Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal. Today we have
Speaker 1: another bonus episode on our show. We tackle sensitive topics
Speaker 1: from rape and child sexual abuse to financial fraud and
Speaker 1: identity theft. We handle this work with a lot of care,
Speaker 1: using trauma informed interviewing techniques, consulting mental health experts, and
Speaker 1: communicating with our subjects in every step of production. But
Speaker 1: we're always trying to do better and to evolve as
Speaker 1: our culture evolves. That's why last year we reached out
Speaker 1: to RAIN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Throughout
Speaker 1: season five, they've been advising us on ways to approach
Speaker 1: our work with survivors. Recently, I sat down with Jennifer
Speaker 1: Simmons Kaliba. She's rain's vice president of Communications. I wanted
Speaker 1: to share a bit of our conversation with you and
Speaker 1: to give you a look into the kinds of conversations
Speaker 1: we're all having a Betrayal I hope you enjoy. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about yourself and your
Speaker 1: position at RAIN and what RAIN is.
Speaker 2: RAIN is the nation's largest anti sexual violence organization. I'm
Speaker 2: the vice president of Communications, so my role is to
Speaker 2: ensure that people are more aware and educated about what
Speaker 2: sexual violence is. And the work that I get to
Speaker 2: do is make sure that more people understand that the
Speaker 2: resources are there, that they are not alone, and that
Speaker 2: if you or somebody in your life is experience sexual violence,
Speaker 2: that you have people to turn to.
Speaker 1: How would you define Rain's role in working with Betrayal.
Speaker 2: So, one of the things that RAIN does is we
Speaker 2: work with entertainment companies and studios and producers to insert
Speaker 2: and establish responsible and relevant storytelling in the jarny of
Speaker 2: making people more aware through storytelling about sexual violence. So
Speaker 2: we worked with you guys. We did a responsible storytelling
Speaker 2: training session with you. We've worked with you when it
Speaker 2: comes to interviewing survivors during season five of Betrayal, and
Speaker 2: it's just been such a pleasure to be able to
Speaker 2: be a part of both the education and also the
Speaker 2: advancement of this responsible storytelling that you guys are doing
Speaker 2: a Betrayal.
Speaker 1: You know, when I look back on the canon of Betrayal,
Speaker 1: there are certain things that our team would probably write
Speaker 1: differently today. I'm curious from your point of view, when
Speaker 1: you look back on a body of work that still
Speaker 1: survives and exists in the world and is there for
Speaker 1: people to meet it at any given time. What type
Speaker 1: of obligation do creators and writers have to address that
Speaker 1: work if it's outdated culturally with language like what do
Speaker 1: you feel is the obligation of those producers and creators.
Speaker 2: It's a really interesting question, particularly for something that you
Speaker 2: put out into the world and then still have some
Speaker 2: measure of control over. You produce a movie or a film,
Speaker 2: you produce a book, and it goes out there, and
Speaker 2: the level of effort that it would take to recut, redo,
Speaker 2: republish all of that is a challenge. But for serialized
Speaker 2: shows like yours, the question of going back and looking
Speaker 2: at the things that you wish you had done differently
Speaker 2: is a really valid one. And I think what I
Speaker 2: hope people who are creating this kind of content do
Speaker 2: is that they give themselves a degree of grace for
Speaker 2: what they knew at the time and for the best
Speaker 2: that they were doing at a time, and that if
Speaker 2: they get it really wrong, that they have some sort
Speaker 2: of clear discussion or apology or hey, that really was
Speaker 2: not what I wanted to do, and then they move
Speaker 2: forward and change the behavior, and then they change how
Speaker 2: they approach, because that's really the measure, and that's really
Speaker 2: where the learning happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think one of the places that we often
Speaker 1: struggle with is the language around victim and survivor. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious if there is like a hard and fast
Speaker 1: rule for you in terms of that language.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The hard and fast rule is it's what the person
Speaker 2: wants to be called and respecting that and respecting what
Speaker 2: it means to them. And then the idea that if
Speaker 2: you get it wrong, you say that somebody is something
Speaker 2: that they don't feel they want to be, you change it,
Speaker 2: you say you're sorry, you change it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because we tell stories over ten episodes, and
Speaker 1: in those ten episodes where we're talking about one person's story,
Speaker 1: it's one person's journey, so episode to episode, they can
Speaker 1: be in a different place in relation to what happened
Speaker 1: to them, and that language can be tricky to know.
Speaker 1: And I think you're validating something for me, which is
Speaker 1: having constant conversations with our storytellers to feel like, at
Speaker 1: this point in the story, how would you identify it?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, but also holding in consideration where the
Speaker 1: audience is meeting this person in this journey too. So
Speaker 1: for season two of Betrayal, I remember a big discussion
Speaker 1: was does our audience know what c SAM is and
Speaker 1: does our audience know why we can't say what people
Speaker 1: would colloquially say that material is curious what your thoughts
Speaker 1: are even just saying it as a manner of explaining
Speaker 1: and showing why we're not going that route, like how
Speaker 1: how do you feel about that?
