Daisy discovers a bit of hope when another survivor, Delaney Henderson, reaches out through Facebook. She reminds Daisy that she is not alone and urges her to speak publicly about her experience. Through the organization, PAVE: Promoting Awareness | Victim Empowerment, Daisy and Delaney begin their advocacy work to prevent sexual assault in high school.
Safe magazine interviewed Sara Dosa, producer of the “Audrie and Daisy” documentary about the powerful impact survivors’ stories can have on our culture and why sharing men and boys’ viewpoints on Audrie’s and Daisy’s assaults were critical to share, too.
Meghana Kulkarni: The film centers around the theme of girlhood and issues young women face. How do you think the experience of being a girl has changed over the last few years and how was that depicted in the film?
Sara Dosa: I’m sadly no longer a girl, so I can’t speak from that level of experience. But I’m so struck by the fervor and virulent nature that social media has taken. The level of attacks and how cutting it can be in terms of tearing down the reputations of both boys and girls. I think in our film one of the most striking lines is when Audrie, over social media, says “You have no idea what it’s like to be a girl.” And I think that’s just so telling because she’s trying to explain to this boy – one of the perpetrators – just what it feels like. He’s saying “Oh this will just blow over. Don’t worry about it. People are going to be gossiping about something else.” So she’s trying to explain to him “No, this is my reputation, this is my entire world that is completely changed from this moment.” I think that happens, I think it’s always happened, but with social media it happens instantaneously and exponentially. There’s no way to really control it. We say in the film that we’re in the frontier world of social media right now where there are no laws and no regulations, or very few at least.