I mean, like who
even knows, you know, this is what we know about.
(08:05):
That's a really good point.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, yeah, And I remember when this came out and
when it first came out this kind of news, but
it's recently I saw it come up again that Warner
is kind of pursuing a legal a legal battle of
his own against her. So can you go into more
like what is going on right now?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Right so this you know, we were talking about this
when Evan Rachel would first named Warner as her abuser
back in twenty twenty one. But the reason why we're
talking about it right now is because Evan Rachel would
just released a new documentary. But you can watch on
HBO Max the two part documentary called Phoenix Rising that
really chronicles her story. As you might imagine, it is
a difficult watch. I watched the first part of it
(08:51):
and I had to take a break from the second part,
which I was watching last night, because it's a little
I mean, as you might imagine, it's not the easiest watch,
So just if you're planning on a watching it, just
know that. So the movie, it's it's interesting in that
it starts ostensibly as a kind of Aaron Brockovich style
story chronicling Wood's successful campaign to pass the Phoenix Act,
which is an legislation that extends the statue of limitations
(09:12):
on domestic bias in California. But during filming, when Wood
publicly names Warner as her own abuser, the film begins
to follow that aftermath, and so the documentary really chronicles
her upbringing her her work to become a you know,
survivor advocate and a domestic domestic abuse advocate, you know,
trying to pass this legislation, and then kind of pivots
(09:34):
when we see her publicly name Warner as this person
who had abused her that she had been referencing as
her abuser for so long in that work.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
And I know when we were originally seeing all of
this come out, because I remember seeing her testify before
the name was coming out in front of the Senate,
trying to talk about the statute of limitations and going
into this whole conversation, and how quickly after the fact
she shown herself as the survivor advocate, and she named him.
How many people came behind her like, oh my god,
(10:17):
this is why this is familiar as well as the
fact when she described some of the events that happened
to her, many women already came out because they had
gone through some similar things, including how they met. So
can you kind of talk about their relationship specifically Warner
and Woods.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I really like how you have framed that, because I
think that in her situation, so many other women spoke
up and said, this was exactly what happened with me.
He did this to me, you know her, And I
also think just her situation is really familiar to me.
And I think anybody who has dealt with domestic violence
(10:52):
or sexual abuse by an intimate partner, the way that
he operated in the beginning might be kind of familiar.
So Wood and Warner met at a party at Chatau
when she was eighteen and he was thirty seven. They
maintained a platonic friendship where Warner would talk to her
about things like her favorite books and her favorite artists.
Then the two started to date. Now, she describes this
as a kind of grooming and love bombing situation where
(11:15):
you know early on, he was referring to her as
his soulmate and really was making her feel like he
was the only one who really got her, really loved her.
Early on, she describes him kind of starting to isolate
her from her friends and family, and that was the
beginning stages of their early romantic relationship. And so at
(11:36):
this point, you know, you might be thinking, you know,
why would someone like Evan Rachel would get involved romantically
with someone like Warner who was known for these shocking,
kind of gross antics on stage. And that kind of
really goes back to why I'm not going to call
him quote Marilyn Manson, And I think that big part
of that is because Warner's public persona, as Marilyn Manson,
(12:00):
it really helped him get away with gross abusive behavior
in public. So if you were a young person like
me in the nineties, you might remember that after the
Columbine school shooting in nineteen ninety nine, Warner was legitimately
unfairly blamed for the deaths of fifteen young people after
it was misreported that the Columbine shooters were big fans
of his music and that his music motivated them in
(12:21):
the shooting. At this time, politicians were lobbying to have
his performance as banned, citing these really over the top, exaggerated, outlandish,
untrue claims things like at his shows, that he would
have the security guards spike the drinking water at the
shows and give it to young kids in the audience,
or that he was engaging in bestiality on stage, or
(12:42):
like ripping apart animals. Warner's legal team actually sent the
American Family Association a cease and desist for saying that
he encouraged kids to engage in violent sexual acts from
the stage in the audience. And so none of that
was true, and Warner countered these legit unearned, unfair responses
to the that his music postes to kids by doing
(13:02):
these sort of very thoughtful, measured interviews where he was
able to portray himself indirect opposition to this outlandish onstage
persona that these politicians and conservative figures were sort of demonizing.
