‘I Am That Girl’: Media reportage,anonymous victims and symbolic annihilation in the aftermath of sexual assault

Abstract

In the wake of movements such as #MeToo, greater scrutiny has been brought to bear on the everyday nature of sexual violence. This has manifested in a global phenomenon of survivors speaking out publicly across a diverse range of platforms. This article explores one such Australian case that went on to become highly publicised against the backdrop of #MeToo. In May 2013, an 18-year-old woman named Saxon Mullins met 21-year-old Luke Lazarus on the dancefloor of a nightclub in the inner Sydney suburb of Kings Cross. Lazarus claimed he was the part-owner of the club and offered to take her to a VIP area. Instead, he led her to a dark alley and had sexual intercourse with her. Mullins has always described this as non-consensual. In 2018, after a complex legal process comprising two trials, both of which were overturned in response to successful appeals, the New South Wales Court of Appeal ordered against a third trial on the basis that it would be oppressive and unfair to Lazarus. In response, following widespread media interest in the case, Mullins spoke out publicly in 2018 on a national current affairs program, Four Corners. While the sidelining of victims from formal criminal justice processes has been widely documented, we explore how this can also occur in media coverage accompanying a case. Identifying a shift in the status afforded to the victim in the wake of her speaking out publicly, we argue that this raises broad questions about the impact of victim anonymity provisions and highlights how a survivor’s capacity to speak out in the wake of institutional failures is highly contingent. A tension between the tangible value of anonymity, set against the perverse effect of once again silencing victims, is a dilemma that remains unresolved.

Keywords

Feminism media sexual assault symbolic annihilation victim anonymity

Introduction

In the wake of movements such as #MeToo, greater scrutiny has been brought to bear on the everyday nature of sexual violence. While social and institutional failures in responding to sexual assault have been the subject of long and unrelenting feminist activism, against this backdrop they have gained a new salience. This has manifested in a global phenomenon of survivors speaking out across a diverse range of platforms, including new and traditional media. In terms of newsworthiness, the impact of some of these cases has been exemplary. In some instances, victims or perpetrators have been high profile individuals drawn from public life. Elsewhere, cases have become newsworthy in spite of the more routine or ordinary nature of those involved. Such has been the reach of this movement that it has crossed borders, industries and demographics (see Fileborn and Loney-Howes, 2019).

This article explores one such Australian case that went on to become highly publicised against the backdrop of #MeToo. As with a number of cases in this context, issues of sexual consent came into focus (see Hindes and Fileborn, 2019). In May 2013, an 18-year-old woman, Saxon Mullins, caught the train to Sydney from her home on the New South Wales (NSW) Central Coast to spend the evening with friends in the inner-city suburb of Kings Cross, a popular night-time entertainment precinct. While there she met a 21-year-old local man named Luke Lazarus on the dancefloor of a popular nightclub called Soho, which was part-owned by his father. Lazarus told Mullins that he was a part-owner and offered to take her to an exclusive VIP area. Instead, as CCTV would later demonstrate, he led her to a dark alley at the rear of the venue and shut the door behind them. While outside Lazarus kissed Mullins, following which she attempted to leave him and return to her friend. Ignoring her attempts, Lazarus pulled her back, removed her underwear and instructed her to get on her hands and knees and arch her back. He then had anal sex with her. After finishing, Lazarus asked her to add her name to a ‘trophy list’ in his phone, which contained the names of 17 other women. At the time of this encounter Mullins was a virgin.

Mullins has always described this encounter as non-consensual. Later that same day she reported it to police. Unlike many similar cases, the alleged rape was taken seriously by investigating police and Lazarus was prosecuted. At trial he was found guilty of raping Mullins and sentenced to a period of 5 years imprisonment with a minimum of 3 years. However, on appeal his conviction was overturned on the grounds that the trial judge misdirected the jury regarding the law of consent. In a judge-only retrial in 2017 Lazarus was acquitted of Mullins’ sexual assault. The Crown successfully appealed this verdict with the court finding that the judge had failed to sufficiently explain her reasoning in determining what steps were taken by Lazarus to establish Mullins’ consent. Despite this, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal opted not to order a third trial of Lazarus on the basis that it would be oppressive and unfair to him.

In the aftermath of these protracted legal processes, on 7 May 2018 Australia’s foremost current affairs program Four Corners broadcast an episode about Saxon Mullins entitled ‘I Am That Girl’. In this episode, Mullins came forward to speak publicly for the first time. In Australia, victim anonymity is provided by default in cases of sexual assault, although the way in which this operates differs according to jurisdiction. In this case, the producers of Four Corners were required to apply to have a suppression order gagging Mullins overturned by the NSW District Court, despite Mullins consenting to have her identity disclosed (Milligan, 2018a). The episode caused an immediate sensation when it was broadcast, and in response the following day the New South Wales government announced an inquiry into consent laws in the state (Dale, 2019; Milligan and Carter, 2018).

