14 DAY TRIAL // First we had Gwyneth Paltrow this week saying that experiencing internet trolling was like surviving the war, and now fan-favorite Charlize Theron who, until just this moment, seemed to be able to do no wrong, is saying that reading gossip about her personal life would be like rape.
Video with this segment of her interview with Sky News is embedded below.
It’s clear that the interviewer is leading her into uncomfortable territory, because you can see the expression on her face change and she becomes aloof / cold when he brings up the fact that he had Googled her name before the chat to see what she’d been up to.
He mentions headlines he read, about her and her new boyfriend Sean Penn, her and her son, and what the three had been doing as of late. Charlize avoids to look into the camera or, for that matter, at the interviewer while he’s saying this, and you can tell she’s probably thinking how to best answer his question.
Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t come with too good a reply.
“I don’t do that [Google myself], so that’s my saving grace. I think it’s when you start living in that world and doing that, that you start, I guess, feeling raped,” she says.
The interviewer presses her into more details, asking whether she really feels “that strong” on the issue.
“Well, you know, when it comes to your son and your private life, maybe that’s just me. Some people might relish in all of that stuff, but there are certain things in my life that I think of as very sacred and I’m very protective over them. That doesn’t mean that I always win that war, but as long as I don’t have to see that stuff or read that stuff or hear that stuff, then I can live with my head in a clear space. It’s probably a lot healthier than living in that little dark room,” the actress continues.
This might seem like an oversimplification, but Charlize just compared powering up a computer and going online to read bits of gossip making the rounds to the very traumatizing act of being raped. There is no comparing rape to anything else because only rape is comparable to rape, angry voices online are saying.
The video has gone viral and, you might have guessed it, it’s doing Charlize no favors. Had she used “violated” instead would have been the appropriate term for what she was trying to convey.
As it happens, she’s not the only actress to throw in the word “rape” when talking about the violation of privacy they’re exposed to daily because of their acting careers. In the past couple of years, a similar argument was presented by Johnny Depp and Kristen Stewart but, of the two, only the “Twilight” star apologized.
Both were harshly criticized at the time for their inappropriate use of the word.
As the uproar online continues, Charlize Theron is yet to address it.