And so as he was being demonized by these people
and sort of you know, them making up these outlandish
exaggerations and claims about him, he was able to really
(13:25):
present himself as this measured, thoughtful, reasonable person And one
interview that really sticks out to me If anyone has
seen the documentary Michael Morris Bowling for Columbine, there's a
ZiT down segment with Marilyn Manson where he says things like, oh,
the young people who perpetrated at the Columbine shooting would
have been safer had they purchased my CDs, you know,
(13:47):
rather than buying guns. And so he came I remember specifically,
he comes off as this very thoughtful, measured, nuanced guy,
and it really created this, I don't know, this sort
of portrayal of him as someone who was being unfairly maligned,
and thus some of his other behavior was really able
(14:09):
to go unscrutinized because it was so clear he was
being unfairly demonized for this behavior that he never actually
engaged in, Like he wasn't actually spiking the drinking water
at his shows and having sex with animals on stage right.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And I know we're gonna get into this more later
because I have a lot of thoughts about all of this,
and as I said, you do such a great job
of like there are a lot of nuances to this conversation.
But I remember I listened to Marilyn Manson when I
was really young, and I had a friend who was
her parents were really conservative, and they know joke, showed
up at my mom's house and yelled at my mom
(14:45):
for letting their daughter listen to it, and it became
such a point of it, Like it didn't have to
become this point, but it became such a point of like, oh,
you you conservatives don't get it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
You're trying to like hold me town and you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Don't understand, and like, I feel so outcast and.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
You'll never get it.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And their kind of outrage made it into a bigger
thing than it would have.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Been if they had never said anything.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Oh my gosh, I had the same exact experience, right,
So I was a kid, I was in junior high.
I'd a heydamn, I'll say, and you know, I was
like an alte I wouldn't say I was like a
goth kid, but I was, say, say, very alty. And
I totally had the same experience. I ate up this
idea that he was being unfairly persecuted, and I, you know,
(15:35):
felt like I was being unfairly persecuted as this like
weirdo alty kid as a junior high student. Never mind
the fact that like that wasn't actually necessarily happening. That's
just like how I felt because I was a teenager,
and I think he really really used that exact thing
as a way to avoid accountability for his other behavior.
(15:55):
And I honestly I agree with you. You know, I
listened to Warner's music a lot as a youth, and
I really really liked him. Like at a poster, a
Marilyn Manson poster in my locker next to a Prodigy
poster to give me a whole Prodigy. Oh, I think that, Like,
I listened to all different kinds of music, but the
only music that had this kind of over the top, exaggerated,
(16:21):
like uh climate around it was Marilyn Manson, And so
that fed into the idea that he was being unfairly
persecuted at the time. You know, I don't know if
people remember what it was like to be a young
person after Columbine, if you were like a little all
te or if you were all black, it did kind
of feel like, you know, the powers that be were
cracking down on who you were in the aftermath of
(16:43):
that shooting. And so I think that had there not
have been such a backlash to the music Warner's music,
would it has been another in a mixed bag of
stuff that I liked. You know, I liked Prodigy, I
liked some Spice girls. I like so many different things.
But because of this over the top response to his music,
it pushed me that much further into this kind of
(17:05):
I don't know, dangerous vibe where he gets to position
himself as unfairly persecuted and anybody who doesn't like him
or his behavior is just you know, doesn't get it
and doesn't get you eduten.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Edreating. I'll like it. Well, I will say I was
older than y'alls. I'm like, yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Okay, we're not.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Going to at the time frame on this, but I
do find that interesting that we have this conversation because
absolutely remembering all of the politicians coming in and saying
this is this kind of that whole time frame around
the matrix as well as video games and blaming all
of these things, but also how they like to overdemonize
(17:43):
kind of like how it's happening with QAnon and when
we talked about sex trafficking and that they are doing
so much theatrical things that make no sense that it's
overshadowing the actual problems that are happening, and therefore exactly
like taking attention away from the true through crimes or
the things that are so horribly wrong, because it is
(18:04):
being overshadowed by the caricature of accusations merely for a platform,
merely for politics, and it's so obnoxious because yeah, because
of that, Marilyn Manson got this credibility for being misunderstood
a as you had already said. And then also he's
able to use that now as a part of his
(18:24):
defense today. But I know we're gonna be able to
talk about that in a.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Minute, absolutely, I mean. And then also, I mean, like
what you just said, isn't it interesting how the American
Family Association and all these politicians were trying to banish
shows We never did much about guns though. That was
just like we had the conversation about violent video games,
the Matrix, black clothing, trench coats, Brian Warner, but not
the guns. So it's exactly what you just said of
(18:49):
kind of an intense overreach that reaches to the wrong cause,
I guess. And then let's the real cause just go unanalyzed.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, And I think that's something that's been on our
minds a lot lately. Is this idea of consent and
how our environment is really set up where true consent
for women is almost impossible, and this situation being such
a grooming situation where you have this person coming in
(19:19):
who's much older and who is showing you with attention.
