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Dear Mr. Malone,
I have a question regarding Todd and Marty and their relationship. When I read the internet message boards and this subject comes up, some people say that you intended to write some sort of "romance" between these two, but had to abandon those plans because the actors refused and the network wasn't too thrilled with the idea either.
I'd like to know if that is true or false. If it is true, how on earth could such a storyline be justified? That concept is truly disturbing, IMO.
If it is not true, please set the record straight.
Thank you
Lisa B
. Dear Lisa B,
Todd and Marty's relationship was a matter of much emotional debate and misunderstanding during my time at One Life. I conclude from your letter that the confusion continues.
As you say, it is deeply disturbing to see rape romanticized. That was never my intention nor the intent of anyone else who took part in the creation of this story. To imply that a woman would enjoy being raped--while it has been a staple of fiction from 18th-century novels to modern bodice rippers--is a profound violation of our shared humanity.
To rewrite the past so that we conveniently misremember the painful parts and claim a woman was not "really" raped by her current romantic partner (as I've heard people do when talking about General Hospital's Luke and Laura) is an equally profound violation of the truth and of a writer's moral responsibility.
The story of Marty's rape at the fraternity house was carefully and thoroughly researched. We spoke with therapists, with counselors at rape centers, with young women willing to share accounts of being victims of this crime. The "message" of our story, and the purpose of its graphic nature, was to emphasize that rape is a crime and that it is a crime rooted in power and violence, not sexuality.
The moral as well as legal position of the rape story was to say that no woman is ever responsible for being raped--no matter what the circumstances. It doesn't matter if the woman was drunk, or admittedly flirtatious, or if she had even provocatively made herself vulnerable. The point was that it is outrageous to blame the victim. Nothing justifies rape.
Now, given that truth, and given our commitment to a realistic presentation of the aftermath of rape and a rape trial, what happens to the people? How do they go on with their lives? That was the next arc of our story and it was one we explored with the same care and responsibility with which we'd presented the crime.
The evolution of Marty's healing, her regeneration, took place slowly and truthfully. It led her through a spiritual heart of darkness. Out of that suffering, and with the nurturing of friends, she led herself to the light. Marty's journey necessarily kept her tied to Todd, just as he could never escape his past with her. These two people, chained together by his violent crime, could not escape each other until they could let the past go. And so in a sense "they belonged together." Not in an easy romantic way. Not in a way that ignored their past. But in the deepest possible spiritual way.
To me, Marty and Todd's story was always one of the most painful imaginable struggle. A struggle towards redemption--on both their parts. Could Todd grow into a person capable of feeling empathy, of knowing the hideous wrong he'd done Marty (out of his own violent unhappiness and self-hatred)? Could he ever bring himself to ask her forgiveness? Could Marty grow into a person capable of not only recovering from the violence done to her, but of being made stronger, wholer, by that tragedy? Could all of Todd's awkward, ungracious but heartfelt gestures at re-balancing the wrong (his rescue of Marty from the car wreck at the risk of his own re-capture, his attempt to aid her and Patrick) ever make it possible for Marty to forgive him? Not because he earned forgiveness (nothing justifies what he did to her), but because in the agony of a remorseful soul, he asked for forgiveness.
To those who say Todd should never be forgiven, I refer them to the teachings of Christ. To me the Todd-Marty story was always--in the most serious sense--a story about the possibilities for divine grace in not just one, but in two, human lives.
That this journey was ever misunderstood by simplistic misreadings at the network or that it proved even momentarily difficult for earnest and brilliant actors like Susan and Roger--was a sorrow to me.
Cordially,
Michael Malone