Promising Young Woman: The Bekatorou case and the most timely film you should see

Almost simultaneously with the widespread publicity of the sexual abuse case publicly denounced by Olympic champion Sofia Bekatorou, a film was released on online content platforms that, under other current circumstances, would have gone unnoticed.

The title of the film is Promising Young Woman. The screenplay and direction belong to the British actress Emerald Fennell, who, you have probably seen playing the young Camilla Parker-Bowles in the series The Crown. If we were to attempt a - relatively free - translation of the film's title, in Greek it would be “Полла Ифопосементе Неари Гына”.

The protagonist Cassie was, once, the woman described in the title. A former medical student, “daughter of a good family,” intelligent, beautiful, funny. Thirty-year-old Cassie now works in a café, lives at her parents’ house, and in the evenings dresses up, adorns herself, goes to clubs, pretends to be drunk, and attracts men who are ready to exploit her intoxication to their advantage. After they end up at each man’s house, Cassie shows that she is not interested in him romantically and waits to see how he will react. Then, she reveals to him that she is not drunk and that she is fully aware of her actions, and then leaves. And this seems to be the sole purpose of her life.

To the question “why would a woman behave this way”, the answer comes from her past. Without revealing any other details of the case, we will simply say that Cassie’s best friend, Nina, was a rape victim. Reading the case up to this point, some will wonder why Cassie “does this to herself” and some others why “does this to others”. Another experience of ours from the public debate on such an issue, and specifically the Bekatorou case, proves that, very often, the reflexive, first reaction of a portion of the public towards allegations of sexual abuse or harassment is to question the intentions, perception, and even the sincerity of the victim.

“Why now, why like this, why this abuser”, the “reflexive whys” of Greek society are the result of increased, irrational, sexist demands that have been imposed on women for hundreds of years. The man “cannot be to blame”, “she would do something to him”, “she would provoke him”, “he would not understand what happened”. Almost always lurking in the minds of a portion of the public is the conspiracy, the “greater plan”, the insidious attempt of the “feminine” to take revenge, to “wrap in a piece of paper”, to “tumble”, to manipulate, to destroy.

If one were to attempt to answer these kinds of questioning questions, it is almost certain that one would fail to convince anyone of what is actually happening. No one who subscribes to views that re-victimize the victim can put himself/herself in the shoes of a victim who feels a range of unpleasant, unbearable emotions after such an incident of abuse or harassment. Anger, resentment, disgust, injustice, are some of the words that come to mind when we hear the phrase “sexual abuse.” Unfortunately, however, when there is no empathy or when its cultivation is considered, at the very least, "uncool," then everyone considers themselves the self-appointed honorers of everything, the only ones capable of (criticizing) and of generally and vaguely rendering justice based on their own one-sided moral code within the context of public discourse and dialogue.

How many people have you counted in the past few days accusing Sofia Bekatorou of her allegations? How many question her intentions? How many try to exploit the “Greek #MeToo” movement to serve their own purposes? And now our question: how many of them do you want to continue to converse with, hang out with, collaborate with, live in the same society?

Cassie, through the performance of Carey Mulligan, gives her own answer to the above question, in a film that is presented as a "revenge thriller", while in reality it is a pop study on the thriller of female existence and coexistence with deep-rooted sexism, which finds its expression in every part of everyday life, with varying consequences for women.

A “Promising Woman” did not simply wake up one morning and “go out to destroy men’s lives and reputations.” A “Promising Woman” was once what the title of the film says, and today, due to the lack of institutional protection and the flawed administration of justice, she is a lone voice looking for the opportunity to express herself, to denounce, to demand the punishment of those who dared to play with her life, considering her insignificant, inferior to them – just “a girl.”