And I was saying recently on an episode, like I'm
ashamed to admit it, but I shouldn't be because I
was raised to be this way. But like when I
was eighteen and people can't call me, I'd.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Be like flattered. It's be good. Oh my gosh, I
have desirability.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
That means I have value, and that put me in
some unsafe situations.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
So this.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I hate this.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I hate that she was young and there was this
older person that she respected and she was getting this
attention and it's just absolutely predatory, absolutely praying on her.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, I mean I I can really identify. I'll just
say that. And it's one of those things where you
don't necessarily realize it until you're older. And I mean
it applies in this situation too. I want to be
careful about how I speak about this because it is
part of the conversation. But when Evan rachel Wood was
(20:15):
in a relationship with Marilyn Manson early on, and keep
in mind, she's eighteen, she's very young. I remember very
clearly her in interview saying like, oh, people need to
stop saying that I'm being taken advantage of or groomed.
And I think it's easy for people to say, like, oh, well,
now we're supposed to believe her when she says that
she's being that she was being groomed or coerse. Well,
(20:36):
she was eighteen when that happened. She was eighteen when
they met, Like, you're so young, and so it's completely
tracks with my own personal experiences that you might not
have the world experience or just the life experience, or
you know, your own understanding of your place in the
world at eighteen. It might take a few years for
you to look back on that and say, hey, I
(20:58):
was being coerced, or hey, you know I is being groomed,
or hey, some things happened that shouldn't have happened, and
I didn't have the language or the voice yet to
say I don't want this to happen. And I think
that's one of the reasons why this story is one
that needs to be told, because I think that's all
of ours I think that's so many of our stories.
It's so common. I think it's completely unfair to use
(21:20):
that as a reason to not support survivors, not listen
to survivors, because it is so common.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Right, And I think that big portion of this conversation
is that the early sexualization of young girls point blank
is part of this problem because I know a lot
(21:47):
of this conversation. When Evan Rachel Woods came out in
her acting career, she was thirteen fourteen and came out
with this big indie film that pretty much talked about
young women growing older real quick, trying to survive and
think the way to survive is to be sexual and
grown like that was the whole basis of the movie,
which that's the whole conversation in itself. But because of that,
(22:09):
because of things like that, that's where she came into
the eighteen year old and no one listening to the
fact that this is grooming like I don't care if
she's legal now, which is which is a bullshit term.
The whole barely legal bulls that I really want to
punch everybody in the face every time they say it.
That's that conversation is really sexualizing these young girls and
telling them they are of more worth because they're acting grown,
(22:31):
because they are finally in their way of being a
woman and finding out and not having the support and
understanding or people even letting her know the whole concept
of consent and why that is a big conversation that
needed to be had way back when, and because of
that feeling trapped because she is being told this is
what you put yourself in. You knew what you were
getting into, which is the formula of all of the
(22:54):
victim blaming which we see today that has not gone away.
That's for some reason is used by everyone, not just men,
women all between you, because it's so hard to let
go of that internalized misogyny of saying, but you knew.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Absolutely, And she explicitly says that in some of the
things that experiences that happened to her that we'll talk
about in a moment, like she explicitly says exactly what
you're referencing that you know, she had internalized that she
was meant to just go along with whatever, and that
was that was like what she was supposed to do.
