The world against Amanda Knox—Again
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manda Know became famous for doing nothing. That’s the simplest way I can state her case. If you didn’t already know the broad strokes of her picture, you probably wouldn’t be here now. But just in case:
Knox was a foreign exchange student in Perugia, Italy in 2007 when her roommate, Meredith Kercher, was raped and stabbed to death in their apartment.
Knox and her boyfriend of five days, Raffaele Sollecito, were interrogated under duress for hours (and whacked in the head) and jailed.
An Italian prosecutor fixated on the idea that multiple killers were involved. Thus, even when he charged and convicted a burglar for the murder, his legal pursuit of the young couple did not end.
Knox and Sollecito spent a total of four years in prison awaiting their trial and following their conviction. They appealed, a second trial occurred, and this time they were acquitted. They quickly returned home and hoped that would be the end of it. It was not.
The prosecutor would not let go. He appealed the acquittal and forced a third trial. The accused did not attend.
The third trial revolves around DNA evidence. Scientists testified that ample gory samples were found in the bedroom belonging to the convicted murderer—but none from Knox or Sollecito. Despite this, a jury convicted them again. For good measure, the judge tacked on another two-and-a-half years to Knox’s sentence. She would not face extradition unless the new guilty verdict was upheld.
In the end, the Italian Supreme Court exonerated the couple, and finally set them free. The high court said that the prosecutor’s investigation contained “glaring errors” and “investigative amnesia.”
The prosecutor should have been shamed. He was not. In a subsequent interview, he effectively said, “maybe they were involved—maybe not.” And thus, he continued to feed the fantasies of millions around the world who still believe, “she must have had something to do with it.”
Now, 14 years after the murder, Knox is working as a writer, podcaster, and advocate for the wrongfully convicted. She’s married and is expecting her first child.
But it’s never over. That crime is still referred to as “the Knox murder.” Because that’s what loathsome entertainment people need to make money.
ooks have been written. TV movies and documentaries and feature films have been released. Their titles always contain the name “Knox.” With one exception, none was produced with her consultation or her permission. She hoped her voluntary involvement with that one documentary on Netflix might put an end to all of it.
Again, she was wrong.
Amanda Knox states her lament this way:
“Does my name belong to me? Does my face? What about my life? My story? Why is my name used to refer to events I had no hand in?”
It’s been this way from the start. Once the prosecutor labeled the crime “a drug-fueled sex game gone wrong,” the cool cats in the media could never resist the catnip. For years, it was nearly impossible to see or read any media report about the murder without hearing that “drug-fueled sex game” phrasing.
Things did dissipate to a degree. But this fall, the wound was ripped open again. This time by Hollywood producer Tom McCarthy and leading man Matt Damon. Like so many before them, they saw gold in the Knox name. And thus, they became her latest tormentors.
cCarthy has some good work to his credit, particularly his direction of Spotlight in 2015, the dramatic retelling of how the Boston Globe uncovered the Catholic priest pedophilia crimes in that city. That movie was built on empathy for the victims.
His latest movie is Stillwater, which he claims is both “directly inspired by the Amanda Knox saga” …but at the same time, not based on her at all. In an interview with Vanity Fair, he both has his cake and claims he never ate it:
“…the first thing I took away from (Knox’s story) was what would it be like as an American student to go for what should be one of the most exciting moments in your young-adult life and to find yourself in that tragedy. (T)hat story kept anyone who was following pretty riveted…”
So, with “that story”, he’s again directly tying his movie to Knox.
And with that, job one was finished: blatantly associate Knox and her story with his movie. So, what if he implied that in real life Knox’s mother had committed suicide? (She didn’t.) So, what if the Knox character in the movie admits involvement in a murder?—he didn’t say that about Knox specifically, did he? If audiences conclude that, it’s not his problem. What matters is that mentioning her name for promotional purposes is PR gold--a guarantee to boost audiences and revenues. Ka-ching!
Then, on to job two: lift yourself off the hook of any potential legal liabilities:
“We decided, ‘Hey, let’s leave the Amanda Knox case behind’…but let me take this piece of the story—an American woman studying abroad involved in some kind of sensational crime…and fictionalize everything around it.”
Bam! Begone you vulture lawyers! See…I really was “fictionalizing”—not really talking about her at all.
To repeat, Knox was not consulted, and she did not get a penny from Stillwater. But that’s not her real grievance. That comes with the lines embedded within the McCarthy’s quote above: “…involved in some kind of sensational crime….” McCarthy muddies the waters, and he knows it. Amanda Knox was not involved in any crime. She was simply the unlucky young woman who happened to discover her roommate’s savaged body. Isn’t that punishment enough?
inally, let’s conclude with Hollywood star Matt Damon. Many people remember him for his role in the wonderful movie, Good Will Hunting. Well, in this case, he went bad script hunting. And he found one. (My advice: save your time and money. The movie Stillwater is a bore. It can only leave you wondering, “wow—was Amanda really involved?” That’s a question that long ago should have been dispelled.
But Damon is instructive here because he, too, was recently involved in negative headlines. After the sex crimes of the odious Harvey Weinstein were made public, Damon said there was, “…a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation.” Certainly, he’s right in the legal sense. The law makes wide distinctions between the kinds of acts he described.
But that difference didn’t matter to an avalanche of Damon critics. They roasted him. Among the more measured were people who called him “tone deaf,” and who said they didn’t like him anymore: #metoo morphed into #notyou. After reflecting for a while, Damon said, “It’s hard to take punches. It’s hard to hear those things about yourself. The only way forward is to really try to understand what you’ve done…”
Oh, really Matt? So you’re saying you understand things now? Well, how about you reflect on this.
You backed and played the star role in a movie where the implied “bad guy”—Amanda Knox-- was not guilty of even something so harmless or innocent as a “pat on the butt.” She was guilty of absolutely nothing concerning that crime. I thought you were now aware of the nuances of crime…and the harm in careless words.
But that wasn’t going to stop you from cashing in. You made a boatload of money by further demeaning and victimizing an innocent woman. You fed the toxic doubts.
But you want to know one true thing about Amanda Knox?
Unlike you, big shot, she can take a punch.
(Editor’s note #1: Knox has been praised for her work as a podcaster, dealing with a variety of topics. You can find it here.)
(Editor’s note #2: Many people believe they can judge if someone’s telling the truth just by watching them. You can try this yourself by watching this lengthy, exclusive interview recorded by our Linda Byron in a 2013 documentary—two years before she was finally found innocent by Italy’s highest court.)
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