Netflix’s new “I Am Vanessa Guillen” just isn’t your typical true-crime documentary. It tells the story of 20-year-old Vanessa Guillen, who went lacking at Texas’s Fort Hood Army base, the place she had been sexually harassed. Months after her disappearance, Guillen’s stays had been discovered. Instead of your typical lurid homicide/sexual-assault story, exploring who did it and why, the doc zooms in on the systemic injustices that allowed Guillen’s homicide to occur and left it unsolved for therefore lengthy and her household’s profitable work to chip away at that system after her tragic demise.
“There are nonetheless so many victims of sexual misconduct and violence struggling in silence, and so they deserved a movie that did greater than give attention to the horrific particulars of the crime or the investigation, which solely goes to this point,” documentary director and producer Christy Wegener tells POPSUGAR. “The Guillen household deserved extra as properly. So many crime-driven movies give attention to the perpetrators and the ache inflicted, which in some instances is sensible, however this story deserved a distinct focus.”
Our legal justice system does a poor job in the case of sexual harassment and assault. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), two out of three rapes go unreported. And for individuals who do come ahead, there’s nonetheless a backlog of untested rape kits. There’s a cause we would have liked the MeToo motion and nonetheless do. And that is all for crimes amongst civilians. When sexual harassment and assault happen between members of the navy, survivors have even fewer recourses.
“Victims of sexual misconduct within the navy are actually weak, as they’ve so little recourse due to the best way the navy justice system is about up.”
“There’s a deadly flaw within the navy justice system — it is a closely biased system the place the chain of command has huge oversight over authorized choices that might by no means fly within the civilian world,” Wegener explains. “For me, like many ladies around the globe, gender-based harassment and violence is an all-too-common expertise. It’s probably the most vital problems with our time. Vanessa Guillen was an clever, formidable younger girl together with her complete life forward of her and was senselessly taken away. Victims of sexual misconduct within the navy are actually weak, as they’ve so little recourse due to the best way the navy justice system is about up.”
Through interviews with members of the family, “I Am Vanessa Guillen” exhibits how Army specialist Guillen had needed to affix the navy since she was little, although her mom discouraged her, saying it wasn’t for women. But Guillen endured and was pleased with her work within the Army, till touchdown within the poisonous atmosphere of Fort Hood. There, she skilled sexual harassment — that she did not even hassle reporting as a result of she knew the navy system was not set as much as assist her.
After she went lacking, her household, and notably her sisters, needed to agitate to get her case the eye it wanted. They did all the things they might — organizing volunteer search events, posting on social media, and protesting. Eventually, the #IAmVanessaGuillen hashtag went viral, with different girls within the navy posting their tales of harassment. And when Guillen’s stays lastly had been discovered, the Army botched apprehending the suspect, who took his personal life upon being confronted. His confederate in hiding the stays not too long ago pleaded responsible to her position within the cover-up. “The case was seen as a scientific failure,” Wegener says, recounting the various instances the navy miscarried justice for his or her younger soldier.
“We hope the movie additionally sheds just a little ray of hope when it comes to what will be achieved in our democracy, even in probably the most divisive instances.”
But the Guillen household did not cease with the demise and apprehension of their love one’s murderers. “We had been witnessing a household, of their deepest moments of insufferable grief, make the unbelievable option to battle for the higher good and make the world a greater place,” the director shares. “We hope the movie additionally sheds just a little ray of hope when it comes to what will be achieved in our democracy, even in probably the most divisive instances. The Guillen household, with no political expertise, handed a bipartisan invoice due to their persistence and dedication.”
That invoice, the 2022 fiscal 12 months National Defense Authorization Act, made some important modifications. “It created a brand new position, an unbiased prosecutor that assesses the instances and decides if they need to be prosecuted. So that call has been taken away from the chain of command,” Wegener explains. Still, there’s extra to be executed: “Until that system is totally void of the heavy affect of the chain of command, it isn’t really unbiased. The subsequent invoice will hopefully proceed to additional professionalize the navy justice system.”
Watching “I Am Vanessa Guillen,” there is no such thing as a denying the tragedy. But there’s additionally energy to be discovered within the Guillen household and their righteous anger. In specific, Vanessa’s sisters, Mayra and Lupe, set a formidable instance. Lupe was in highschool when she misplaced her sister, and he or she turned a strong voice for change, talking out with ardour and fireplace. Mayra has a extra sedate disposition however the identical tenacity, working tirelessly to make her sister’s life and demise imply one thing.
And the sisters are strategic, organizing their group, participating specialists like lawyer Natalie Khawam (featured within the movie), and dealing with legislators like Congresswoman Jackie Speier and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to maneuver the needle. They additionally enable for relaxation, encouraging Lupe to take a step again when it looks like she’s dropping what’s left of her childhood.
It’s an encouraging mannequin, and it is a notably Latina one, counting on matriarchal networks and group ties to create change. “The Latine group has confronted ongoing discrimination and marginalization all through US historical past, however when it organizes round shared values and objectives, it is an extremely highly effective pressure,” movie producer Isabel Castro tells POPSUGAR. “I additionally hope that US audiences study from the Guillen household in regards to the energy of organizing to enact change.”
“It actually does appear to require numerous media consideration and public strain with the intention to get a invoice over the end line,” Wegener says. And that is what the Guillen household did, constructing a mannequin of political advocacy that labored, nevertheless partially. In the movie, they name Latinxs “a sleeping large,” referencing our untapped political energy. But the Guillen household are proving that we will and can manage for change, and after we do, we can’t be stopped. And that could be a legacy the Guillen household will be pleased with.