Thread by @amandaknox

It’s that time of year again! Without my consent, yet another entertainment product has been made that is “inspired by” my wrongful conviction, and as with #STILLWATER, this new TV series in France paints me as manipulative & guilty of murder. /🧵

https://twitter.com/amandaknox/status/1420871392266911746

This new French show is called Une Mère Parfaite, The Perfect Mother, and it’s adapted from a 2014 novel by American author @ninadarnton. I’ll come back to the French show. For now, I want to focus on this novel.

Darnton’s book, written before my definitive acquittal by Italy’s supreme court, is “a fictionalized account of the Amanda Knox case,” according to Kirkus reviews.

The @nytimes called it “a thinly veiled riff on the story of Amanda Knox.” They also noted that “problematically, Darnton so blurs the line between fact and fiction in reworking choice details of the Knox case…

…(the European boyfriend, the caught-in-the-act-of-kissing photo) that one might be tempted to interpret this fictional reimagining as Knox’s third trial and conviction.” That distillation by the Times is spot on, but it’s even worse…

In @ninadarnton’s book, the Amanda Knox stand-in, Emma, emerges from the murder scandal a free woman, and is positioned by the media as “an innocent American, bullied and victimized by the Spanish legal system,” but her own mom knows better.

“Emma was beautiful, articulate, and likable. She spoke movingly of the random violence that had touched her life, the pain and fear during her imprisonment, and the love and support of her family, ‘without which I couldn’t have survived.’...

…The stories sent a chill into the hearts of junior-year-abroad applicants and their parents everywhere and made her a sought-after talk show guest. But the fanfare left a bad taste in [her mother’s] mouth.”

Because in Darnton’s retelling of my personal nightmare, Emma gets off on a technicality but is NOT innocent. She’s a manipulative liar, a seductress. Her tears are false. She is a psychopath. And her own mother knows it by the end.

“She and Paco [her accomplice] had set [the victim] up. He hadn’t tried to rape her; she had seduced him. Maybe they had planned it. Maybe Emma even helped kill him. Her fingerprints were on the knife.”

This is a miscarriage of justice in Darnton’s story, but not because Emma is wrongfully convicted, but because she is freed. And who’s right? Ah, of course. “The Spanish cops had been right.” The good ol' reliable police who never screw it up.

It’s hard to convey how infuriating and hurtful all this is. When I had been wrongfully convicted a second time, and was back home, still fighting for my innocence, freedom, and reputation, Darnton published a book entirely built around the idea of me as a psychopath,…

reinforcing that false image of me created by the prosecution and tabloids, valorizing the police along the way, and profiting at the expense of MY reputation.

To this day, I’m still facing the effects of this reputational damage. People are still speculating about whether I’m a psychopath.

People are still making YouTube videos minutely analyzing my eye and mouth movements in interviews, looking for clues that I’m a lying killer.

I’d like you to take a moment to imagine what it feels like to find a panel of four old white dudes indulging in the pseudoscience of body language analysis to speculate that you’re a monster to hundreds of thousands of people.

And it is pseudoscience. You simply CANNOT tell if someone is lying or deceptive based on face or body movements. wired.com/story/youtube-…

I’m still being treated like the character in @ninadarnton's book, the devil with an angel’s face. That form of confirmation bias is so insidious, because it treats all evidence of my innocence as evidence of guilt.

No history of violence? Sign of guilt. Amicable? Sign of guilt. Didn't flee country, but volunteered to help police? Sign of guilt. Speaks about “the love and support of her family, ‘without which I couldn’t have survived.’... “ in Darnton’s words…sign of GUILT.

Make no mistake. I AM STILL ON TRIAL. And a big reason why is the never-ending stream of entertainment products, like Darnton’s novel, that reinforce the myth of Foxy Knoxy, the myth I continue to dismantle and disprove day by day.

At the beginning of Darnton’s book, there’s a disclaimer, a common one:

“This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.”

This disclaimer is a lie. Much of Darnton’s fiction ISN’T a product of her imagination, but a product of the imaginations of tabloid writers, the police, & prosecution in my case. The fictional character of Emma was already invented by them. Her name is Foxy Knoxy.

It’s also a lie because the resemblance of Emma to Foxy Knoxy, the resemblance of the plot details to my case (the infamous kiss photograph) are NOT coincidental. They are fully intentional, and the author and reviewers know it.

But that lie is a legal CYA that prevents me from making any legal claims of slander or defamation. Not that I would. I just don’t like being gaslit, being lied to, and that disclaimer is a lie.

In her acknowledgements, Darnton thanks some people in Spain who helped her with details about the Spanish legal system, and she asks forgiveness for the fictional license she has taken from them. LOL.

There is no, “Amanda Knox, please forgive the fictional license I’ve taken in presenting a character modeled on the myth of psychopath Foxy Knoxy that was used to destroy your life.” But it’s not too late.

I’m easy to find, @ninadarnton. I’d be thrilled if you took responsibility for the consequences you’ve caused me by reinforcing this false and pernicious image of me as a psychopath. If you want to encounter the REAL ME, I’d love to chat.

Your story is now reaching millions in France, through this new adaptation, Une Mère Parfaite. At the end of the series, it’s revealed that the Foxy Knoxy stand-in did plunge the knife, leaving viewers with the idea that “when you have a good lawyer you get away with it.”

To those involved in this French TV show, actors @iamjuliegayet, @tomersisley, @EdenDucourant, you, too, are perpetuating the myth of Foxy Knoxy. You, too, are causing me reputational damage. You could learn from this, and choose more ethical projects.

To the readers of Darnton’s book, to the viewers of Une Mère Parfaite, you have power to make media more ethical. Don’t settle for thinly veiled ripoffs of real-life tragedies that distort and defame the figures they’re based on.

Stop reading, stop watching. Demand better. Demand that your storytellers actually invent things from their imagination, rather than lift them from the mythmaking already done by corrupt police and ignoble tabloids.

And be skeptical. Be aware. Especially when something is “based on a true story,” ask yourself who is affected by the story you’re consuming, how does the fictionalization reinforce or shatter preconceptions about that real person?

Was there consent? Or did this storyteller waltz into this material with an entitlement to use it, and profit off it, however they liked, even at the expense of real people with ongoing trauma.

Ask yourself if we need yet another story giving us permission to hate a woman because she’s a seductive psychopathic killer. Ask yourself what retelling that myth over and over again does to our culture, and what it says about you.

And finally: You know who is The Perfect Mother? My actual mom. While Darnton presents a mother who views her own daughter as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, my own Mom fought tirelessly to save me. She was always there for me, and she always believed me. /fin