Rick Famuyiwa Quotes
It was titled 'Confirmation' very purposefully. I wanted the film to be about that process - about how Judge Thomas and Anita Hill were thrown into a situation that was difficult for anyone to navigate, no matter what the truth was. It's hard to know what the truth is.
Littleton, Cynthia. "HBO's Confirmation Team Talks Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas and Race." Variety, 7 Jan. 2016.
This proverb which actually has the force of de facto law in much of the Arab world, while detested by many sophisticated Westerners and Americans in particular, was actually a custom in America for many years. Under the principle, a rapist is not a rapist if he marries the girl. A seducer is not a seducer. In the Bedouin culture there is no difference between the rapist and the seducer. The reason that the practice is so hateful is that it assumes that when a woman is raped or seduced the damage is to the woman’s male relatives—to their honor. Therefore, the “crime” can be remedied by marrying the girl and satisfying the male relative’s sense of honor. Then no harm has been done, except of course to the woman who often becomes the double victim, first of the rape or seduction and then of a forced marriage. In modern America the honor of the male relatives has no standing in law, yet even today some judges and prosecutors will go easy on a statutory rapist or worse if he marries the girl and the girls family goes along with the arrangement. The term “shotgun wedding” stems from a time when family members would force the alternative on seducers.
… everyone is convinced that all sexual wrongs represent a symptom of decadence peculiar to our age.
His observation at that time has been typical of almost all eras which tend to be seen as unique in this respect by those who live during them.
Rick Famuyiwa is a Nigerian-American director, producer and screenwriter of productions including The Wood (1999), Brown Sugar (2002), Talk to Me (2007), Dope (2015), and Confirmation (2016).
