In a recent interview discussing his role as a serial killer on the show “The Fall,” Jamie Dornan admitted to following a woman as part of a method acting process to get in character.
Though we say, yes, this is disturbing, we recognize there is more nuance than the writer Jill Pantozzi admits in her critique of ?Dornan on The Mary Sue.
Clearly, if we lay out the situation as a man stalking a woman, for whatever purpose, the response is going to be negative.
If we qualify that with, “Well, he’s a method actor,” then, in the eyes of some people, that makes it more ?acceptable.
However, immediate criticism of Dornan reveals a great deal about gender assumptions, and this is particularly relevant because Dornan never had a desire to harm the woman. If he desired to harm her, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation — it would be cut and dry.
But if we substitute a woman in place of Dornan, then we likely wouldn’t have the same response. The presence of a man implies a threat, even though we explicitly know there isn’t one.
Or if we substitute the woman with a man, Dornan’s actions seem less threatening. If he were following a man, or if female-Dornan was following a woman, then we likely would not label it as stalking. We would label it as research — borderline disturbing research, perhaps, but research all the same.
Let’s say Dornan was actually playing the role of a private investigator. His presence would not be read as threatening at all; if anything, it would come across as more protective, even though the desire to harm is missing in both the “serial killer” and “private investigator” scenarios.
Pantozzi’s knee-jerk response to this story actually assists in solidifying gender assumptions. It implies that women are “victim(s),” to use Pantozzi’s term, if they attract the attention of a man.
Of course, if the man desired to harm her and did, she would certainly be a victim.
But automatically victimizing a woman as a result of an action by a third party is robbing her of her agency.
Pantozzi also implies that women are more fragile than men because it is a safe assumption Pantozzi wouldn’t have the same response if a woman ?followed a man.
It’s an unconscious appeal to the much-reviled ideal of delicate femininity, which is one of the main obstacles in face of gender equality in both thought and practice.
Though Dornan cannot be viewed as entirely sympathetic in his decision, we must acknowledge that he is a method actor, and rendering a role as real as possible can be beneficial.
However, Pantozzi is completely misguided when she claims “this reveal makes that performance all too real and is a stark reminder of just how acceptable society finds this behavior.”
