Whistleblowing & FCKRY
5 Questions With Actor/Activist & #MeToo Weinstein Whistleblower Sarah Ann Masse, New Music to FCK with, and more.
Shello, my people!
So many of you are new and I’m thrilled you’ve decided to visit MUTHR, FCKD. This is a time in which are truly FCKD in myriad ways and this is the repository for my deep thoughts on the FCKRY and pop culture, so welcome, welcome, welcome. Let me know what you think in the comments.
FCKRY of the WK
In a gross, seemingly random 4-to-3 decision on Thursday, New York’s highest court overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges, which is a huge FCK U to the whole #MeToo movement. I could think of no one better to ask about its impact than my friend Sarah Ann Masse, actress, producer, and founder of Hire Survivors Hollywood—a survivor-run, survivor-focused non-profit that serves the survivor community to prevent against career retaliation. I could also think of no one better to kick off my Five Questions With series, which will feature insights from thinkers and artists I admire about what keeps them going amid the FCKRY.
Image courtesy of Masse’s website
Currently appearing on the TV series “Blue Ridge,” Sarah was among the women who bravely came forward against Weinstein for inappropriate and lascivious behavior while interviewing to be his nanny. Here’s what she had to say about what just went down.
Five Questions With…Sarah Ann Masse
MUTHR, FKD: What were your thoughts and feelings when you woke up to this FCKD up news about Weinstein?
SARAH ANN MASSE: I was instantly flooded with all the familiar trauma. My first thoughts were also for all the women who bravely participated in that criminal trial, what a slap in the face this is to them, and how horrifying this is to all the survivors who looked at this case as an example of justice finally being served. On a personal level, it was disheartening, agonizing, unsurprising, but ultimately galvanizing. What better reminder of how much further we have to go than a rape conviction being overturned because ‘too many people’ had experiences to share about being abused by the same man?
MF: What precedent does the overturning set with victims of unreported sexual assault?
SAM: Instead of creating a bad precedent with future cases (which it most certainly will), I'm choosing to focus on the fact that it will also inspire new legislation to shore up loopholes in individual state laws that provide more narrow terms for prior bad acts victims than federal law—or California law—does for example. This means that abusers will try to utilize the criminal justice system to further victimize their survivors, and find ways to be let off the hook for the crimes they've committed and the harm they have caused. It will also certainly lead to at least some survivors feeling terrified of pursuing any sort of justice through the court system.
MF: How has this experience changed how you look at the world?
SAM: I already knew we live in a society that is built upon racist, patriarchal systems rife with victim blaming, rape culture, and other forms of violence against historically marginalized people. It's changed my perspective by showing me how possible positive change is if one is motivated, has a vision, and is willing to invest the significant time and effort required to bring the changes to fruition. But that perspective also comes with the knowledge that the changes need to be led by the impacted communities. Unfortunately, that often means that people who have already been harmed, marginalized, and outcast once again are required to suffer for the greater good. That's the part that needs to change. We need survivor-led work with time, money, and resources invested by those who haven't suffered the same inequities. I founded a nonprofit to support survivors in the entertainment industry because I saw the problem (retaliation against survivors, economic harm, lack of inclusion, and predatory systems), but I also saw simple, creative, positive solutions no one else was implementing.
MF: How did you maintain your strength in your darkest moments during the trial?
SAM: Sometimes I feel like I have no idea how I got through it. This entire experience of coming forward about Weinstein has massively changed my life in both positive and negative ways. My career still hasn't recovered, my chronic health issues and disabilities have progressed, and I faced new forms of traumatization and harm such as stalking, harassment, and retaliation. It also connected me to a greater movement, a sense of purpose, and has allowed me to help create changes that have actively improved the economic and creative opportunities for fellow survivors—that was a great source of comfort, focus, and grounding. Knowing this was a trial that would impact society as a whole allowed me to continue participating in communications and advocacy around it, including being a voice for survivors who were participating in the trial and couldn't speak to the press themselves.
MF: How has this experience affected you as an artist and in your relationship with yourself?
SAM: Being known mostly for one of the worst things that ever happened to me empowered me to infuse my perspective as a queer, disabled, female survivor of sexual violence into everything I do. The idea of doing a lot of that prior to 2017 felt impossible to me. It made me terrified that I would be rejected and retaliated against by my industry. But guess what? That all already happened to me when I came forward about Harvey. I literally had the thing that I was trained for, that I was best at, and that I loved so much ripped away from me, simply because a powerful man had abused me and I dared to tell the truth about it.
Life is short and difficult, so there is no reason to deny who I am or be shy about what I want. I had always worked my worldview into my writing in the shorts, features, and pilots I was working on. I'm an even better actor and writer now than I was when this all started because I'm living a more authentic life, I have more lived experience, less fear, and greater access to my many complex emotions. Many people look at me after having won some awards for playing Emily Steel in "She Said" and with my upcoming role in the new series "Blue Ridge'' and assume that I'm doing just fine in my career, but that isn't the case. Auditions are still few and far between. The impacts of that initial retaliation are still felt. If that's true for me, it's also true for many other survivors.
