On Sept. 17, Lady Gaga released a video for her song titled “Til It Happens To You.” The song was recorded for a documentary, “The Hunting Ground,” which tackles the topic of rape on college campuses, specifically following four former students who have come forward with their stories about being assaulted on campus.
The new song serves as the “theme song” of the film and while the music video itself is not featured in the documentary, it gives us a raw look at the topic that it broaches. This video is important. College campuses are generally not short on education and events promoting awareness and education about sexual assault, but it is impossible to convey the daunting emotion it comes with in a mandatory lecture. Students are not flocking to events where these issues are discussed. It is one of those “forbidden” topics. It makes people uncomfortable, and so they choose not to be exposed to it.
This video is meant to be disturbing. It visualizes real and undisguised emotion. And through this medium, a celebrity’s music video online, this message has already reached millions. People who would never publicly discuss sexual assault are watching this video, and that’s a good thing. “This video is graphic, but so is sexual assault,” tweeted Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama. We need to be watching things like this, to be opening our eyes to what is really going on, to be accepting that sexual assault is in fact an issue and being made more aware by it.
“Til It Happens To You” is meant to send a message to survivors that it’s okay to speak out. It’s also a message to friends, family and classmates of survivors, to encourage people to support victims. It’s absolutely ridiculous to think that being sexually assaulted is someone’s fault; people are not “asking for it.”
This video puts in to visual what nobody wants to think about. The unsettling nature of this comes from its explicitness, but also from the way the situations are portrayed. It covers the stereotypical party scene, but the video also expresses the way these situations can come about totally unexpectedly, in places that you thought were safe or friendly.
People are already talking about the documentary, as well as the song, for the Oscars, and it’s all for good reason. Again, this video is important. Going off to college, nobody expects something like sexual assault to happen to them. It’s something you read about, but it’s not something that actually can happen to us, we think we’re invincible. But the fact of the matter is, that one in five college women will be sexually assaulted on campus this year.
Think about the people you love, think about you. Be aware. Support all victims and encourage conversations like this one. Like the song says, you don’t know how it feels until it happens to you. We need to move into a time where victim blaming is no longer and people do not feel ashamed by situations that they can’t control. Being sexually assaulted should not define a person’s self worth.
