Netflix has recently released a new documentary dealing with the sexual assaults of two young teenage girls; Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman. The film titled Audrie and Daisy has made national news by exposing the horrific nature of these crimes and the “ripple effects on families, friends, schools and communities” according to the films website. Much like the award winning film The Hunting Ground, Audrie and Daisy exposes the nature of rape culture in modern society.
Audrie, a fifteen year old girl raised in Saratoga, California went to her first high school party with her best friend Amanda. Of course, at most high school parties, there was a considerable amount of alcohol involved causing the environment to be “uncomfortable.” Many drinks later, Audrie had become intoxicated and Amanda led her upstairs to sleep it off and left the party. Later that night, three boys went upstairs and drew obscene images on her with marker in many inappropriate places, which led one of the assailants to finger her and another to take pictures, all while Audrey was unconscious. As Audrie tried to piece together the events of the previous night, pictures of her assault were uploaded to a Yahoo! account that boys from Saratoga high school used to access nude images of young girls, including the pictures taken of Audrie. According to Audrie’s father “It didn’t matter if one person saw or 4,000 people saw. Because, to Audrie everybody in her little world, which was that high school; everybody had seen it.” This led Audrie to believe that her reputation and life was over. One week after the assault, Audrie Pott committed suicide. Despite the obscenity of the crime and the outrage generated by the public, two of the three assailants were only convicted to 30 non-consecutive days in jail to be completed on weekends, and the third was given 45 consecutive days. Because of the lack of disciplinary action, the parents of Audrie Pott filed a wrongful death suit, where two of the assailants, “John-R and John-B” had to do an interview for the film.
That same year, a fourteen year old Daisy Coleman and her thirteen year old friend Paige were having a sleepover, experimenting with drinking for the first time when Daisy got a text from a “Matty-B.” Matty was a friend of her oldest brothers and asked if the girls wanted to come over to his house and drink. Daisy and Paige were excited that an older boy wanted to hang out with them, so they agreed. Once Daisy and Paige were in Matty-B’s basement, Paige was raped by one of the six boys at the party and Daisy was raped by Matthew Barnett while unconscious. Barnett then dropped Daisy on her front lawn in the freezing cold with a blood alcohol level of 134.92. Despite Daisy’s testimony and rape kit, Matthew Barnett was dropped of all charges relating to the rape.
These two crimes bring to light the underlying problem in our justice system’s treatment of sexual assault cases. This problem has become apparent in many other cases including the Stanford rape, where a woman was raped by Brock Turner in an alley and was given a mere three months because the judge didn’t want to wreck his future. The nation’s corrupt justice system not only lets down the victims, but allows the public to believe that rape, sexual assault and rape culture is acceptable. In relation to Audrie Potts case, “Audrie’s Law” was created to make it easier to charge assailants and give harsher punishments. This law, signed into effect in 2014 by governor Jerry Brown is one of the many ways we can combat rape and rape culture, but the fight still goes on.
If you want to learn more about the film, or educate fellow peers on the subject, you can access the website here: http://www.audrieanddaisy.com/about/