In this article we investigate media reportage of the case culminating in the 2018 episode of Four Corners. While the circumstances of the case preceded the global explosion of #MeToo in October 2017, it nonetheless played out against a larger context in which sexual violence and consent have been writ large. In this respect, it came to figure as a highly newsworthy local iteration of this broader phenomenon. Dominating international headlines as the complicated legal process unfolded were such high profile cases as the allegations against public figures such as Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey (Boyle, 2019), the testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford against Brett Kavanagh in 2018 (Pollino, 2020), and Brock Turner’s sexual assault of Chanel Miller at Stanford University (Miller, 2019; Phillips and Chagnon, 2020). Similarly, victim anonymity laws have themselves become the subject of scrutiny over this time. Designed to protect those coming forward to report their victimisation, they can have the perverse effect of gagging people who wish to disclose their identity publicly. This has resulted in the launch of the ‘Let Her Speak’ and ‘Let Us Speak’ campaigns, which aim to reform these laws in the Australian jurisdictions of Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, where they are the most restrictive in how they operate (Funnell, 2018; Stockwell, 2020). The media reportage of the encounter between Saxon Mullins and Luke Lazarus in a well-known – even notorious – inner Sydney nightspot, and the protracted process that followed, became deeply symptomatic of this particular cultural moment.

In what follows we are broadly indebted to a rich terrain of feminist scholarship that has highlighted the complex media treatment of sexual violence (Carter, 1998; Kitzinger, 2004; Orgad, 2014). Understandings of sexual assault remain highly contested, with media reportage having a considerable impact in this domain (Ullman, 2010). Rape can often be considered ‘newsworthy’, thus commanding significant news media attention (Fowler, 1991; Kitzinger, 2004). Research overwhelmingly demonstrates that media representations of sexual violence disservice victims and perpetuate rape myths, contributing to a broader culture that re-perpetuates sexual violence (Rentschler, 2014: 67; see also Burt, 1998; O’Hara, 2012).

Our approach is informed by research that highlights the role of media in reflecting and shaping attitudes towards sexual assault. With the growth of online news and social media, the creation and consumption of news has been transformed. Social media has blurred the line between creators and consumers (Westlund, 2015) with these changes closely intertwined with the recent growth in ‘popular’ feminism, identified by Gill (2016) as ‘a seemingly ‘new’ moment marked by a resurgence of interest in feminism in the media and among young women’ (p. 610). In addition to playing a crucial role in spreading awareness of feminist ideas, social media is an essential tool employed to challenge and hold accountable those who perpetuate patriarchal culture (Baer, 2016; Jackson, 2018; Rentschler, 2014). There is evidence that news media coverage of sexual violence has in recent years become less reliant upon rape myths (Chagnon, 2016; Fairbairn and Dawson, 2013), incorporating feminist sensibilities into coverage of gendered issues (Worthington, 2008), however such research is limited. Worthington (2008) suggests that this shift in journalistic practice is closely linked to the changing relationship between news producers and their audiences, and the result of a growing responsiveness to consumer feedback. As Chagnon (2016) highlights, ‘media coverage is far from static . . . the press changes with shifting social currents’ (p. 7).

Both the changing media landscape and the popularisation of feminism indicate a recent shift in social currents. By locating the Lazarus case within the specific moment of #MeToo and transformations in news media, it provides a rich case study to examine the nature of media representations of sexual assault in a context in which women’s experiences of victimisation have gained new cultural significance. Informed by an understanding of the influential role the media can play in delivering justice, this article investigates one high-profile case to explore how the news media regards sexual assault, victims and perpetrators in the present cultural moment.

Methodology

In order to illuminate how meaning functions in news coverage of the case, a feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA) was conducted. FCDA is predicated on an understanding of the imbued nature of patriarchy in institutions, including the media (Lazar, 2007). Gender power imbalances can be linguistically naturalised in a variety of ways, and it is the aim of FCDA to expose such discourses (Lazar, 2007: 145). Considering the inherently gendered nature of sexual assault, a FCDA approach allows for issues of power and patriarchy to inform analysis of the chosen case study. It bears noting that an essential quality of critical discourse analysis – its critical perspective on the function of language and the inherently political nature of lexical choices – is brought into stark relief by virtue of the fact that all critical discourse analysis requires the use of language and the making of such lexical choices (Gill, 2000). By making clear the feminist epistemological position underpinning this research, it is acknowledged that these texts could be interpreted in different ways from different perspectives, and thus this article’s findings should be understood as a product of this particular ideological framework. The value of FCDA lies not in its ability to capture neutral, objective reality, but rather its ability to ‘lend coherence to the discourse being studied’, by virtue of its ‘careful attention to detail’ (Gill, 2000: 171).