And that is something that I think that we all
internalize and we have to sort of like I know
(23:29):
that I have a lot of unlearning to do around,
you know, at like saying no when something doesn't feel
right or when you know. And for me it has
been a lifelong process, and so it sounds like for
her she had to learn that as well. And as
you said, I mean, it starts so early, and eighteen
really is so young.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
She talks about how when she first met Brian Warner,
she said that she really liked him and what he
stood for, and she wrote in his in her journal
that she thought that he was the hero and the
spokesperson of misfits, and I it just really does sound
like he did a very good job of making her
feel like that was true, that she maybe felt like
(24:08):
a misfit, and that he was an advocate for people
who felt like they didn't belong, and that he really
used that persona to continue to abuse women and girls
pretty much in public. There's this great piece in the
Atlantic that sums it up nicely called Marilyn Manson told
us what he was. It sums it up very nicely,
they write, if we believe would and more than a
(24:30):
dozen women who have accused Manson of abuse. Then a
strange twist is that the aftermath of Columbine seems to
have enabled Manson to become what Wood's brother describes in
the documentary as quote a wolf and wolf's clothing. The
hysterical invented accusations leveled at Manson then that he molested
children on stage, killed animals, had a security guard's drug underage,
fans with liquid ecstasy minimized other things that might have
(24:53):
been happening in plain sight. But they also allowed Manson
to detach his artistic persona from himself and allowed others
to infer that anything offensive he did was just performance art,
winking commentary on America's hypocritical and a moral core. And
that to me really sums up why I'm not comfortable
calling him quote Marilyn Manson, because you know, inventing this
(25:17):
persona and saying that it's performance art should not be
a way to avoid and excuse accountability for your own
abusive behavior. And I believe that's what the Maryland Manson
persona has allowed him to do.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Right, Hello, Kanye West.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Exactly exactly, thank you. I mean, it's all part of
the same, like abusive ball of yarn, right right, genius
artistic like it's I could talk all day about this,
but it's all like two sides of the same messed
up coin.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Well, that's what I'm referencing that Kanye literally is hiding
a little bit behind Brian Warner about bringing him on
stage and putting him as like he's an ally because
we're the same, and you're like, yeah, you are.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
That should tell you something.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I like, I remember, I had forgotten until you
just mentioned that he brought him up on stage during
his visas tour, and you know, I think it was
meant to be like all of these malign people who
don't understand our genius, and it's like, you're right, I
don't understand your genius.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
I think it's abusive, yes, yes, And I think you're
hiding behind that to get away with it.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
And that's problem.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Exactly, exactly exactly, this is his thing. In interviews, Warner
pretty much is open and in public about some of
the abusive behavior that he has put Wood through. You know,
he's in a pretty notorious Spin interview. He talks about
how he fantasized about smashing her head with a sledgehammer,
or how after they broke up and she stopped taking
(26:44):
his calls that every time I called her that day,
and I called her one hundred and fifty eight times.
I took a razor blade and cut myself on my
face and on my hands. But then later he is
able to say, oh, well, I didn't really mean those things,
or I didn't really feel those things. I didn't actually
do those I was just playing a character. And I
believe that that excuse allows him to skirt accountability for
(27:07):
his actual behavior. As Brian Warner. You can't say that, oh,
that was just me playing a rock and roll character
who was Marilon Manson when you have an actual partner
who is accusing you of abusing her.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, And it's really terrifying because we're also seeing this
in politics, where I'm seeing politicians being like, oh, that
was just a joke and you didn't get it right,
like doing that same sort of thing, and that's been
that's been really damaging. And also I again, I grew
up listening to a lot of like punk rock and
(27:38):
emo of the like two thousands, early two thousands, and
we were just talking about this, like the a lot
of the lyrics in that which is a lot of
men singing about like pretty much hating women and blaming
them for their sort of violent actions.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
And then and also the TikTok thing you were talking
about to man, this is the same thing.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
We're seeing it again like being like, no, I mean,
that's just that's just who I am.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
That's my art, that's how expressed myself. You took it
too seriously.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, I mean I completely agree. And maybe it's just
because I'm older now I'm going back and thinking, like, wow,
I was listening to music that was like there's this
brand new song where he's like, have another drink and
drive yourself home. I hope there's ice on all the rooms.
And it's like that's pretty like like I would say,
a very young person screaming along to lyrics that were
(28:26):
pretty dark, and I you know, I'm someone who like
I love I love music, and I think people should
listen to what moves them, but we should also be
a little critical about whether, like that what that was,
and if that was okay. There's actually a TikToker. I
can't remember her name off off the top of my head,
but she goes back and replays kind of like scream
(28:50):
o punk bands from or you know, from that era,
and unpacks the ways that they are really unfair to women.
And it's like, oh wow, I had no idea that
I was basically singing along happily for an anthem that's
like about disrespecting women. And I'm a woman, you know.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
Right, I mean any and I have been talking about
this for a lot while, about the romanticizing of abuse,
as if it's something like that that should be a
part of your relationship and not understanding this is really
not good. These like the constant phone calls not great,
the I'm gonna kill myself if you don't love me back,
(29:28):
like this whole level of like, oh my god, what
is happening? And we've allowed that to be because somehow
we've allowed that to be romanticized in our head?
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Is this is true love?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Right?