I have become someone who will confidently say, if you really want to change things, you need to take direct action. Words are important but unless you're helping to change legislation, giving tangible support and resources to the survivors in your life and community, and giving your time, money, and resources to orgs that are on the ground creating this change, you're not doing everything you can to prevent these things from happening in the future and caring for those who have already fallen victim to this deeply harmful system of oppression and abuse.
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FCKNG with: All Born Screaming, St. Vincent
In my house, a new St. Vincent album is cause for celebration. If you’ve been under a rock since 2007, St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, is a master singer, songwriter, and guitar player (ooooh the REVERB) and leans into her guitar hero status on All Born Screaming, her latest collection of innovative, infectious songs that FCK around with various genres and influences within the pop/rock realm.
It’s like she overheard my kids and me longing for a sequel to the wonderful Masseduction and lo!
Music is but the arrangement of finite notes; musical innovation is the ability to FCK with the vast assortment of sounds that have permeated your brain and regurgitate them in a way that puts your stank on them. Clark’s songs sound like an effective reworking of sounds long filed away in the recesses of our brains, thrown into a spin cycle with her patent shade of dye, then painstakingly dried out and fashioned to be worn proudly and reverently.
I, for one, have been mourning guitar riffs, solos, and fat six-string rhythm work and, thankfully, Clark gives us plenty of those things on this record. She even throws in a little sitar noodle on “Down And Out Downtown,” which FCKS heavily with 60s/70s melodies, licks, and aural atmospherics. An excellent first single, “Broken Man,” FCKS with electro minimalism of the 80s, augmented by blasts of guitar to evoke some effective man-meets-machine aggression. A favorite track, “Reckless,” is a quiet, heart-wrenching moment evoked by emotive vocals until it bursts into a Nine Inch Nails ejaculation at the end.
“All Born Screaming,” featuring Cate Le Bon on backing vocals, nods toward the appropriated electro reggae rhythms of the 80s (you hear a little of the Andy Summers (of The Police) permeating her playing on this record), which becomes compelling in Annie’s nimble hands. Another fave stomp is “Big Time Nothing.” I also love “Sweetest Fruit.” Ever the conceptualist, Clark sees each new album as an opportunity to push open a new door of exploration that extends past sound into the visual and performative realms. It’s what separates the artist from the pop star. You don’t just get new songs, you get a new sound.
Not quite FCKNG with: The New Tay Tay
When it comes to La Swift, it makes me happy to see a young woman in music so powerful—that’s no lie. To be fair, I put on her new Tortured Poets record and listened all the way through—TWICE. That’s right. And I say this with love but all I got was one long homogenous song. The same sound and similar chord changes and melodies seem to persist throughout, making it a challenge to gauge where one song ends and another begins. “Florida!!!” is the only difference, thanks to Florence Welch, who stepped in to make this commentary on our country’s limp dick sound a little stiffer.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Each piece of music she releases adheres so tightly to a tried and true formula of songwriting. It doesn’t breathe, morph, or take you anywhere different. Lyrics are what she does best, but when it comes to music or subject matter she doesn’t dare veer from the confines of what her fan base wants, or FCK around enough with sound or production values (that’s a Jack Antonoff problem), for true innovation and growth. This is what, in my eyes, makes her more of a pop star and less of an artist. She seems risk averse and needs a challenge—other than a heartbreak to be victimized by—to grow, which she’s figured out she doesn’t necessarily need to do to stay worshipped and rich.
Behold the genius who broke down what I mean about her songwriting in brass tacks (or should I say tracks?). Thanks so much @CharleneKaye for this GENIUS outline of what I’ve been opining for years.
Where I FCKD with words
Personal essays are how writers FCK around and find catharsis—if they dare. Some writers can examine every crevice out of an experience until they’ve wrung words out of every minute aspect of it. I try really hard not to because I live in fear of redundancy and boring the reader. And I like a challenge.
I always ask myself: Am I writing? Or masturbating into the ether with a laptop?
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to lately in other publications. You be the judge.
For the great Sari Botton’s Goodbye To All That section of Memoir Land (whose only directive was to write whatever the hell I wanted), I had the lightbulb moment to write about my life using New York restaurants as a tentpole. Mind you, I pitched this notion to her in early March, a good month and some ahead of the release New York Magazine’s “Where We Ate” issue. Your girl is nothing if not tuned into the zeitgeist. If you want to get to know me a little better, here’s “You Are Where You Eat,” which is my take on the topic. Let me know what you think.
As a writer, you toil away on things for weeks, sometimes months ahead of their release, and inevitably, everything you’ve worked on sees the light of day at once. I was in Los Angeles enjoying a long overdue friends and family week when my first article for the Los Angeles Times saw the light of day—a reported think piece about why we grieve a little when our cars die. Again, thoughts about your own personal experiences with car grief are welcome in the comments below.
In a celestial nod to my lifelong held bicoastal goals, a How I Get It Done piece for The Cut came out on the same day, in which I interviewed Leeann Mata about the myriad sacrifices she made to open Matawana Dispensary, the first Black female-owned dispensary in Brooklyn in Park Slope. Go visit Leeann if you can—I sure as shit am planning on it! And let me know if you’ve already been!
That’s it for now, kids! Exclusive content is on the way for paid subscribers if you want to get on board. Join me here for more soon.
xoxoxoxoxox