Drawing from the online news database Factiva, a sample comprising of 88 news articles was collected. The sample encompassed all available articles from Factiva containing the keywords ‘Luke Lazarus’ or ‘Saxon Mullins’ published between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2018. This time period was used in order to capture all major developments of the case ranging from Lazarus’ trial, conviction, acquittal and the aftermath of Mullins’ Four Corners interview. Duplicate news articles were excluded from the sample, as well as articles less than 250 words in length, due to both their relative lack of analytical value and to limit sample scope (Bertrand and Hughes, 2005: 65). Underscoring the widespread degree of media interest in the case, articles comprising the final sample were drawn from a large variety of sources, including Sydney’s two major daily newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegragh, along with many others,¹ together representing a range of individual journalists, intended audiences and internal organisational influences (Newbold et al., 2002).

Guided by the principles of grounded theory (Hennink et al., 2010), articles were first critically examined for themes and the overall narrative being presented. Particular attention was afforded to the inverted pyramid news story structure, wherein the narrative elements considered most important are generally located at the start of a news article, and the least important at the end (Richardson, 2006). This led to the identification of three domains of interest for subsequent analysis: how the crime was represented, how the alleged perpetrator Luke Lazarus was represented, and how Saxon Mullins was represented. Articles were then closely analysed for discursive elements relevant to these three domains of significance. The language used to describe Lazarus, Mullins and the crime itself was carefully examined, along with further analysis of the content of headlines and placement of certain information within the inverted triangle model, and the degree of sensationalism employed (Molek-Kozakowska, 2013). As informed by Gill (2000), analysis attended not only to what was said in news reports, but also what was not said.

The findings are organised into four sections: the media representation of the crime scene; the framing of Luke Lazarus; the significance of the absent victim; and the impact of Saxon Mullins speaking out. These are discussed in turn.

The crime scene: Space and sensationalism

There, surrounded by a car park and brothels, the girl was anally raped by Lazarus.

(Farrow, 2015)

Throughout the media reportage of the case, issues of space are writ large and function to imbue the encounter between Mullins and Lazarus with meaning. Several dimensions of the crime scene that are afforded significant and consistent attention across media coverage are exemplified in the above quote from Farrow. These include an emphasis on the unsavoury nature of the location, along with details of salacious aspects such as its anal nature. In this way, the emphasis on space – both geographical and bodily – sensationalises the case through an invocation of pre-existing meanings. As will become clear in the following sections, these spatial connotations are drawn upon in the media’s framing of Luke Lazarus and Saxon Mullins, serving to frame Lazarus as a negative and culpable figure by imbuing him with their sordid characteristics, whilst highlighting Mullins’ innocence through her outsider status.

Kings Cross has long been known as the bohemian epicentre of Sydney (Nowra, 2013). Historically associated with ‘sin and sex’, more recently it has loomed large in debates about illicit drug use and violence in the night-time economy (Conigrave, 2016; Homan, 2017; Wadds, 2020). This spectre imbues much of the media coverage of the case. For example, in almost a third of articles it is a detail deemed so significant that it is included in the headline, and in the lead paragraph of many more. That location is considered a reportable aspect is on one level not surprising, given that ‘where’ is one of the five basic questions a news report is expected to answer (White, 1996: 179). However, the notoriety of Kings Cross means that it does not figure benignly. For example, the regular invocation of the area’s salacious reputation operates as an example of Fairclough’s (2003) concept of interdiscursivity, in that the reportage draws upon broader discourses surrounding Kings Cross more generally in order to endow the case with meaning (p. 37). Consequently, the circumstances of Lazarus and Mullins’ encounter becomes intertwined with the broader tropes of Kings Cross, understood as a seedy and sleazy underbelly of violence and illicit behaviour.

The centrality of geographical space in media coverage of the crime can also be observed in other ways. The location of the assault in an alleyway, and the events preceding it in the Soho nightclub, are strongly emphasised in media coverage, strengthening and reinforcing the debauched connotations of Kings Cross. The assault is variously referred to as the ‘Kings Cross rape’ (ABC News, 2016), ‘nightclub rape’ (Bibby, 2016; Calderwood, 2017; Hoerr, 2017) and ‘alleyway assault’ (Ralston, 2015b), signalling the significance of these locations in constructing the narrative of the crime. The alleyway space in particular is afforded substantial attention, often prominently located in the headline or lead paragraph of reportage.² The cultural significance of the alleyway evokes Hayward’s (2004) work on parafunctional spaces and their relation to crime and deviance. Parafunctional spaces, he writes, are ‘the abandoned, anonymous and seemingly meaningless spaces within our midst – the places on the (metaphorical) edge of society’ (p. 453; see also Hayward, 2012). Often employed for purposes outside of their ‘official’ use, such spaces are commonly correlated with illegal or taboo behaviour (McDonald, 2015). This resonates closely with the work of social geographers on the cultural position of alleyways as ‘cracks in the city’ (Loukaitou-Sideris, 1996); locations of tension due to the various competing unofficial uses they can be subjected to (Imai, 2013). Consequently, the attention afforded to the location of the assault in an alleyway is charged, drawing as it does on the taboo and tension of the parafunctional alleyway.