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Like, this is what it means to be in love,
to want to die if we're not together. And then
going beyond that for men, be like, if I really
want you, I have to show you my power, and
my power maids me hurting you maybe or someone else
for sure, in order to show you that I am
the man who can protect you quote unquote in so
many different ways, and like its kind of this whole
(29:58):
other trope that we've allowed to be Yeah, that's just
men being men. This is this is normal, this is good, right,
and no one really questioning until after the fact of realizing,
oh my god, there's so much trauma here.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Why did we think this was okay?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah? I completely agree, and we should really be asking
the question about what we depict as romantic. And I
think something that you said I can't stop thinking about
is that it starts so young, Like how many of
you all remember when if you're a girl and then
maybe a guy when you were a kid pushes you
(30:34):
on the playground, and some adult somewhere is like, well,
it's probably because he likes you that right, you know,
Like we should not be it happened so early that
we make it okay when quote unquote affection or love
is actually abuse and I should really be asking questions
(30:54):
about it.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
But honestly, I just one of my go to comfort
movies that I kind of tease about all the times
of Rabituy, and recently, I like, there's a scene in
it and I was like, oh my god, why did
we allow this? In which the rat comes through the
roof and do you see a couple fighting with a gun?
It goes off and he's like, oh my god, it
(31:16):
goes back and they're kissing and making out and he
just he just laughs and shrugs and walks off, And
I'm like.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Is that okay? This is wait.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Like we're not even gonna talk about how people are
really upset about periods, but this is okay.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
This scene has made it.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
But you know, like this is that level of like
it literally with just a blip in the screen of
a very g rated movie and it's romanticized, like ah,
but there they just love each other.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Oh, that's just one of those one one more couple
like that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, you know how you know how marriage is the
gun kissing, you know, the gun goes off and that
you forget about it.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Everything is fine.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
But that's the thing is, like what are we teaching?
I mean, I don't want to be one of those
people like that water is this movie teaching? But like
that is it's become so normalized in these conversations that
women really truly a girl, young girls really truly think
this is the epitome of being a woman. This is
the epitome of being in a relationship. Tough times means
he hits me, but I forgive him, Like that's that
(32:18):
conversation until you realize, oh my god, I couldn't see
it until I left, and until I figured out talking
to other women how it was not just him loving me,
that this is him controlling women in general, exactly exactly that.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, gosh, I feel like we could go. I we
need inventing session. We need a podcast for this event
because I'm like, yeah, let's talk about how we're not.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Allowing for consent and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So I know we're not going to go too deep
into the but could you go kind of briefly into
what Wood says about what Warner put her through.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, the list of abuses that he put her through
are truly horrifying. I honestly don't want to Like. This
is why I couldn't finish the documentary because it's a lot,
so I don't want to spend too much time on
it because they really are sickening. But among them are
the allegations that Warner, who Wood says, collected Nazi memorabilia,
so just a really great guy would whip her with
a Nazi whip and would her mother is Jewish and
(33:30):
she was raised Jewish herself, and so this is obviously
really messed up. She says that he also deprived her
of sleep, forced her to drink his blood in a
blood pack where he also drank hers, raped her while
she was sleeping, forced her to take drugs, and a
lot more of the abuse. She says, I felt my
brain change. I felt it almost calcify. And the world
(33:50):
is never the same, and it's just the list of
And I should also say that the kinds of things
that she says that he put her through, other women
who also so dated him say the same thing. And
so it's a lot of the same kind of stuff,
Like other women that she talks to have said that
he branded her or like carved things into their body
(34:10):
like it's horrifying allegations, and so I should mention that
Warner he denies these allegations, and he says that Wood
has been contacting and coercing women into saying they were
abused by him. He is currently suing Wood and her
Phoenix Rising contributor Il mcgore. According to Time, he is
accusing the women of a quote conspiracy in service of
(34:31):
which they supposedly quote secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured perspective
accusers to emerge simultaneously with allegations of rape and abuse
against Warner.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, I find it interesting that we have like sixteen
women at least coming out around the same time, and
we're as a society it seems so much more ready
to be Like, but there's this video of her at
eighteen saying she was into it, right, So that's all lies.
She manufactured this whole thing, and he is downtrouding and
(35:04):
once again the one that is getting unwarranted.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Exactly, women don't make this kind of stuff up. This
idea that they would be simultaneously trying to come together
to come up with these lies about him. Why, Like,
who would do that? Who would want the kind of
scrutiny that comes with being a public survivor of this
kind of abuse? Who would welcome that into their lives?
(35:30):
Some of these women are also, you know, not public figures.
