The trial that led to the conviction of fifty-one men for raping and sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot was, apparently, “a legal case that’s like no other”. This was according to a song by the Marsh family, performers of “satirical” parodies who decided to celebrate the judgement passed on Dominique Pelicot and others by putting Gisele’s story to the tune of Paul Simon’s Fifty Ways to Leave your Lover. 

The result, as should hardly need saying, was grotesque, a terrible misstep from people who could just about get away with providing smug, people-like-us takes on the badness of lockdown and cuts and Donald Trump. The names of “lovers” (or more accurately, those in need of rhyming advice on how to leave them) are replaced by those of actual perpetrators, in lines such as “caught in the act, Mat”, “just pull up your pants, Vince” and “she didn’t cry, Si”.

Unsurprisingly, the song provoked disgust, and the family have since sort-of apologised, suggesting they believed they were “commending Gisèle Pelicot’s remarkable resilience and bravery in waiving anonymity, and utterly condemning those convicted”. They add that they have “always covered difficult news stories” and “don’t think anything should be off limits”. Really? When this is your means of delivery, I’m inclined to think some things should. 

The problem is not just one of tone, though. Of course it is possible to write good — or even just not ragingly offensive — satire about serious subjects. But there’s also the question of narrative structure. Right now, Gisèle Pelicot is rightly being recognised as a woman who did something incredibly brave, an act which people across the world have found moving and meaningful. That being so, the last thing anyone should do is misrepresent it. 

So many victims of sexual violence feel so much shame, and Pelicot’s decision to speak not just for herself, but for others — including those whom she recognised would never see a day in court — has enormous significance. Even so, its power does not lie in telling others  “this means you, too, will get justice” (we all know most probably won’t). Pelicot herself hasn’t really got justice, having admitted to feeling “completely destroyed” and not knowing whether her “whole life will be enough to understand”.  How could it be? Yet still she reached out to others, and the sight of her being celebrated and honoured allows fellow victims to see and experience themselves differently. It doesn’t change a past, or give back any trust that has been lost, but it lifts the burden of shame. This has been an invaluable thing to witness, but it is not the same as those who most need it gaining any great insight into the nature of sexual violence or how it might be stopped. 

The temptation to position Gisèle Pelicot as moving “from victim to feminist hero” is strong, but I think it should be resisted. She is both, and one of the most important points she made is that there is nothing morally abject or disgusting in being the former. In a 1987 speech, Andrea Dworkin warned against the way in which women are encouraged to see victimhood as “a state of mind”: “It’s not something that’s happened to us; instead we have a state of mind that’s bad”. The idea that victim status can be overcome if you’re strong — because it’s all in the head anyways — plays into the hands of those who excuse sexual violence. It’s there in some of the more disturbing responses to the trial, such as the mayor of Mazan commenting that “when there are kids involved, or women killed, then that’s very serious because there’s no way back” and noting that at least Gisèle Pelicot wasn’t conscious when raped, as that would have been “more serious”. Given these attitudes, we need to make clear that when other victims are encouraged to be inspired by Pelicot, what is meant is not “don’t be traumatised” or even “expect to be believed”, but “know that any shame you feel belongs entirely to the person who did this to you”. 

The Marsh family song goes all-out to present Gisèle’s removal of her sunglasses midway through the trial — “And then one day, they were gone” — as a step on the hero’s journey to seeing the men who “all really disgust us” getting their just deserts. This is not the first time we have seen it suggested that this trial, this case, “woke up the world, see?” It’s appealing to imagine us fixing sexual assault and abuse via narrative turning point, a sudden moment in which “everyone” (apart from the newly identifiable baddies) understands and condemns all transgressions, usually thanks to the determination of one or two special women. We saw this with #MeToo and responses to the Savile scandal. We saw it over a decade ago in the US with the Steubenville rape trial, which Laurie Penny went so far as to describe as “rape culture’s Abu Ghraib moment”. 

Why look in the mirror when you can insist that you’re happy Gisèle — powerful, heroic Gisèle — has sorted it all out already?

It’s a position that is dangerous in so many ways: it erases the long history of countless other women naming the problem; it suggests people somehow “didn’t know” some things were bad before they were “enlightened” (an excuse deployed by some of the Pelicot trial defendants); it lets broader cultural forces and attitudes off the hook. I wonder — and I’m sure I’m not the only one — how many men eagerly denouncing the 51 men in Avignon will insist it has nothing whatsoever to do with their own porn habits. Why look in the mirror when you can insist that you’re happy Gisèle — powerful, heroic Gisèle — has sorted it all out already?

And Gisèle Pelicot is heroic, but she should not have had to be. As Janice Turner has written, what happened in Mazan must now be linked to the influence of pornography and porn culture. There are many who will not want it to be. It is too messy, too challenging, far too likely to make far too many more “nice” men complicit in harm. You don’t get a quick parody song out of it. You don’t get to say it’s over and done with. You don’t get to pretend being outraged is enough. So many women were inspired by Gisèle, and felt such solidarity and connection, because the problem is so deep-rooted. For her to make us perceive ourselves differently is a tremendous achievement. For one person, it is more than enough.