On an interrelated note, one curious aspect of the news media focus on the location of the assault relates to the varying use of the terms alleyway and laneway. Of the 88 articles analysed, 43 of them refer to the crime’s location as an alleyway, and 14 as a laneway. Ostensibly, these terms appear interchangeable. However, there are subtle cultural differences between alleyways and laneways that are being drawn upon in the making of these lexical choices. In Australia, there is a strong association between the term laneway and culture. The renowned artist Banksy, for example, once stated that Melbourne’s laneways are ‘arguably Australia’s most significant contribution to the arts since they stole all the Aborigines’ pencils’ (in Avery, 2016: 153). Following the successful transformation of laneways in central Melbourne into destinations for street art, shopping and dining (Goodbourn, 2015), other Australian cities have initiated various efforts to rejuvenate their own inner-city laneways. Significantly, these locations are near exclusively termed laneways, rather than alleyways. Historically, alleyways are more commonly associated with waste storage and disposal, running behind houses and business, with laneways connecting alleyways to main streets (Poulton, 2011). Twice removed from the order and respectability of major streets, alleyways therefore occupy a particular cultural position – with both an unsavoury official use, and a parafunctional association with crime and deviance. Curiously, in media coverage of the Lazarus case, a discursive shift from alleyway to laneway is clearly evident around the time of Lazarus’ acquittal. Following Mullins’ Four Corners interview, however, the term alleyway came to be used near exclusively once more when detailing the crime. These shifts are observable across news sources and seem to suggest that the linguistic distinction between alleyway and laneway is pertinent.

Beyond the discursive consequences of highlighting the geographical spaces related to the case, several other elements of its construction overwhelmingly draw upon elements of bodily space in order to sensationalise the crime and heighten its sordid associations. Much has been written about a perceived increase in the ‘tabloidisation’ of news media (Greer and McLaughlin, 2017; Rowe, 2009), a phenomenon that is closely associated with sensationalism in news reporting, and to which coverage of sexual assault cases is particularly susceptible. Some articles included in this study’s sample – particularly those from the Daily Mail, The Sun and The Mirror – exhibit significantly greater sensationalism by virtue of their avowed publication style. However, a general trend can be observed across the complete coverage wherein the details of the crime are provided in explicit detail, often highlighted early in the article and serving as a centrepiece for the framing of the crime. In particular, the nature of the assault is often stressed in a way that enhances its salaciousness. To this end, much emphasis is placed upon the bodily spaces of the crime – with its anal nature and the imagery of Mullins’ position on her hands and knees during the assault both stressed in media coverage.

The news media deployment of such details of the crime can be likened to Reidy’s (2004) ‘morally objectionable objectification of the victim’ (p. 302). The sensationalist emphasis that is placed on such elements function to imaginatively place Mullins in a position of vulnerability and powerlessness, actively reproducing the events of that evening rather than coolly detailing what occurred. With every retelling, Mullins is once again a victim being violated in an alleyway. The connotative power of the anus, as famously discussed by Bersani (1987) carries significant weight here – it is an object of taboo that is widely constructed as antithetical to female desire (Maddison, 2011; McDonald, 2015). Much like the repeated invocation of the Kings Cross setting, references to the anal in media reportage draw upon a large and complex history and are abundant with meaning. Thematic parallels can also be drawn between the implications of the anus and the assault’s location in an alleyway. Both are associated with waste disposal, revulsion and impropriety.

In addition to framing the crime in a salacious manner, the media emphasis on such details simultaneously serve to crystallise Mullins’ lack of consent, and thus the abhorrent nature of the assault. In this sense, despite its objectifying nature, the deployment of such salacious details situates the audience on Mullins’ side, triggering disgust for the perpetrator whilst consolidating and reinforcing Mullins’ status as victim. The considerable weight given to the geographic and bodily spaces of the event serve to set the narrative scene, and their connection to these spaces imbue Luke Lazarus and Saxon Mullins with meaning. As will now be discussed, the rhetorical power of presenting Luke Lazarus as a Kings Cross insider, and the active agent responsible for the violation of Mullins, has significant consequences for the framing of his character.

Power and privilege: The construction of Lazarus

“You’re spoiled, you’re powerful. You’re someone who took advantage of a young 18-year-old girl who was drunk. . .”

(Fordham, 2018)

In the same way that space is highly charged in the representation of the case, issues of blame and innocence are similarly weighted. Cultural criminologists and media theorists suggest that representations of crime often rely upon generic tropes and narratives to convey details in an easily digestible format. One notable manifestation of this, as highlighted by Young (1998), is the tendency for news media coverage of crime to rely upon simplistic binaries of logic, reproducing actors and events as either wholly good or bad. In a similar way, the encounter between Saxon Mullins and Luke Lazarus is never represented as an equal or innocent meeting of equal parties, but rather as an encounter of asymmetrical power and privilege. The quotation above that opens this section exemplifies this framing. Lazarus’ power and privilege are highly prominent in his portrayal in the media, and strikingly, these are drawn on to paint Lazarus in a wholly negative light. As a consequence, he comes to assume a role akin to a villain in the media narrative of the case, the diametric foil to Mullins’ innocence and goodness. Whilst we are not seeking to challenge such framing, in the context of broader cultural traditions in which sexual violence is culturally and legally denied, it is nonetheless striking that Lazarus was treated in this way.

