Nate Parker’s college rape allegations shouldn’t stop audiences from catching his slave rebellion biopic “The Birth of A Nation” when it hits theaters this fall, according to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs.
Speaking with TMZ on Thursday, Isaacs, who’s made it her mission to diversify the awards ceremony after years of #OscarsSoWhite, urged everyone to not let the director’s past cloud the significance of Parker’s film in the current climate of the entertainment industry.
“I know just by the conversation that has gone on at Sundance that it’s clearly a movie that filmgoers should go and see,” Isaacs told the gossip site, before admitting she hasn’t even seen the movie.
Parker and his college roommate Jean Celestin, the film’s co-writer, were accused in 1999 of rape by a female classmate. Parker was cleared of the charges, claiming that he and the victim had previously engaged in consensual sex, but Celestin was sentenced to six months in prison. Celestin was later granted a mistrial when the victim refused to testify again. She committed suicide in 2012.
When pressed about the rape allegations, Isaacs drew a strong distinction between the art and the artist, which some find difficult to separate considering Parker and Celestin’s collaboration and how the film addresses issues of rape and sexual abuse.
“That’s one issue, that’s his personal issue,” she added. “And then there’s the issue of the movie. The important thing is for people to see it and enjoy the film, be impressed by the film. And I think that is what is very important. People need to see this movie.”
Despite Isaacs’ recommendation, many are far less cavalier about supporting the film, after details of the rape, including new transcripts of disturbing phone calls between Parker and the victim, received increased media attention.
Cultural critic and author Roxane Gay penned a particularly powerful response in an editorial for the New York Times earlier this month about the limits of empathy and why she refuses to support the film.
“’The Birth of a Nation’ is being billed as an important movie — something we must see, a story that demands to be heard. I have not yet seen the movie, and now I won’t,” she wrote. “Just as I cannot compartmentalize the various markers of my identity, I cannot value a movie, no matter how good or ‘important’ it might be, over the dignity of a woman whose story should be seen as just as important, a woman who is no longer alive to speak for herself, or benefit from any measure of justice. No amount of empathy could make that possible.”
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