Today, Vanity Fair released an interview with Jennifer Lawrence where she spoke about the celebrity nude photo leak. This is the first time she has responded publicly to the situation involving an Internet hack that published revealing photos of her and hundreds of other female celebrities Aug. 31 of this year. The victims of the hack were all female with the exception of one male’s photos who were revealed just days ago in the fourth round of hacks. Lawrence spoke with Vanity Fair’s Sam Kashner where she said, “Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this.” She went on to say, “It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world. ”
A common critique of this entire situation has been “if you didn’t want anyone to see those pictures you shouldn’t have taken them in the first place.” I’m here to tell you that blaming the victims of this sexual violation (because that’s precisely what it is) is unequivocally callous. By that logic I should not have been enraged when my Internet password and credit card information was stolen and posted all over the Internet during the Heartbleed hack earlier this year, right?
It is incredulous to me that as a society we are more willing to blame the victims of these hacks than we are to blame those who violate our privacy. If you go out and slunk around someone’s bedroom taking naked pictures of them, is it also that person’s fault for getting naked or is it the photographers fault for invading personal privacy? That answer should be self-explanatory.
Let’s bring this scenario closer to home. If you took a revealing photo of yourself and left it in your home and a few weeks later you saw that photo floating around the Internet on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Imgur and Instagram being shared without your consent, are you going to blame yourself because someone else broke into your house? You shouldn’t.
We’ve become too accustomed to blaming victims and just accepting the fact that our privacy ends where technology begins. This is not how we should react to situations such as these. There are certain levels of expectation regarding privacy and cyber security that should be no different.
Lawrence called on lawmakers and society saying “The law needs to be changed, and we need to change.” This computer hack is a symptom of a larger problem in America and there is a necessity for us to change our behavior towards sexual offenses. You can no longer sit there and say “she should have known this would happen and never have taken those pictures in the first place.” This is no different than saying a woman dressed in a short skirt out late at night was “asking for it” when she was sexually assaulted while walking home.
The default response to sexual offenses should never be to blame the victim. We’ve fallen back on this idea of “Don’t get sexually assaulted” rather than “Don’t sexually assault” and it’s about damn time we change that. We can’t go on perpetuating this trope of denying responsibility because that’s just the way it is. Lawrence has more advice for our conscious deprived society saying “That’s why these Web sites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.”
Now I’d like to talk to those of you out there who have looked at these actresses’ photos. You’re low. Really low. It doesn’t matter to me how you did it. Whether you saw your roommate looking and you leaned over to check it out or you willingly sought them out. These hundreds women did not consent to their photos being released to the public and you went ahead and violated their privacy just as the hacker(s) did. Lawrence said it best: “Anybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame.” I can’t say that I disagree with her.
Cullen is a senior majoring in history and political science. What do you think about the celebrity photo hack? Is Cullen not mentioning a different perspective? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