People don't make this kind of thing up, Like it
is so rare for people to make up allegations of
this kind of abuse that it just let alone sixteen
different people just like it just doesn't cold water. It
just isn't the way it works.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
And again, probably more than sixteen that's coming out but
the conversation is too that the actual events and abuse
were so similar to each other. Even the Game of
Thrones act or somethink as may Bianca, I think it's
her name, she had similar stories to Woods, like being
deprived of food, being electrocuted, like there are so many things.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
It's like, this is beyond just Maybes.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
And I do remember that he had one partner who
actually was like that didn't happen to me, and people
latched onto that story. It's so hard and it was
kind of like, but that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't
mean It just negates the entirety of the story of
who he is at this point in time. And I
can't stand this because it also comes back to the
point of demonizing these women and shaming them in every
(36:35):
way possible, taking any work of art that they did
so as actors who may have portrayed a nude scene
at any point in time, See, she's a slut, how
she obviously.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
She knew what she was getting into.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
This whole level of conversations where they just completely try
to discredit someone based on this and really feeling like,
obviously these women are doing it for attention, when it
actually hurt a lot of their careers. Evan Rachel was
for a long time, was out of so many things,
out of projects because of the trauma alone.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, so he did have a ex partner say he
was always nice to me. And I'm not going to
discount what she's saying. But as we know, you know,
someone being nice to you doesn't mean that they are
never abusive to other people. And so people absolutely latched
onto that. And you're absolutely right that it certainly has
not helped the careers or the trajectories of the people
(37:24):
who are speaking out. And it's just like that's not
how it works, Like people don't lie about this kind
of thing. It does not help. It hurt Evan Rachel
would to come out, She risked a lot to come out,
and this idea that, oh, they're doing it for attention.
Who would want this kind of attention?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Who?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Right?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
And also let's talk about the side that.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Warner is not in jail exactly right if he was
on a damn Kanye West show.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Ugh, I hate it, I need it. So you might
be wondering, well, okay, in what way is this a
tech issue? And so there is one specific incident in
the abuse that Wood talks about that I want to
focus on right now, and that is the music video
for Warner's song heart Shaped Glasses. That music video features
(38:09):
Evan Rachel Wood. She was in that video when she
was nineteen years old, and he kind of casts her
as a modern day Lolita because apparently the story goes
that she was wearing these heart shaped sunglasses at the
party where they met, and in you know, Lolita wears
heart shaped sunglasses in the book, and so in the documentary,
Wood says, to the music video, we were doing things
that were not what was pitched to me. We had
(38:31):
discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling,
he started penetrating me for real, and she goes on
to say it was a really traumatizing experience filming the video.
I didn't know how to advocate for myself or how
to say no because I had been conditioned and trained
to never talk back to just soldier through I felt disgusting,
like I had done something shameful, and I could tell
(38:52):
the crew was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do.
I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses.
That was first crime committed against me and I was
essentially raped on camera. And so, according to Wood, the
music video for Heart Shaped Glasses is actually a video
of her rape, and that video is available, not to mention,
(39:13):
monetized on the platform YouTube as we speak. Anybody who
wants to go see it can look it up. And
so Warner's campus they deny these allegations, and they say
that Wood was coherent and involved in the planning of
the video. They say, of all the false claims that
Rachel Evan Woods made about Brian Warner, her imaginative retelling
of the making of the Heart Shaped class As music
video fifteen years ago is the most brazen and easy
(39:35):
to disprove because there were multiple witnesses. So they maintain
that the scenes in that video were actually simulated. However,
Rolling Stone spoke to a crew member from the video
shoot under the condition of anonymity, who corroborated Wood's claim saying,
I do believe that there were some moments of actual
intercourse and so that for me is really how this
(39:56):
becomes a tech issue and a tech accountability issue, is that,
according to Wood, YouTube is promoting housing and monetizing a
video of where she says she was being sexually assaulted,
and frankly, I'm inclined to believer. And so the question
is what is YouTube going to do about this? Are
they going to just allow a video of a sexual
(40:18):
assault to be on their platform and continue to profit
off of it? I would say if that's the choice
they're making, it's pretty questionable.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, I'm afraid to ask. I'm going to said the
choice they're making.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I you know, YouTube, they quickly took the video down
and then they made a donation to anti rape organizations.
Oh wait, just kidding, they do any of that. They
basically so there's a change dot or petition with over
fifty thousand signatures calling for YouTube to remove the video,
and Evan Rachel would share this petition and they pretty
(40:53):
much have signaled that they're not going to take it down.
