From what I've read about Parker, there seems to be pretty good evidence that although he wasn't convicted of rape - and getting a conviction for that type of rape 17 years ago was even more difficult than it is now - he and his collaborator on this movie were both guilty.
And both of them subsequently went on a harassment campaign against the victim that was appallingly horrible. And their actions had a lot to do with her death by suicide.
This all makes me sick.
We know that powerful white men in Hollywood don't generally suffer consequences for their crimes (Roman Polanski and Woody Allen being notable examples) so do I want a talented black filmmaker to be the *only* person to suffer consequences? No. But I don't want him to get away with either.
Ultimately, I have to go with the queasy feeling I get in my gut when I think of these two rapists imminently embarking on the fame and glory of an Oscar campaign. I can't support it. I am equally unsupportive of Polanski, Allen, Depp, etc.
Yes, I frequent an Oscar prediction site, and I remember right after Fox Searchlight bought
Birth of a Nation for 17 million dollars at Sundance that some details came out about his and Jean Celestin's, the co-writer of
BOAN, rape trial, and also Parker's homophobic remarks that he had made earlier. Most posters there thought that it probably wouldn't hurt him that much because of Polanski, Allen, etc., but there weren't a lot of details known about it, and everyone still predicted
BOAN for major Oscar categories like Picture, Actor, Original Screenplay, and a lot of posters, like me, were predicting it for those categories plus Director, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress.
Between late January and the recent
Deadline interview that Parker did last week, I tried to make peace with the fact that Parker was likely going to win Best Actor at the Oscars because that category is so empty this year, and he had the narrative of acting/directing/writing/producing. I didn't know the details of the rape case at that time except that the victim was harassed so much that she dropped out of Penn State where she, Parker, and Celestin all attended, but that was enough for me not to root for him. Anyhow, months went by though and the category of Actor was still empty pretty much except for him, so I figured I would have to accept him winning, and he would just be another Oscar winner whose private actions completely repulsed me.
However, Fox Searchlight in trying to get ahead of the controversy for the Oscar race had Parker recently do this interview,
Fox Searchlight, Nate Parker Confront Old Sex Case That Could Tarnish 'The Birth of a Nation'. After that, it's when things really blew up. Then, people started to dig deeper into the whole case, and that's when the bombshell dropped that the victim had committed suicide and left behind a young child all because of what Parker and Celestin did to her.
There was just no way to get around the ugliness of the situation. Some may defend Parker and Celestin after that, but I think that their chances of breaking through in a big way in the industry with
BOAN is now dead. It may be unfair because Polanski, Allen, etc., but Polanski and Allen had many friends and connections and years of success before their scandals happened. Plus, with Polanski, some people were sympathetic to him because of him losing his family at a young age, and then his pregnant wife being slain, and the victim eventually forgave him. With Allen, I think he did molested Dylan Farrow, but people still argue that there's too much gray area there, and those same people don't seem to think there's anything wrong with his relationship with Soon-Yi believing that she was of age when it started. It's unfair, but I guess that's life.
It's possible that
BOAN may not be affected by the scandal, but I doubt it. For one thing, a national critic and member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Devin Faraci, thinks that it's likely that the good but not great Metacritic/Rotten Tomato score that
BOAN has will go down a lot because back in January, he said that several critics confided in him that they weren't comfortable criticizing the film because it was during the height of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. Since those critics now feel they have carte blanch to attack the film, it's score of 77 at MC and 7.6 average rating at RT is going to go down.
Even without generally good reviews,
BOAN was always going to be a hard sell.
12 Years a Slave only made 56 million domestically, and it had much more going for it. Not only did Brad Pitt have a cameo in it, but it also had a higher profile director and actors. It also was the best reviewed film of its year and was the Best Picture front-runner throughout Oscar season. So now
BOAN will likely not have the acclaim nor the box office success for the award shows to notice, and there's actually other black experience films that will likely have be more critically acclaim and/or likely do better at the box office (
Moonlight,
Fences,
Loving,
Hidden Figures). Plus, Parker only went with FSL's lower bid because they agreed to open it wide instead of doing a platform release which is often the kiss of death for films that aren't blockbusters, and FSL also agreed to Parker's demands of taking the film on college and church tours. Obviously the college tours are a no go now.
Here's a great link to a very in depth story about the case from The Daily Beast,
Inside the Nate Parker Rape Case.
Here's a link to the phone call that the victim recorded in order to find out Jean Celestin's name,
Telephone Transcript.
Here's a link to a follow up interview Parker did after the news came out about the victim having committed suicide,
'Birth of a Nation' Director Nate Parker Responds to Rape Accuser's Suicide.
