With regard to MacKenzie Phillips, Christina Crawford was also hissed at and booed.

[closeupready]

For smashing Joan Crawford's iconic public image as a pre-women's lib woman who had it all. I remember how everyone said, "oh, she's just doing this for the money", "she's lying", yadda yadda.

Well, Phillips said on Today that other victims of incest are supporting her, thanking her for speaking out, just as with Christina Crawford, and like Crawford, Phillips wants to become an advocate on behalf of victims of incest. I think if she can turn her life around and do that, that's great.

Just wanted to point that out.

[imdjh]

1. I didn't think of Joan Crawford as a feminist. I just didn't like seeing her trashed.

But as it turned out, I really liked the movie and it sort of bolstered Crawford's star-image as something of a cold hearted bitch. So it made her more believable.

Haven't read anything about Phillips yet. Haven't ever revered her father, as far as the Mama's and the Papa's go, I've always thought of them as the back up singers for Cass Elliott.

[closeupready]

3. My whole family read that book when it came out, and I remember

even some of my aging aunts who would have been Crawford's contemporaries age-wise almost spat out their hatred for Christina for this. We can be so vain - "I don't care if you are her daughter, you can't have her! Joan is mine, and how dare you destroy her by telling the truth!" It's just so sad, but I'm glad there are people like her and MacKenzie who find the courage to say, "No, this has to stop, no little 10-year-old girl should remain silent while she is raped or molested by family members! I am going to bring this issue out of the closet." And I applaud her just for that. You can dislike/hate her for her own actions, but for this you have to give it to her.

[derby378]

2. I'm rooting for MacKenzie

My own limited understanding of the story is that the incest was consensual and arose out of their mutual drug abuse as well as her dad's disapproval of her fiance. Still, however, he was her father, and he should have acted like one.

Saw a brief glimpse of her on Today while heading out the door. MacKenzie looked like she cried all night long - there's just so much bursting through the surface now that I'm sure it's overwhelming.

Hang in there, MacKenzie. :hug:

[dugaresa]

7. i am amazed she isn't dead from drugs or from suicide after listening to the interviews

and it seems like her dad spent the first few years raping her when she was high and blacked out. I don't think the consensual part was consensual it seems like it was more like stockholm syndrome, she was her dad's prisoner emotionally and eventually I bet through guilt she started to consent but it didn't make it right for her. After waking up from so many encounters with him after a drugged stupor she probably felt to blame somehow and that is so wrong. The drugs were part of the problem for both her and her abuser. Her dad's inhibitions and any moral sense went out the window and her drug abuse made her an easy target.

She appears to try and be kind and understanding about her dad and that seems like lingering stockholm syndrome symptoms to me. She should be mad as hell or ready to say, "my dad was an perverted asshole who was okay with me being his drug buddy and his freaking sex toy"

[pitohui]

4. yeah whatever

at some point people have to accept that, no kidding, drug addicts lie -- as degenerate an addict as this woman was said to be, i doubt if she herself knows the truth of what she did

her dad wanted to run away w. her to fiji and live there as man and wife? really? how convenient that all this is revealed sooooo long after he or anyone else who could confirm or deny this story is safely dead

you and i could prob. make up some wild story and make big money too (james frey anyone?) but we don't choose to do that, and prob. because not being drug addicts we'd prefer to keep our dignity and our honesty

i don't doubt daddy was a scumbag, the whole family and friends and everybody involved w. them sounds like pretty shitty excuses for human beings...but COME ON...she didn't just get busted for drugs and run out of money at age 48 and then remember, oh yeah, it's because i had an affair w. my famous daddy!

this is about $$$

if she wants to help incest victims, go to college and maybe get some kind of training so she can do that, oh wait...that would actually be WORK or something

if it's true, that's really a shame but incredible wild claims from a drug addict have to expect to encounter some skepticism

[Laf.La.Dem.]

18. Sad to say - I agree with you

:wow:

[Lance_Boyle]

5. Victim of incest? She was 19 and a willing participant according to... herself.

Her father, on the other hand, is the victim of a posthumous smear by a never-was who thinks she might achieve has-been status if she can make her story sensational enough.

[dugaresa]

9. It doesn't seem like she was willing apparently the first few years of their "relationship"

were cases where she woke up after drug use to find her panties around her ankles. That doesn't seem consensual.

It is sad it didn't come out while he was alive and perhaps she didn't say anything because she didn't want to see dad thrown into jail.

I am waiting to see if any of her former spouses step forward to corroborate her story. Typically if you are in a relationship with someone, you know if something is up with your spouse and if there is something unhealthy going on. I would think they would perhaps add some insight to this situation.

[Le Taz Hot]

11. Apparently, the first time she was

raped but it's OK, she was 19. :wtf:

[Fleshdancer]

15. Thanks for proving the OP's point. n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

20. According to her, she was RAPED when she was 19!!!!! That single event

can damage a person for sexually for life.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. What was the thing about the Wire Coat Hangers?

I still don't get it. :shrug:

[imdjh]

10. You aren't supposed to hang a $400 dress on a wire hanger. You're supposed to use the nice wood ones

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Mmmmm. That must explain why all my $400 dresses look like shit.