Their spokesperson, Jack Malone says, we're monitoring the situation closely
and will take a appropriate action if we determine there
is a breach of our creator responsibility guidelines. And so
this is really why I see this as a tech
accountability issue. You know, YouTube, like most online platforms, have
community guidelines that users have to follow, and according to
(41:14):
those community guidelines. Content that includes quote non consensual sex
acts and unwanted sexualization is very much against their own
stated community guidelines. The community guidelines in terms of service
says that a user can have monetization suspended or have
their entire channel terminated if their behavior away from the
platform harms YouTube users, and so to me, it seems
(41:36):
pretty clear they have publicly stated that their community guidelines
prevent non consensual sex acts or unwanted sexualization in their content.
And here we have a video where Evan Rachel Woods
says this is exactly that, and yet they're continuing to
host this video and profit off of it because we
know that's how YouTube makes their money. It's from advertisements
(41:56):
that are on the content hosted on their platform. And
so yeah, I think that YouTube is really expecting people
to only grapple with this as a quote celebrity story,
not an issue of YouTube and their own adherence to
what they say their community guidelines are. And you know,
I really take issue with that. I really have not
(42:17):
seen a lot of folks in the tech community talking
about this story as an example a really clear example
of YouTube, I think failing to create a reasonably safe
environment for its users, and just for the.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
World right and out of curiosity, because I don't know
much about how YouTube works, not tech savvy. Is Warner
making money from this as well when he gets all
these views?
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Oh, that is a good question. I actually wouldn't really,
I'm actually not totally sure if he specifically is making
money from these videos being hosted, but I do know
that he has a YouTube account, and so just how
monetization works, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not able to
say one way or another, but I wouldn't be surprised.
I check to see if the video was on the
platform before we started this talk, and you know, right
(43:04):
before the video played there's ads, and so I can
imagine I wouldn't be surprised if he is making money
from that as another income stream. And yeah, I guess
that's That's really the crux of why I wanted to
talk about this is that this is what happens when
women and other traditionally marginalized people are not really meaningfully
(43:27):
centered and reflected in tech. It allows one platforms to
harm us and make money from our harm, and be
able to do so without any kind of real accountability.
And two, it allows for there are so many tech
publications that are that are missing an opportunity to spotlight
this as a tech issue in terms of the harm
(43:48):
that YouTube is allowing to be spread on their platform.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Right, I mean, that's the cole big conversation is that
who is making money off of someb's trauma? And this
is absolutely what is happening, is that they're making money
off of it and giving views and giving credibility to
the abuser once again as a musician. And this is
such a whole other conversation of like, you have a
responsibility in making sure that people are not continually re
(44:13):
traumatized and or being harmed by your content. And yes,
if it is your platform, you are responsible, point blank exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
And I also think you know YouTube in their community
guidelines to say, oh, we can take things down if
there is a confession or a conviction. YouTube is owned
by Google, right, Google is one of the biggest companies
in the world. And how things work in the platform
accountability space, when a huge player in the space does something,
it creates pressure for other people to do things. And
(44:43):
so if Google was to do something that would create
the conditions for other smaller platforms to follow a suit
because big platforms really do set the tone, and so
I believe that a company like Google, who owns YouTube,
should be able to say, we don't need to wait
for Brian w to confess that he sexually assaulted Evan
(45:03):
rachel Wood on the side of this video. We don't
have to wait for a legal conviction. We are Google,
and we can set the standard for what is it
is not appropriate on our platform, and a video of
someone being sexually assaulted is not appropriate. I believe that
they're really just throwing up their hands and saying, not
our problem. Call us when he confesses. Call us. If
(45:23):
there's a conviction. We're gonna just ignore this and hope
that you do too. I think they are absolutely just
abdicating responsibility. And guess what, you don't get to do
that when you're Google. When you're a huge company like Google,
you have a responsibility that is very, very powerful, and
you don't get to just say it's not our issue,
(45:44):
We're gonna wait for the course to figure it out.
We're gonna wait for him to confess. When you're Google.
That is so irresponsible, and it sets up a dynamic
where other platforms can follow suit. So it really is irresponsible,
cowardly and also just harmful. And again, they're making money
from this inaction. They're continuing to just let this video
(46:06):
wrap up millions and millions and millions of views that
are being made from a video of someone being sexually assaulted.
