Marshall sexual politics

I went to see the movie about Thurgood Marshall. It's about an early case in 1940 in Bridgeport Connecticut, concerning a black man accused of raping a white woman. Because of the judge's ruling, Marshall is not allowed to try the case himself, and has to be second chair to a local lawyer named Sam Friedman. The movie portrays their defense of Joseph Spell, and the discrimination both lawyers face because Marshall is black and Friedman is Jewish. While I liked most of the movie, including the scene where Marshall dines with Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, I found some parts of the courtroom drama troubling and uncomfortable.


First of all, Thurgood Marshall asks Joseph Spell if he raped the woman Ellie Strubing. Joseph says he never touched her, so we start with the premise that this is an innocent man, whom the lawyers need to save from wrongful conviction. I thought that meant this was a mystery, and some other assailant raped her, whom we needed to discover, like other courtroom dramas.

But no, instead the defense turns into discrediting the woman's story, casting doubts on her character. Saying she was drunk, saying she lied about the rape, why didn't she scream or call the police? Really horrible victim-blaming. There's even a scene where one of the lawyers demonstrates that it's possible to scream even when you're gagged. I know in the 1940s there was no such concern about victim-blaming, but goddamn it, this movie was written in THIS century, not the past. Why couldn't the writers have been sensitive to that issue? Have realized how destructive it is to feed into the idea of false rape claims? Not all women scream during a rape. Some people are genuinely frozen in fear for their life and don't manage to resist physically. This is so creepy and sexist especially in the light of the Weinstein scandal.

What I read about the real historical Joseph Spell case shows that there was other evidence that could be used to prove his innocence. Ellie claimed to have been forced to write a ransom note, and the note was never found. If that was what the rapist wanted to do as a coverup for killing her, wouldn't he make sure that the note was easy to find? Also, if he raped her after she was in her nightgown, then why did he make her put on a dress and fur coat to leave the house? Especially if he planned to make it look like a kidnapping? Wouldn't kidnappers want to take her away right away without dawdling, then just tie her up in the trunk of the car while they drove away? Things like that could have been used. But no, we just get lots of victim-blaming. If I had known going into the case that they were going to argue that the sex was consensual, not that it never happened, I would have been better prepared maybe. I was expecting something like To Kill a Mockingbird, only the jury don't convict and the black guy doesn't die.

So anyway, it was unintentionally unsettling. And I particularly didn't like the repeated line "Women will be women, and men will be men." I mean, what did that mean in context? All women lie about rape? All men love cheating on their wives? What the fuck?

I think I would enjoy seeing a Marshall biopic that covered some other case instead, or included his time on the Supreme Court.