A dominant way in which Lazarus is constructed as a negative and culpable figure is through his alignment with Kings Cross. In media reports about the case, Lazarus’ identity is frequently linked directly with this setting – he is the ‘nightclub heir’ or ‘Kings Cross rapist’ (Farrow, 2015; Samandar, 2015), conferring his status as an ‘insider’ in this notorious milieu. This is compounded by the simultaneous emphasis placed upon Mullins as an outsider. Specifically, the fact that the assault occurred on her first night visiting Kings Cross is a detail that is widely reported. By interdiscursively connecting Lazarus and the Kings Cross space in which the crime occurred, he is associated with its sordid reputation. Linguistically, Lazarus is consistently framed as the instigator of the evening’s events, with the majority of accounts highlighting how he was responsible for leading Mullins to the assault's alleyway location and telling her how to position her body. Such narrative details work alongside the association of Lazarus with the Kings Cross setting to highlight his intimate knowledge and power, and thus his culpability. This active and weighted language used to describe Lazarus stands in contrast with the findings of scholars such as Gilmore (2019), who highlights how violence against women is often reported in passive terms that serve to linguistically absolve perpetrators. By emphasising Lazarus’ insider status in Kings Cross and relaying his actions on the evening in active terms, Lazarus’ culpability is highlighted, serving to construct him in an unambiguously negative light, resisting any alternative narratives that may serve to minimise his actions.

A further way in which Lazarus is framed in a negative light relates to the emphasis that is placed on his privileged lifestyle and upbringing. This is one of the most repetitiously invoked details about him, particularly in early coverage of the case. For instance, when Lazarus celebrated his acquittal by hosting a party for family and friends, several media outlets used these details to paint him as privileged and out of touch, with one article reading ‘Lazarus and friends party the night away at his pub baron father’s $8 m Vaucluse mansion just hours after he was found not guilty of raping 18-year-old virgin in a Kings Cross alley’ (Cleary and Gibbs, 2017). The media attention afforded to Lazarus’ privilege is not surprising, however its impact is somewhat at odds with literature regarding the framing of perpetrators of sexual assault. In general, perpetrators of higher socio-economic standing tend to be regarded as less blameworthy and more likeable (Black and Gold, 2008; DiBennardo, 2018; Yamawaki et al., 2007). That the framing of Lazarus’ status and privilege works in the opposite way raises questions about the way that the news media relates to perpetrators, suggesting that there may be something different about this case, or this moment in time (or both). For instance, #MeToo has brought scrutiny to the ways in which powerful men who are sexually violent have been protected by their privilege. While the degree to which Luke Lazarus enjoyed power and privilege is of course on a vastly different scale to that of the high-profile Hollywood figures highlighted by #MeToo, his privilege can nonetheless be observed to figure in a comparably negative way.

There are several other narrative elements that were commonly reported on and which serve to consolidate the depiction of Lazarus as an unambiguously negative figure. The day after his encounter with Mullins, Lazarus and a friend exchanged text messages about the evening, which are often quoted in media coverage of the case:

‘I honestly have zero recollection of calling you . . . Was a sick night - took a chick's virginity.’ His friend replied: ‘bahahahaha nice popping does cherries . . .’

Lazarus replied: ‘. . . it's a prety gross story tell ya later’. (sic)

(Ralston, 2015a)

This text exchange is often referred to as Lazarus ‘bragging’ about the assault (see Hall, 2015; Olding, 2015; The Guardian, 2015). In a similar vein, the ‘trophy list’ of sexual partners that Lazarus asked Mullins to add her name to is commonly highlighted in media reportage (for instance, see Bullen, 2017; Kembrey, 2017). Both of these elements work alongside references to Lazarus’ privilege and position as a Kings Cross insider to ensure that his social status and power are cast in a negative light. They also serve to align Lazarus’ behaviour with a particular form of toxic masculinity, which has been the subject of increased criticism in the wake of a number of cases associated with #MeToo. Commonly termed ‘bro culture’ or ‘lad culture’, this is a harmful form of masculinity that ‘tells men that, if they do respect women, they are not real men’ (Chrisler et al., 2012: 810; Phipps et al., 2018). Cases such as the 2012 Steubenville High School rape case in the US (Oppel Jr., 2013), the 2013 Roast Busters rape scandal in Auckland, New Zealand (Casey, 2019), and the exposure of the entrenched culture of sexually predatory behaviour at the University of Sydney’s St Paul’s College (Baker, 2018; Funnell, 2017), all attracted significant media attention in the same time period as the Lazarus case, and concern privileged young men engaging in sexual assault and harassment performatively in the pursuit of reputational gain. The highlighting of Lazarus’ text exchange and trophy list taps into this cultural vein, seizing upon an increased awareness of the nature and impact of misogyny and utilising details of Lazarus’ behaviour to paint him as the villain in the media’s narrative of this case. This further serves to frame him in binary opposition to the figure of Saxon Mullins, whose media characterisation will now be considered in further detail.

