‘Natalie Wood Day’: sexual violence and celebrity remembrance in the #MeToo Era

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article inquires after the ethics of posthumous outing and networked forms of remembrance connected to public figures accused of, or having admitted to, sexual violence and domestic abuse. Focusing on the obituary politics surrounding the 2020 deaths of Kirk Douglas, Kobe Bryant, and Sean Connery, it explores the forms that a feminist ethics of disclosure and memorialisation might take in the #MeToo era. Contra the popular tendency of othering sex offenders as exceptional ‘monsters,’ #MeToo’s affective and discursive force lies in framing sexual violence as unextraordinary, banal, and ubiquitous. In what follows, we make a case for forms of remembrance acknowledging that a person can simultaneously be an accomplished professional, a loving parent, and a rapist, so that one aspect of one’s being and actions need not require silence over others. Reflecting on what it means to remember public figures in their totality, we flag the importance of attending to the social, cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts that have contributed to the prominence, and subsequent remembrance of individuals. We argue that such a contextual move makes it possible to see the individual public figure within the social networks and hierarchies that have allowed, or disallowed, patterns of behaviour.