Domestic Abuse in Film

     Depicting domestic abuse is difficult, as agreed upon by Craig Gillespie, director of the critically acclaimed film "I, Tonya." The movie is unique in the way that it "breaks the fourth wall" during the domestic abuse scenes between Margot Robbie's Tonya Harding and Sebastian Stan's Jeff Gillooly. Gillespie wanted to approach the scenes while maintaining the correct tone. To do so, he has Harding stop in the middle of the scenes and state how she is feeling. "To see her disconnect from what’s happening in that moment and address the audience candidly" is significant to portraying how Tonya is immune to the abuse she receives, according to Robbie. I have gathered from this particular approach to violent domestic abuse that the tone, the abused character's perspective, and the visualization of the violence or the effects of the violence on the victim are all imperative in accurately illustrating domestic abuse. As I have seen the film myself, I understand that for this movie it was necessary to show the graphic violence, but as a student, I feel like it's inappropriate for me to include vivid and accurate depictions of violence such as the violence shown in "I, Tonya." I have thought about alluding to the violence though, since I know I could enlist a close friend who works with extravagant make up designs to create bruises and cuts on whoever the person being abused in my film is. I won't omit the possibility of including these allusions until I discuss that with my ideal make up artists and further develop the direction I want my film to go in. 
     However, as I continue learning more about emotional abuse in film, I am inspired to revolve the film more around this idea, simply because there are barely any films that follow this kind of abuse. Some noteworthy entries to the "emotional abuse" movie category include "Gone Girl" (2014) and "Two Can Play That Game" (2001). The lack of films about emotional abuse most likely attributes to the way emotional abuse is often excused. This Huffington Post article explains that certain actions linked to emotional abuse "are so often excused — like constantly monitoring who a partner is texting, demeaning a partner in front of their friends and being generally passive aggressive and controlling." I am even more compelled to depict this kind of subtle violence through film knowing that it goes unnoticed too often.
I will follow up my research with the information my friend from camp sends me in the next few days. I understand she is very busy with college preparations, so if she doesn't have the spare time to send some of her research over, I will start doing my own digging on the topic of queer domestic abuse and what content is available that has depicted the problem.