Jelena Veljača, Croatian actress, writer and activist was a guest on the Sunday talk-show “Nedjeljom u 2” (On Sundays at 2 pm), and her heated debate with Aleksandar Stanković, the host, caused a lot of reactions.
We already reported that on Saturday numerous protests were held in several Croatian towns, supporting the victims of sexual violence and highlighting the inappropriate official response to several such incidents over the past few years.
In light of the growing awareness of the issues of women’s rights in Croatia, Aleksandar Stanković invited Jelena Veljača, a well-known Croatian actress, columnist and writer-turned-activist to talk about those issues. Their discussion turned out to be quite heated after the host asked several questions that Veljača (and numerous viewers, who later commented on social media) found to be insensitive and/or inappropriate.
One of them was to do with the #metoo movement, which started in Hollywood, and Stanković asked Veljača to explain why Salma Hayek allowed assaults by Harvey Weinstein for fourteen years. Veljača replied that what he was doing was the secondary victimisation of Hayek, which arose from the fact that he’s a white straight man who holds a position of power. She told him that he does not understand that men and women, even in the same position of power, are not equal, which is something that the feminists have been trying to explain for a while now.
She also tried to explain why it took so long for Hayek to report the abuse, that there’s no way for us to know why it took so long, and that the women who were abused need to have the right to report the abuse whenever they choose to do so. After that, Stanković asked Jelena Veljača to explain to him the line between benign advances and sexual harrassment, to which she answered that the difference is clear, as advances can be declined without consequences.
After the show, numerous reactions were written on social media, including some strong disapprovals of the questions asked by the host, which prompted him to respond on Facebook today. He said that he refuses to clarify his positions on human rights issues, as he’s been talking about those repeatedly during the twenty years of his career. He maintains his position on Salma Hayek but accepts Veljača’s suggestion that each victim has a right to report abuse on her own terms.
He added that there are numerous comments he’s received on social media, and while most of them are welcome, there are some that were insulting and threatening. He received comments that some of his family members should get raped, and that that would change his mind and make him understand the victims more. Those comments are unacceptable, and he will work hard to protect his family from such comments.
