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'Slut-Shaming' Documentary to Make New York Debut in Bushwick

By Serena Dai | October 2, 2015 6:55pm | Updated on October 5, 2015 8:56am
"UnSlut: A Documentary Film" will make its New York debut in Bushwick on Oct. 6.
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UnSlut: A Documentary Film

BUSHWICK — A documentary inspired by the suicide of a teenager who was "slut-shamed" is making its New York debut at a screening in Bushwick next week.

"UnSlut: A Documentary Film" looks at the stories of several women who have been sexually bullied, including Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old Canadian who took her own life in 2013 after photos of her alleged sexual assault spread online.

Director Emily Lindin started The UnSlut Project in 2013 as a Tumblr page featuring her diary entries from middle school, when she herself was labeled a "slut," after hearing about Rehtaeh's death.

So many women started sending her their stories that Lindin decided it was time to move beyond her own experience and make the film, which focuses on stories from several women.

Lindin hopes the film and screenings like the one in Bushwick will inspire conversations in the community about how to end the sexual shaming and bullying of women.

"Girls get a reputation of being a slut. Guys are studs," she said. "This double standard isn’t the way it has to be. We don’t need to raise our kids with these same assumptions that are rooted in centuries-old mythology."

In the film, Lindin talks to Rehteah's friends and family, who continued to fight for charges against the teenage boys accused of assaulting her and spreading the photos online.

The boys were ultimately put on trial for child pornography for releasing the photos but did not get jail time.

Many people blamed the Internet and social media for Rehteah's experience, but the film shows that women have been dealing with slut-shaming for ages, Lindin said.

Samantha Gailey Geimer, with whom director Roman Polanski had "unlawful sex" in the '70s when she was 13, talks in the film about what it felt like to be publicly shamed in the media at the time.

Many women also wrote to Lindin about having "slut" spray-painted on their garage doors or lockers, long before Instagram became a thing, Lindin said.

"It’s our responsibility to change our societies," she said. "We can’t just throw up our hands and say, 'ugh society.'"

Screenings have been happening in intimate settings across the country, with the aim of sparking conversations afterward.

Bushwick's screening will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 6, and include a Q&A with Lindin and the film's executive producer, WWE champion Mick Foley.

Lindin hopes that people at the screening, which has limited seating, will stay afterward to discuss how they can curb slut-shaming in their own communities, she said.

"As upsetting as it is to hear these stories," Lindin said. "it’s exciting to think we can be doing something to change someone’s ingrained assumptions."

Tickets to the screening cost $20 and can be purchased here. It's being shown at a private residence, and the address will be released to ticket buyers.