Speaker 2: We talked about this with media training a lot. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to say the words that people will say.
Speaker 2: So you're going to say kitty porn, that's what ces.
Speaker 2: It's kitty porn. No no, no no. But when you
Speaker 2: say child's sexual abuse material, for the person who has
Speaker 2: no connection, they have no idea what that actually means.
Speaker 2: But you know that that person, if they knew what
Speaker 2: it meant, they'd be like, oh my god, that's horrible.
Speaker 2: So like explaining and breaking down why the sentence doesn't work,
Speaker 2: but acknowledging that people may need to see that to
Speaker 2: make that next connection is important and that's something that
Speaker 2: in the media people are now getting really comfortable with.
Speaker 2: But if we go back to the beginnings of RAIN
Speaker 2: in the nineties, when we were trying to get people
Speaker 2: to recognize that this issue was important, networks weren't saying
Speaker 2: rape on TV, right, and it's so important, So you know,
Speaker 2: euphemisms around rape as a storytelling device because you couldn't
Speaker 2: say the words like so, how important is it to
Speaker 2: be able to say, you know all these all these
Speaker 2: kind of work around phrases, what you're actually talking about
Speaker 2: is rape. And that's actually something I saw with Saskia
Speaker 2: a season and it struck me. One of her friends
Speaker 2: saw the videos and instantly the words that came out
Speaker 2: of her mouth were She's being raped. There was no hesitation,
Speaker 2: no working around it. No, her husband is doing something
Speaker 2: terrible to nothing, she was raped. That is progress. You
Speaker 2: go from not talking about rape, not saying the word
Speaker 2: rape thirty some odd years ago, to a everyday individual
Speaker 2: who is looking at something happening through the lens to
Speaker 2: a intimate partner violence and naming it, naming it immediately.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of progress we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Then, my producer Caitlin chimed in.
Speaker 3: In season three, we were telling the story from the
Speaker 3: perspective of both Stacy and Tyler, Tyler being a child
Speaker 3: victim of sexual abuse and Stacy being a mother who
Speaker 3: had her life absolutely torn apart by what her husband
Speaker 3: did to her Son. I think as a show we've
Speaker 3: changed our approach a little bit in how we've learned
Speaker 3: to balance the perspectives of multiple victims without getting into
Speaker 3: that comparative trauma piece. And I also think as creators
Speaker 3: we struggle with, well, are there ways we could have
Speaker 3: done even better as storytellers and doing right by the
Speaker 3: victim of child abuse? So, at Rain, when you think
Speaker 3: about that issue of how do you tell stories from
Speaker 3: the perspectives of multiple victims, what are some of the
Speaker 3: strategies that come to mind.
Speaker 2: To the point of comparative trauma in any kind of storytelling.
Speaker 2: I think about it as a handful of different size
Speaker 2: rocks that you throw into water. No matter the size
Speaker 2: of the rock, there is a ripple, But every single
Speaker 2: person is the same of their own ripple. Every single
Speaker 2: person is feeling a impact, feeling a ramification, an emotion.
Speaker 2: They're all coming to it from their own center of
Speaker 2: the story. And as long as we acknowledge that everybody's
Speaker 2: ripples matter to that person at the center of them,
Speaker 2: then we can stop comparing the trauma of other people
Speaker 2: and then just start thinking about the individual humans involved.
Speaker 1: To me, it's not a zero sum their space for
Speaker 1: every version of this conversation, and that's something that we're
Speaker 1: often discussing. You know, I knew that the way that
Speaker 1: Stacey and Teason three, the way that she talked about
Speaker 1: her ex husband, would be really difficult for people to hear.
Speaker 1: But I also knew that there were people who were
Speaker 1: alone in bed in the middle of the night, staring
Speaker 1: at their ceiling thinking, I just wish my life could
Speaker 1: go back to before times, before the knowing, before everything
Speaker 1: came apart, was.
Speaker 2: The version of my life where I didn't have to
Speaker 2: be wrestling with all of these terrible thoughts and feelings.
Speaker 2: And Yeah, the purpose of all of these different viewpoints
Speaker 2: is really what do you want people in the end
Speaker 2: to be able to connect to?
Speaker 1: The clarity for me is purpose is just doing it intentionally?
Speaker 1: What is the purpose? If one person feels less a
Speaker 1: long by listening to this, we've done our job because
Speaker 1: that was the intention going into the project. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: thank you for everything that you do, and thank you
Speaker 1: for everything that Rain does and contributes, and thank you
Speaker 1: for contributing to Betrayal