This summer, I am performing in a play called “Good Kids.”In the play, there are four football players who rape a girl named Chloe. We couldn’t do the show in a more perfect time. In the last week, the world has met Brock Turner, a Stanford University swimmer who has practically gotten away with raping an unconscious girl. He was sentenced to only six months of prison. As of Wednesday, it is now three months and a year of probation.
Both of the parents are begging the justice system to let their little miracle of life go. They are convincing the system that Turner is easygoing, happy-go-lucky, kind, and “respectful,” not an evil rapist that has ruined an innocent girl’s life. His father tells them that only three months of jail time is “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.” So, to the father, 20 minutes of “action” is absolutely nothing. His mother is making her son a victim of a terrible life. She wrote how much Turner suffered through school, having trouble with reading and how he overcame it. According to her, Turner is a well-rounded person, being a Boy Scout as a kid and starred in “Oliver!” in sixth grade as Bill Sykes (how ironic!). She adds how distraught she is about her son, going to jail over the rape, saying, “I have not decorated the house nor have I hung anything on the walls. I am a mom who loves family pictures but I haven’t had the heart to put photos around of our family being happy. How can I? We will never be happy again…Brock will have to register at the highest tier which means he is on the same level as a pedophile/child molester. There is no differentiation. The public records will reflect a Tier 3 so people will wrongly assume he is a child molester.” The parents aren’t grasping the truth about humanity. It doesn’t matter if Turner was Saint Pope John Paul the II when he was a kid. He raped a girl. There are serious consequences to this. He will face them. He has to. He is a human.
In “Good Kids,” after the media spotlights the rape, the fathers of the football players are interviewed and they are exactly like Turner’s parents. The fathers stand up for their sons and they proclaim that their sons didn’t do anything. They say things like, “This whole thing is bull****. It’s bull****. My son didn’t do a damn thing. And now this girl, it’s like she’s trying to ruin his life. This is his damn life we’re talking about…Why would you set about to destroy this young man’s life, all his dreams? Why would you do that? My son has a shot at playing college ball. He’s been working that for a long, long time. It’s everything. This is his life, this is my son’s life. And now I don’t know what’s going to happen.” These fathers are slut shaming Chloe and saying that it’s her fault that this is happening, not him. Even though Mr. Turner didn’t blame the victim, he is acting like the father who called the son being trailed “bull****.” Mr. Turner is saying that Brock doesn’t deserve to suffer any consequences and jail time for 20 minutes of “rape” is insane for him. Mr. and Mrs. Turner aren’t paying attention to the rape victim and how her life has been shattered. All they’re thinking about is how the rape that HE committed will impact his life forever. Turner’s mother says to the judge, “…Stanford boy, college kid, college athlete- all the publicity……..this would be a death sentence for him. Having lost everything he has ever worked for his entire life and knowing the registry is a requirement for the rest of his life certainly is more than harsh. His dreams have been shattered by this. No NCAA Championships. No Stanford degree, No swimming in the Olympics (and I honestly know he would have made a future team), no medical school, no becoming an orthopedic surgeon……..all gone.” His father adds, “His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve.” The parents aren’t getting the fact that if the son didn’t rape the girl, he would have achieved all of these things.
“Good Kids” explores how technology can take a stand against rape. The character that I play is Deirdre, the girl who leaks the tweets of the football players and the videos of the rape. As a result of my character, the whole world discovered about the rape. This is comparable to the Brock Turner case. The Turner rape case is all over my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Every time there is new information on the case, an article appears in a blink of an eye with a comment of disgust. On Twitter, celebrities and female activists write calls of action in 140 characters with a hashtag at the end. The hashtag leads to other comments with the hashtag about Turner. There are even petitions to fire the judge who made the three-six month calls. With enough support, there could be a new judge that will give Turner a much more appropriate sentencing. Without the Internet, the outcome would be different. There wouldn’t be nearly as a call of action right now. The whole world wouldn’t know about the rape. Everything would be different.
With social media, there could be a change in Turner's rape case. He could be sentenced to 20 years. There are blog posts to Brock’s parents, dismissing their cries of their son being a victim. Rape is being spotlighted so strongly because right now, it’s so current. With my show “Good Kids,” people will think of Brock Turner while watching the Steubenville rape case go by. They will be reminded how boys and athletes can get off so easily. They will be reminded of the evils of rape. But, they will be reminded of the social media outlash at the Turner family and the judge as they see my Deirdre giving the players justice. They will feel empowered, thinking they can do something about Brock Turner and say their disgust without judging. We just need a good reminder.