Nah, my clothes budget probably tops out at about $400 a Decade. What can I say, I'm a slob.

[imdjh]

31. Kaftans, dear, kaftans. Four yards of wonderful fabric from the designer samples bin.

[closeupready]

13. That was never explained, if I recall.

But I think it was stated or implied that Joan couldn't have children, and I presume this tied in to mean either she had botched an abortion on herself with a wire hanger or else someone else did, or perhaps someone close to her, or maybe even just the fact that as a strong woman herself, wire hangers represented - to her - the notion that women are slaves to men and do not control their own bodies. Something like that.

[Fleshdancer]

16. wire hangers aren't good for the clothes n/t

[HughBeaumont]

19. From imdb . . .

It was recently learned from an excellent, detailed and objective TV biography of her (including information from Christina Crawford) that Joan Crawford's hatred of wire hangers derived from her poverty as a child and her experiences working with her mother in what must have been a grim job in a laundry.

[Inspired]

23. I hate wire hangers too.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. Yes, but do you HATE wire coat hangers?

[Happyhippychick]

8. Mackenzie didn't write the book for me, she wrote it for incest survivors. I respect that.

It's not all about me me me me. Sometimes things don't make sense to those that have not gone through it. I can live with that and not be critical.

[KingFlorez]

12. Some people elevate celebrities to an insane level of idolatry

They couldn't possibly believe their idol would do something wrong, so they think anyone who would accuse them of wrongdoing is a liar worth ridiculing. I believe what MacKenzie says, she told her sister years ago before coming forward to the public.

[closeupready]

17. Exactly - the culture of celebrity worship was bad in 1980 - it's worse now, squared.

n/t

[LostInAnomie]

14. Do we have to applaud every time a "celebrity" decides to make money from a personal tragedy?

[saracat]

21. Wow. Some of the replies on this thread not only reinforce your op but

also reinforce the misogyny and anti-woman sentiment that seems infect some on this site. Phillips is a victim.Period. And no matter what the so called financial gain of her book, it is extremely hard to speak out as she is doing. The shame is overwhelming.She has great courage, unlike those who disparage her for doing so.

[mrbarber]

22. So it's misognystic and anti-woman to question her?

The whole story is suspect, to say the least.

And Joan Crawford wasn't a strong woman, she was a goddamn lunatic. I don't care what label you paint yourself with, child abuse is child abuse.

[noiretextatique]

25. what insight can you possibly provide about her life?

none. you either believe her...or you don't. idle speculation in the form of questioning can't possibly yield anything, because you don't know what happened in her life. personally, i think she's probably telling the truth, as difficult as it made be for some people to accept.

[saracat]

26. I have nothing to say about Crawford but as for this case,

I would think your father taking advantage of you even at the age of 19 is also "child abuse".And immediately condemning an incest victim for coming forward is suspect in my eyes. It isn't merely that some folks either believe her or don't.It is that they offer no option for the possibility that she might be telling the truth.And the immediate assumption by some that the dead father is being victimized ,and the blame transferred to the daughter is misogynist.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

37. there IS a scary amount of misogyny here at DU

people revel in their lofty disdain and get away with it, even have a reliable circle of supporters here. They swagger about with attacks on feminist analysis that would get banned were they aimed at any other group.

As a survivor of child abuse who experienced the "you lie!" reaction many a time, I really appreciate your comments and similar ones here. (my mother was probably border-line personality. Watching "Mommy Dearest" years ago was pretty difficult for me, and at the same time liberating. The insanity was similar to my mother's)

[cornermouse]

34. I think when she said forgiveness is not for the

predator, its for the victim that I became convinced. That and the look on her face. I think it was something she really felt.

There is still a lot of shame connected with being a victim of sexual abuse. I know someone who was raped by a stranger at about the same age that McKenzie. Only the immediate family circle knew about it. It was more or less buried and simply not talked about so I'm not surprised that it took McKenzie this long to talk about it. How much harder would it be to come to terms with and to admit others that your father, the person you would expect to defend you, was the abuser? I suspect a lot. I believe her.

[Texasgal]

27. If I could recommend THIS post I would.

RIGHT ON! :thumbsup:

[saracat]

32. Thank you.

[Raine]

28. Yeah it's really disallusioning and depressing

to see such stuff on a "liberal" site, I would expect it on the freeper site. :-(

Edit: typo

[saracat]

33. And it isn't the first time and won't be the last. DU has lost a lot of

really good members who have been chased away by such attitudes.

[brentspeak]

24. I'm not buying it

[Lilyeye]

35. I believe Mackenize.

Even her step-mothers confirmed it in their denials. The woman who was married to John, at the time the incest took place, said that MacKenize acted "familar" with her father, but he would say that she just how she is. Then Michelle Phillips said that Mackenize told her this 10 years ago, but she recanted and said she was joking. However, she did tell her sister Chynna in 1997 and she believed it.

To me...any man who would let his 11 year old sample cocaine and pump herion into her at 16 years old is capable of doing anything.

[cornermouse]

36. Agree 100%.

He betrayed and abused McKenzie in a lot of ways.