Sundance Film Festivals Cofounder Sexual Assault Case

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Earlier this week, my mom got a notification on her phone for a New York Times article while we were watching a movie together. She looked down at her phone to see if it was anything worth reading later, and upon reading it, lifted up her phone to show me. The article is titled “How an Abuse Victim’s Nerve and a Hidden iPhone Led to the Arrest of a Sundance Founder. I found this article to be significant in a number of different ways.
First, both me and my mom were not that shocked that a person of power had been outed for sexually assaulting not just one, but two young people. At this point in the whole movement to allow everyoe to speak their truth and come forward about sexual assault in a safe environment has shed light on the truth behind so many people in power that at this point it does not suprise me at all. I find this to be extremely upsetting because I do not enjoy living in an evnironment where sexual assault cases are so common that hearing about them doesn’t increase my fear that it will happen to me any more than I already am aware of.
Second, I did not even believe that this article was true for a second after seeing it pop up. I think this is attributed to the huge amount of faulty reporting going on in our society that can sometimes cause distrust within the media. Of course I believe the victims that were brave enough to come forward with this horrible event that they have had to live with for years, but I think since the Sundance Film Festival had been built up as such a positive thing in my life, I did not want to believe that a cofounder was capable of doing this.
Third, I was shocked by what I think is major flaws in the Mormon church system. A man who has confessed to molesting a yiung child who truated them shsouldn't just be put on “leave” while still being supported by the church. It is always good to have a sense of community and connection, but once you have tons of people within a group willing to support you no matter the crime, I feel like that is weird. People involved in this, in my opinion, should have done more to punish him and help him learn from his mistakes.
I think this article really affected me in how unaffected I was by it at first. Despite using words in the title that should have attracted my immediate attention like “victim” and “abuse” the main part I cared about was the fact that a Sundance Film Festival co founder had something to do with this, someone who I would have assumed was very nice and artsy and not a child molester at all. This article really highlights the current stereotype of people with money and power being able to get out of situations that they shouldn’t be able to get out of, like harming a child in a way that will stay with them forever. I really hope we can continue to make progress toward this not being so big of a thing, but I don’t know if it will ever happen as long as we keep idolizing people who do horrible things like the Sundance cofounder.

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