In the view of more than a few in the Hollywood community, Birth of a Nation director-writer Nate Parker has become Black Bart — a demonic figure whose lack of sensitivity during a Penn State episode 17 years ago resulted in a charge of rape (i.e., an unwanted menage a trois that the drunken victim properly regarded as a violation) and whose behavior may have contributed, certainly to some extent, to the suicide of the victim 13 years later. A rash verdict if you ask me, but the crowd wants what it wants.
The Birth of a Nation is almost certainly award-season toast — everyone seems to believe that. It even appears as if Parker himself might be persona non grata, industry-wise, for the next few months. But what he, Jean Celestin and the late victim got into during the 1999 incident in question was, however repulsive or appalling from her P.O.V., probably not hugely different from the bacchanalia that hundreds of thousands of inebriated college students got into in their dorm rooms going back to the mid ’60s, or the dawn of the libertine era.
Here, in an 8.27 interview with Ebony‘s Britni Danielle, is how Parker sees the differences between then and now:
Britni Danielle: “You started out tonight addressing the controversy, and you talked a lot about male culture and toxic masculinity. So I want to kind of compare. What, at 19, did you know about consent?”
Nate Parker: “To be honest, not very much. It wasn’t a conversation people were having. When I think about 1999, I think about being a 19-year-old kid, and I think about my attitude and behavior just toward women with respect [to] objectifying them. I never thought about consent as a definition, especially as I do now. I think the definitions of so many things have changed.
“Put it this way — when you’re 19, a threesome is normal. It’s fun. When you’re 19, getting a girl to say yes, or being a dog, or being a player, cheating. Consent is all about — for me, back then — if you can get a girl to say yes, you win.”