Speaker 5 (46:12):
And let's also point out that it's a video, not
the entire artist, not his whole genre of music.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
One video. That was the request. It shouldn't be that.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Hard, exactly, and I guess I just I mean, yeah,
it shouldn't be this hard. And I want so desperately
to believe that a different world for survivors is possible
in the scheme of things. So small asking for one
music video to be removed in the scheme of things,
what is that, you know? I feel like that is
(46:45):
such a small ask that a survivor has clearly made,
and they're just able to say no. I want to
believe in a world where survivors can expect more, survivors
can expect dignity and respect and to be listened to
and meaningfully centered. And I believe Google has a chance
to do that that they're just giving away.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Right, And it's exactly what you were saying, that this
is a question of believing women respecting women. Let's say
it was considual, just for the sake of argument, And
she's like, I don't like this, because whatever happened beforehand
in this relationship, it was traumatic.
Speaker 4 (47:25):
Please take it off. That should be enough.
Speaker 5 (47:28):
That should be enough without having to regurgitate the same
experiences and tell them exactly how it hurt you, which
is also traumatizing. It shouldn't have to be that we
have to put on a fanfare for someone to believe
that we are in pain point blank.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
I mean, we shouldn't have to scream just to be heard.
You know. Today this week's episode of my podcast There
Are No Girls with the Internet, we talked to a
survivor and an advocate, Alison Turcos, who was sexually assaulted
in a lift, and she talks so eloquently about how
she is to regurgitate the most traumatic, painful thing that
(48:04):
happened to her over and over and over again, and
that we create a world where that is supposed to
be the pathway for survivors to get justice. And I
don't think that survivors A owe you their stories or
B should have to relive this pain just to get
anyone to do something. YouTube has the power. They could
decide to take this one video down tomorrow. They take
(48:26):
things down all the time for all different kinds of reasons.
And I believe that making a survivor retell her pain
in this way to then do nothing is just Survivors
des are better, Survivors should be able to expect better.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yes, yeah, I mean that's an excellent point because as
someone who used to like upload YouTube videos a lot,
and they'd get taken down all the time because the
music was too close to other music. So it's like
we're clearly I've been thinking this whole time as we've
been talking about this, the messages that young girls are
picking up from witnessing this from a celebrity that they
and this is the response that she gets. And you know,
(49:04):
we care more about copyright infringement than survivors and how
that influences you and what you think is normal and
what if you're going to report, which again that is
very personal and complicated and does have a lot of
fallout often, but also just this idea of men getting
(49:26):
this kind of genius artistic card and the like women
that they've left behind, this path of trauma that they
left behind that we've determined is okay because we've got
this art out of it. And that's what it takes.
And I've done I've done some work in acting before,
and it is very you will get that messaging hardcore
where it's like, but this is going to be great,
(49:47):
and this is going to launch your career, and this
is what it takes. This is what you have to
do because it's so competitive and oftentimes it's just like
an excuse to take advantage of you and then you'll
never hear from them again.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
God, like if you were in a So that's how
it is in a lot of entertainment industries. Let's say
that you were an accountant and someone was like, well,
Joe is a really gifted accountant, so you're just gonna
have to put up with him sexually assaulting you and
physically abusing you and treating you horribly because he's just
a really talented accountant. Uh No. And it should be
the same way across industries. There shouldn't be these huge
(50:22):
card outs for men to get away with abusive behavior
and have that abusive behavior be repackaged and sold back
to us as genius.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
I completely agree that whether you are a musician, an actor,
or an accountant, there should be some clear standards for
how you are expected to behave. And you know, a
music video is a workplace. You know that's that has
a crew, It has people who are paid to be there,
and you know, there's just no excuse for that. And
I'm unwilling to accept that that's, you know, the marker
(50:55):
of genius, or that we have to put up with
men's powerful men, bad or abusive behavior to get great art. No,
I'm just unwilling. That's unacceptable to me.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Greed, Agreed, I can't wait. We gotta have a venting
session on what I need it.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Obviously I need it. I feel like we all do.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I can feel it in me. Well.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
In the meantime, thanks so much for bringing this topic
to us, Bridget and giving it the nuance that it deserves.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
Always appreciated. Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Well? I would love it if you listen to my podcast.
There are no girls on the internet. Not all of
our conversations are about heavy, sad issues, but we would
love to have you listen. You can check it out
on this very network. iHeartRadio. Can follow me on Instagram
at Bridget Marie and DC or on Twitter at Bridget Marie.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yes, and definitely do that and we can't wait to
talk some more Bridget.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
Maybe we got some other things in.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
The works coming up, very exciting, so look out for that.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Listeners.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
If you would like to email us, you can. Our
email is Seputia mob Stuff at hurt me dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at most podcasts, or
on Instagram a stuff owner I have told you. Thanks
is always to our super producer, Christina. We love you, Christina, Yes,
and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Underver totally production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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