The absent victim: Sympathy and symbolic annihilation

Prior to Saxon Mullins coming forward in her Four Corners interview, she was largely absent from news reportage on the case. Despite the lack of narrative prominence afforded to her, her status as the anonymous victim has significant implications for the broader narratives of the case and for Mullins’ characterisation after coming forward. The dominant framing of Mullins as the anonymous victim attended primarily to her youth, virginity and innocence. In doing so, several conventional rape myths are resisted and she assumes qualities associated with Christie’s (1986) influential concept of the ideal victim. For instance, although alcohol consumption has been demonstrated to increase the attribution of blame to victims of sexual assault (Grubb and Turner, 2012), Mullins’ consumption of alcohol on the night is rarely mentioned in news coverage, and when it is, functions solely as a complicating issue for Lazarus’ claims that she had consented (for instance, see Ackland, 2017). There is no reference to the clothes Mullins was wearing, or any behaviour she may have engaged in upon meeting Lazarus that may have ‘led him on’, both elements that have historically been employed to ascribe blame to the victims of sexual assault (Muehlenhard and MacNaughton, 1988). Given the circumstances of the assault – Mullins’ self-described intoxication, the Kings Cross nightclub location, its occurrence at 4 am – against a broader tradition in which such elements have been used to undermine victimhood, it is conceivable that she could have been framed as ‘inviting’ or ‘causing’ her assault. However, this is almost wholly resisted – Mullins is unambiguously cast as a good and innocent figure in the media narrative of the case.

Although Mullins’ innocence and lack of culpability is reinforced throughout news media coverage of the case – ostensibly a positive thing – the mechanisms by which this occurs are entrenched in a problematic history wherein victims have been reduced to either ‘virgins’ or ‘vamps’. Feminist scholars have highlighted how media reliance upon this virgin/vamp dichotomy can often result in a disregard, or stifling, of aberrant facts in order to fit the chosen narrative. Benedict (1993) refers to this as ‘whitewash(ing) a rape victim’ (p. 255). The emphasis on Mullins’ virginity (both literally and figuratively) consequently reinforces this problematic binary, and is reflective of the ‘hierarchy’ of crime news, which dictates that women be largely neglected in the news unless they are white and middle-class (Gill, 2007).

Despite the sympathetic nature of Mullins’ media treatment as the anonymous victim, the bulk of the media coverage of the case was nonetheless dominated by Lazarus. Prior to her coming forward, Mullins is little more than an anonymous figure who visited Kings Cross on her first night out in Sydney – she is an absent victim, in the sense that she lacks realisation as a person. Despite his unambiguously negative framing, Lazarus is quoted at length about their encounter, and a variety of extraneous details about his life furnish the coverage of the case. For example, much attention is given to statements he made regarding the impact his conviction had upon his life trajectory. During the initial phase of reporting, these comments served as the dominant frame for coverage of the case and are often highlighted in headlines and lead paragraphs. For instance, a 2015 SBS News article opened by stating, ‘the son of a Sydney nightclub owner says he felt his life was ‘completely destroyed’ when news he had sexually assaulted a young woman broke’. Conversely, Mullins’ victim impact statement was sparsely reported on, and when it was quoted the excerpts that were used were generally vague – about Mullins feeling ‘helpless’, and how she will ‘never be who (she) was’ (Hall, 2015; Ralston, 2015b). Further, references to Mullins’ victim impact statement were primarily located at the end of news articles, indicating that this information is regarded as a kind of footnote throughout, the least important narratively. Much has been said about the way that victims of sexual assault are sidelined in the criminal justice system, assigned to the role of witness in a crime committed against the state. Here, a similar effect can be observed in media reportage. Lazarus’ prominence throughout the reporting on the case serves to perpetuate a notion that male perpetrators are the most important figures in cases of sexual assault. Thus, the media coverage of the case prior to Mullins’ coming forward in Four Corners can be understood as an example of Gerbner’s (1972) influential concept of symbolic annihilation, a term used to explain the cultural consequences of the erasure of women in the media.

Mullins’ status as a symbolically annihilated victim is not inevitable or predestined in the reportage and there are some select exceptions. The headline in one example, ‘“A part of me died that day”: Victim of sex assault by Luke Lazarus tells court of her trauma’, foregrounds her narrative as central and draws extensively from her victim impact statement (Ralston, 2015c). On the one hand such resistance to the symbolic annihilation of Mullins suggests progress. And yet, the infrequency of these examples underscores that advances remain incremental.

