First of all I would like to say that character limits are a swine, as provided I’d had enough room, that headline would read “Serial Misogynist and Known Woman Beater Michael Fassbender to Work on the Assassin’s Creed Movie”, because I feel like that might be the only thing attention-grabbing enough for people to click through and find out exactly why no one should be doing this really quite horrible person any favours.
To re-tread the story, for those of you who don’t stalk my Twitter page religiously (i.e most of you), hotshot actor guy Michael Fassbender is now on board to co-produce and star in the film, with Jean-Julien Baronnet, CEO of Ubisoft Motion Pictures, even going as far as to say that Fassbender was their “first choice” of actors when it came to choosing who would play said lead assassin in the movie.
If you don’t know who Michael Fassbender is, he has been in such films as Inglorious Basterds, X:Men First Class and he also featured as David the Android in the huge sci-fi hit that was Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. Now, lets ignore the fact that Fassbender is German-Irish, fair-skinned and light-haired (and therefore not really fitting the part to play a Mediterranean/relatively ethnic dark-haired assassin-type), he is obviously a talented actor and while it is perhaps some shoddy casting on Ubi’s part, with a lot of tanning and some effective hair-dyeing, he might be able to pull off the acting side of things . But no, my issue is that Michael Fassbender is just generally the worst and that Ubisoft are doing a disservice to every single one of us by working with this human being.
To put it into better terms : Michael Fassbender is the grossest. Gross things should be measured on a scale of “non-solid fecal matter” to “Michael Fassbender”. My distaste is supported with reasoning too.
Let me take you back to 2009. Sunawin “Leasi” Andrews, gets back together with ex-boyfriend Michael Fassbender. Michael, who obviously takes his craft very seriously, goes to a film festival and comes back blind drunk, so drunk that he wakes up in a puddle of his own piss. His reaction? Unlike most people, who would clean themselves off, change the bed and sober up, he decides to beat his girlfriend, throw her over a chair and break her nose. That’s not just me over-exaggerating either, the actual quote from Sunawin’s filing for a restraining order says such – “threw me over a chair breaking my nose” – which comes from what she sent to the LA County Superior Court back in June ‘09 when this all happened. At the time, Andrews’ said that this filing was to protect herself and her two young children (yes, Mr. Fassbender is this classy of an act when there are children involved who could be potentially affected by all of this) and that she asked for $20,000 to pay for medical bills, because obviously, repairing the damages that come from being beaten by a 6 foot 2, 185 pound man (though he potentially could have had more muscle mass then – this was around the time of his role as a British Lieutenant in Inglorious Basterds) doesn’t come cheap.
Oh, and it gets worse, if you could even imagine. This wasn’t even the first time that Fassbender had released his inner woman-beater on his then-girlfriend either. The same filing at the LA County Superior Court referred to another occasion, in which Sunawin and Michael became embroiled in a heated argument about an ex-boyfriend of hers – “Michael allegedly dragged her alongside their car one night after they had an argument about one of her ex-boyfriends … causing her to twist her left ankle, blow out her left knee cap and burst an ovarian cyst”. More upstanding behaviour from him, right?
Of course I am positive that someone will be willing to point out that this is “alleged”, as the above quote states but according to statistics – over one quarter of all domestic abuse cases go unreported – those who do get close to going through with the prosecution, like Sunawin Andrews, often retract their statements for the sole reason that many of these women are deeply bonded with the person, and don’t want to see them locked up, because they are quite literally willing to accept more beatings provide that person doesn’t leave them. This isn’t unheard of, emotions are tricky. On the other hand, when you’re a woman in this position, shit is scary – you know and I know full well that a night in a jail cell won’t make any budding woman-beater come to their senses, and when they’re released, they will still have working fists, working legs and a working brain full of poisonous, angry thoughts with which to maim, beat and eviscerate you. It’s not a situation that anyone should take lightly.
Fassbender proved his worth again (and I promise I will get to my point eventually) back in 2011 when filming “A Dangerous Method” with Keira Knightley in which they had to film a particularly intimate ‘erotic’ scene in which his character has to spank her. Like most people would placed in such a situation, Knightley was super uncomfortable with the filming of the scene, which requires her to be tied to a bedframe. During filming, she commented “I’ve got a security guard outside. You touch me and he’s gonna break your legs!”, Michael’s reply to this? “Keira, you’re tied to a bed. You’re not really in a position to say that.”
Rape is never funny and for whatever reason, Fassbender doesn’t get this. Rape is a very real thing that you wouldn’t wish to happen to anybody and nobody out there has the right to get a laugh out of it or even suggest that being in a vulnerable position means that you’re ‘free’ game’, as it were, for rapists (or, in this case, that being tied up means that bodyguard or not, they could still have their way with you if they feel like it.)
After all of this, for Ubisoft to enlist Michael Fassbender to work on the Assassin’s Creed film is simply ludicrous. It’s completely nutso bananas to let this guy represent this franchise. In fact, it’s crazy to let him represent anything. He is in no way, shape or form someone who should be involved in this when the assassins of the Assassin’s Creed games pride themselves on the liberation of people, on freedom, on equality. The women of the Assassin’s Order (as well as those who aid the assassins) are treated with respect and are held in such high regard as the men. There’s even a female-fronted Assassin’s Creed game in the works from the franchise’s developer in the form of PS Vita title Assassin’s Creed 3 Liberation, so there’s no doubt in my mind that Ubisoft know how to get it right and that this is just an incredibly large slip up from them on the path to treating women/female gamers the same as the men. And of course, I’m not brushing over the fact that even outside of the ideals of the Assassin’s Creed games, his actions are shady and disgusting, there really is no place for what he’s done in society. It’s just plain unacceptable.
Their decision cuts everyone even deeper when you look at the gaming industry as whole where misogyny is alive and well – just last week, Anita Sarkeesian received a massive backlash to her attempt to crowdfund a video series that took on misogyny in this industry, it resulted in a Fassbender-league jerkhole by the name of Ben Spurr going as far as to make a delightful little game called “Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian” which allowed you to do just that, getting TOTAL LULZ!!!!11! out of domestic violence if this woman had pissed you off so much with her attempt at helping equality . (Read about it here on HuffPo.) Evidently we most certainly do not need anyone else coming in and sullying our good name, we’re perfectly capable of hating on women ourselves, apparently.
In all, this decision says that rape jokes are A-OK, domestic violence is a common and acceptable occurrence and that gross people with unhealthy opinion (see : Ben, Michael, people who agree with them) should be put on a pedestal. That’s not the case and these are the sorts of people whose actions should be frowned upon.
I already know that this post will result in a few ruffled feathers and plenty of angry comments but if you agree with anything I’ve said, please spread this around via Twitter, Facebook or [insert social media of choice] to open some eyes and ears to what’s going on, thank you. (And you can click here to subscribe to JSX).
