Good afternoon friends.
My name is Meredith Graves, I am of MTV News,
and I’m sitting here with one of my literal
actual all-time heroes,
Tori Amos. >> Thank you!
>> I can’t believe you’re here, and we have so much to talk about.
First and foremost, your work on the Netflix
original documentary ‘Audrie and Daisy’,
and then something really tremendous and special,
but we’ll talk about the film first.
>> Yes.
>> This guy started texting me.
It was kinda like, Oh older boys wanna hang out with us?
I think I was drunk.
The boys were pretty persistent.
Then I guess things got worse.
>> It’s good to let the audience know that this film is incredibly tragic.
It’s also at times wildly uplifting
and makes you want to raise or join an army
or your own to combat the pervasiveness of rape culture.
So to get started, what do you think the strongest message
is that survivors of sexual assault can take away
from the film and from Daisy’s story?
>> The questions about the justice system and the questions
about us as a community,
how do we fail our teenagers when we turn the other way?
Daisy talks about silence:
the silence of friends, the silence of the community.
People not wanting to get involved
because they were afraid they could lose their jobs.
And it divides people, this issue,
because we don’t always talk
to the teenagers about responsibility and consequences
and that your life changes forever.
>> I have to know, the first time you saw the film, how did you feel?
>> Raw. Unable to move.
I was aware of Emily Doe and the Stanford attack,
so the idea
that this has been happening in our universities,
that is happening in our high schools and now our middle schools,
and it was a moment where I had to realize
that this is, um, beyond an epidemic —
it’s endemic.
It’s in our country, it’s in our culture,
and it’s something that sometimes grown-ups
don’t want to talk about,
and when I say grown-up I mean over 21.
You don’t want to talk about it, you put your head in the sand
and say, “Push the issue out there,
it’s not going to happen to my sister
or my teenager or me,”
and yet it’s happening and it’s not stopping.
>> What do you think parents can do to gain
a greater understanding of the crisis happening among young women?
The rape epidemic, rape culture?
>> Well I think that this film,
it’s a tough watch but it’s a must watch,
and it’s something that teenagers need
to see and adolescents need to see it
because the boys in Audrie’s case,
her story
is that she was sexually assaulted
and then they drew on her with marker
all over her body and wrote with arrows
what they did all over her body
and they took photographs
and they put it up online,
and that is when the shaming,
from girls as well, the shaming.
So the perpetrators were boys,
and these are teenagers, these are teenage—
they’re kids, and they were friends.
So this is something the over-21s,
this is a wake-up call, this is a call to arms,
and Audrie,
within several days,
eight days, killed herself.
Daisy is 18 now;
she tried to commit suicide three times,
but she has stepped into a place of survivor
and she’s an activist
and she is building an army,
an army of teenagers to talk about this.
>> What are the most positive results of the film to you?
>> To see Daisy becoming a tattoo artist
is, um, it’s something to watch.
The film shows you that, and she’s reclaiming her body.
She is creating art on her canvas,
and to address this very directly
is something I encourage everybody to check out Daisy
and become part of her army.
I’m part of Daisy’s army.
>> See the muscle?
All she had to do is raise her hand and here we are.
Are you planning on getting tattooed by Daisy?
>> I am. >> Do you have— you have tattoos?
Right? You do? Yes? No?
>> Oh, I have— I’m one of those people:
the lower back tattoo gal.
I’m one of those people. I know.
>> That’s like the one place I don’t have one, so we’re even.
What do you think the recent prevalence
of major national headline-making rape cases
has done for the way our culture looks at rape in the common consciousness?
Do you feel like it has changed anything?
>> People are waking up.
There are activists now that are saying,
“This conversation has to be front and center,”
because the issue isn’t going away.
So we have to—
America, we have to deal with this.
These are our kids disrespecting our kids,
and we have to look at them all as our kids.
We’re back to the conversation is when you look away,
you don’t do something,
you are doing something.
You’re fingerprints are on that, okay?
So we’re not talking in our school systems,
we’re not really talking—
empowering teachers to have the conversation, tough conversation,
and now grown-ups, whether a parent or not,
anybody over 21, that is legal,
needs to get involved in this conversation
because the world has gone mad.
This is madness.
>> It’s madness that for sure takes the form
of the most extremely pervasive
and destabilizing
force of violence against young women
and young people in general and it is terrifying,
and for people who want to join Daisy’s army,
who want to join you,
how did you get involved with the Rape, Abuse,
and Incest National Network?
>> In 1994, the ladies at Atlantic,
that worked at Atlantic Records,
got me in touch with Scott Berkowitz
and we founded RAINN as a collective,
and they connected all the rape crisis centers in America
as a hotline and they’re online now.
And the good news is that they’re there,
they’re trained, they work in the trenches with people
when they’re in a victim stage
and try to help them to take the steps,
whether it’s—
many things, emotional,
sometimes legal to get a minor out of that situation.
The phone number wasn’t traceable
because sometime the perpetrator was in the home.
And so the bad news about this
is the phone doesn’t stop ringing.
If you’d asked me in 1994 once we’d started,
“In 2016, maybe the phone won’t ring so much?”
No, the phone is ringing and ringing and ringing.
So the good news is that there are more advocates
that are stepping forward out there to be supportive
and to have the discussion,
but the sadness
is that there are more calls than ever.
>> Because at the end of the day, it really does come down to safety,
and so much of the predatory behavior
against teenage girls does happen on the Internet.
Now if people that are out there
watching want to get involved with RAINN
and the work that you do or become an advocate,
volunteer their time, donate,
aside from buying your fantastic new single,
which plays over the credits of the film, which I believe, if I’m correct,
the benefits go to RAINN— >> Yes.
>> —of course, how can people get involved with the Network?
>> We are there, you can contact us.
We need volunteers, we need people.
They’re very visible on the website, so it’s not hard to find RAINN.
>> RAINN.org to get more information about the Rape, Abuse,
and Incest National Network and also to volunteer.
I’m so excited that we got to have this conversation.
>> Thank you for having me, thank you. >> The film will be here Friday.
The 20th year reissue of ‘Boys for Pele’ complete
with two bonus tracks, photos from New Orleans,
and god knows what else in the future
will be out very very shortly in November,
and in the meantime you will continue to be amazing.
I am so glad that you came here to be with us today!
Thank you so much.
‘Audrie & Daisy’ will be out on Netflix this Friday,
make sure to watch it. Thank you Tori.
>> Thank you babe, thank you.