All of this begs the question as to why, prior to her Four Corners interview, Mullins does not appear as a fully realised person beyond the circumstances of her victimisation. Much of the way that Mullins is represented prior to her coming forward – as a kind of footnote to the story – may well be associated with her anonymity, and the rules of evidence that exist to protect the identity of victims of sexual assault. Thus it is conceivable that the suppression of victims’ identities may result in an overall tendency to reduce victim reportage in such cases. However, even if this were true, the effect remains the same: Saxon Mullins is absent in the story of her own assault. Prior to participating in a nationally broadcast interview on Four Corners she did not exist as a fully formed person in reportage on the case. In comparison, despite his framing as the narrative’s villain, the prominence of Luke Lazarus in media coverage serves to reinforce cultural notions that male perpetrators are the most important figures in stories of sexual assault, once again sidelining victims and their voices. As we go on to demonstrate, it was only in the act of speaking out on Four Corners that Mullins was able to transcend her symbolic annihilation.

‘It Wasn’t All for Nothing’: From absent victim to triumphant hero

In May 2018, one year after the final legal outcome in the case against Luke Lazarus, Saxon Mullins spoke out. In direct contrast with Mullins’ symbolic annihilation in previous reportage on the case, the episode of Four Corners explicitly foregrounded her account as the central feature of the program. Poignantly entitled ‘I Am That Girl’ (Milligan, 2018b), it marked a reclaiming of Mullins’ identity, a ‘coming out’ in defiance of the manner she had thus far been sidelined in media coverage of her own assault.

The Four Corners episode underscored that unshackled by legal orders of suppression, Mullins had a story to tell. Her participation in the program had an immediate impact, dominating news coverage in the days following the broadcast and sparking a national conversation on the topic of consent. The day after it aired the New South Wales government announced an inquiry into consent laws.³ Mullins’ coming forward provides insight into the narrative consequences of victim anonymity in sexual assault cases, as well as the role of extra-legal forms of justice when the criminal justice system fails victims. Despite the fact that the case had been widely reported on and that this reportage had resisted many rape myths, the indeterminate outcome of the case did not precipitate significant political or legal controversy until she shed her anonymity. Mullins’ coming forward served to reframe the narrative of her story, and of the crime more broadly. In shedding her anonymity, the characterisation of Mullins shifted from a sympathetic but largely sidelined anonymous victim, to a noble protagonist, looking to right a wrong. This shift is evident in news coverage concerning the Four Corners interview, in which her bravery is widely lauded. This was followed by Mullins being awarded the Young Person’s Human Rights Medal by the Australian Human Rights Commission in November 2018, for her ‘immense bravery in publicly sharing her story of sexual assault in order to promote debate around the need for legal reforms’ (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018).

In the aftermath of her Four Corners interview, Mullins comes to represent something of a hero in the media’s narrative of the case, with vestiges of a hero’s journey observable across the arc of the news coverage. The concept of a hero’s journey is a trope common to mythological storytelling, wherein an individual faces trials and tribulations, ultimately triumphing and effecting some positive change (see Campbell, 2008; Gleeson, 2019). The stages of the hero’s journey have been comprehensively charted by the noted literary scholar Campbell (2008). While it is beyond the scope of this article to assess in detail the extent to which the media’s depiction of Mullins can be mapped against each of the stages set out by Campbell, it is nonetheless instructive for understanding the transformation in the way Mullins is framed in the media after coming forward. Following her Four Corners interview, the representation of Mullins’ story shifts from one of suffering and injustice into something positive and uplifting, with a happy ending courtesy of the announcement of the NSW consent law inquiry.

That this narrative arc, and the broader impact of Mullins’ story, are so contingent upon her publicly disclosing her identity raises pertinent questions regarding the role of anonymity in media coverage of sexual assault. There is evidence that personalising victims of sexual assault serves to increase empathy towards them and decrease victim-blaming attitudes (Anastasio and Costa, 2004). As Jaconelli (2002) argues, ‘a photograph and a real name do more to reinforce (a victim’s story) than a disembodied communication’ (p179). Some feminist scholars argue that publicly sharing stories of sexual assault can have positive implications for other victims, serving to provide comfort in solidarity and incentivise reporting (Clark, 2010; Lee, 2018). However, it does bear noting that victim anonymity is legally mandated for the victim’s benefit – that is, for the purpose of protecting her privacy. In this sense, it is often seen as helping to enable victims to come forward (Lee, 2018; Powell, 2015). These competing, and at times contradictory, consequences of victim anonymity highlight the complexity of this terrain.

Despite such complexity, speaking out is nonetheless perceived by many feminists as an important tool of anti-rape politics. Serisier (2018) highlights how the personal rape narrative can be understood as a genre unto itself, with the most impactful and dominant stories ascribing to recognisable tropes and character archetypes. Crucially, however, Serisier (2018) argues that this genre can often be seen as reinforcing ideal victimhood, privileging stories where victims are white, middle-class and unambiguously innocent. This leads to a vicious cycle for feminist activism, where privileged voices are amplified because they hold the most power to effect change, thus further silencing those whose voices who do not align with these privileged qualities. In a similar vein, the #MeToo movement has been criticised for its narrow embrace of victims who are white and privileged, as well as its origins as a movement co-opted from black feminist activists by white women.⁴ In the case of Mullins, despite her symbolic annihilation as an anonymous victim, her status as a white middle-class cisgendered woman allowed for her to be portrayed as an innocent virgin, rather than a blameworthy ‘vamp’ (Benedict, 1993) from the outset. The details of her story, and the influence it was able to effect, can therefore be understood as another iteration of the problematic tendency for the news media to privilege certain stories and voices, resulting in a distorted picture of the nature of sexual violence and its victims.

Mullins’ motivations for sharing her story publicly are framed as an altruistic desire to ‘spark discussion’. The subsequent inquiry into consent laws by the New South Wales government is thus presented as a victory for Mullins, and there is a sense of justice being achieved, with the reflection from Mullins that ‘it wasn’t all for nothing’ providing a dominant frame for several articles (Margan, 2018; Milligan and Carter, 2018). Discussing #MeToo, MacKinnon (2018) argues that the media, and particularly social media, have the power to achieve justice for victims of sexual violence that the law has thus far been incapable of providing. This resonates with the media framing of Mullins’ story following her coming forward – there is a sense that, despite an unsuccessful court outcome, Mullins has achieved a degree of justice beyond the law. However, in light of an enduring tradition of legal failures to adequately respond to sexual violence, we cannot help but draw into question the optimism that this portrayal endows on the case. After all, it remains to be seen what impact – if any – yet another inquiry into sexual assault law will have.⁵ Crawley and Simic (2019) suggest that the media’s preoccupation with singular instances of sexual violence serves to individualise the issue, divorcing it from broader social and structural dynamics. The framing of Mullins’ experience as a hero’s journey serves a similar effect. Further, there is arguably something rather self-congratulatory about the media’s transformation of Mullins from victim to hero, given that within this version of the story it is the media and not law in which the cathartic possibilities of testimony are framed as being made available to Mullins. Mullins’ heroic turn was only made possible by speaking out publicly. In order to do so, she needed to embody the privilege necessary for a personal narrative of sexual violence to have a positive political impact. In this way, the source of her symbolic annihilation is also the source of her apparent self-discovery. This paradox raises important questions about what the media is capable of doing for victims of sexual violence, and under what conditions.

Conclusion

In this article we have demonstrated the inherent complexity of media coverage in the wake of a high-profile sexual assault in the current cultural moment. Playing out over 5 years, the case of Saxon Mullins and Luke Lazarus came to represent a powerful local iteration of a broader international reckoning that has been precipitated by #MeToo. Legally mandated anonymity has been an important factor to instil survivors with greater confidence to come forward and report their victimisation. Left unresolved, however, is the slippery terrain between anonymity and annihilation. Prior to speaking publicly on Four Corners, Saxon Mullins was largely absent from the story of her own assault, treated as a secondary, albeit sympathetic, footnote. In comparison, Luke Lazarus dominated news coverage of the case, with his power and privilege emphasised in order to cast him as a culpable and wholly negative figure. While media coverage of the case did resist a number of rape myths in order to construct Lazarus and Mullins in this way, and demonstrates some enhanced sensitivity to the harms of rape and its impacts upon victims, it nonetheless also draws on sensationalised details and loaded and problematic tropes of white virginal innocence to do so.

Also demonstrated through this case study is the reality that a survivor’s capacity to speak out in the wake of institutional failures is highly contingent. While Mullins had a platform made available to her, this is often not the case for survivors of sexual violence. In the wake of a legal outcome in which the court ruled that a defendant’s right to fairness would be jeopardised by a retrial, Mullins spoke out and transcended the symbolic annihilation that had characterised her thus far. However, while doing so may have afforded her some semblance of justice outside of the law, this is a highly individualised outcome, and does little to speak to the systemically entrenched nature of sexual violence. While she may have succeeded in transcending the limited scope that the media coverage afforded to her as anonymous and annihilated, the act of speaking out is nonetheless a challenging one, that many victims are incapable or unable to do for a range of reasons. The tension between the tangible value of anonymity to protect victims, set against the perverse effect of silencing victims once again, is a dilemma that remains unresolved.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Jessica C Oldfield

Dave McDonald

Notes

Author biographies

Dave McDonald is a lecturer in Criminology at the University of Melbourne, where he researches paedophilia and child sexual abuse. He is currently examining unofficial, non-state responses to institutional abuse, drawing on frameworks including transitional justice, spatial and visual criminology.

Jessica Oldfield is a recent graduate of the Master of Criminology at the University of Melbourne, where she was awarded the John Barry Medal as the highest performing student. She is currently scoping a PhD project on media and sexual violence.

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