No easy answers in this tricky case of disability and consent
‘I’m not guilty of a crime,” declares Prof Anna Stubblefield in the opening minutes of Tell Them You Love Me (Sky Documentaries). By the end of this feature-length film, you will have decided one way or the other if you agree with that statement. But this is also a story with ambiguities and unknowns, and a central mystery that the film cannot answer.
Stubblefield was a professor of ethics at Rutgers University in New Jersey who caused a scandal when she began a sexual relationship with Derrick Johnson, a man with cerebral palsy. Johnson was unable to speak and could not walk unaided. He wore nappies and was spoon-fed. But Stubblefield claimed that using a controversial method called “facilitated communication” – where she would hold Johnson’s arm as he pointed to letters on a keyboard – she had unlocked an intelligent mind trapped inside a disabled body.
Derrick was enrolled at college and appeared on the lecture circuit. According to Stubblefield, he spoke of wanting to become a writer and move out of his mother’s house. And he initiated a physical relationship, she claimed, by asking him to kiss her and then to take her clothes off. They had sex at his home and on the floor of her office.
Derrick’s brother, John, and mother, Daisy, were horrified by this. Police became involved, and Stubblefield was sentenced to 12 years in state prison for aggravated sexual assault, although she successfully appealed that conviction and accepted a plea to a lesser charge. She is now free.
The documentary featured extensive interviews with Stubblefield, John and Daisy. The Johnsons were straightforward interviewees – if Daisy was an overprotective mother who still thought of Derrick as her baby and resented Stubblefield’s encroachment, that was understandable – but Stubblefield was fascinating to study. Was she a narcissist and pathological liar, as her ex-husband claimed? Or well-meaning but deluded about Derrick’s abilities (critics of facilitated communication believe that the facilitator is unconsciously guiding the disabled person’s hand)?
There is, of course, a third option – that Stubblefield was correct about Derrick’s mental capacity. That remains a mystery. Other contributors speak for or against the idea, each persuasive in their own way. Regardless, this professor of ethics should have observed ethical boundaries (not to mention consideration for her husband and daughter).
And to what extent did race and class play a part? John became suspicious when Derrick started expressing preferences for classical music and red wine – Stubblefield’s passions, John said, not Derrick’s. He accused her of having a white saviour complex. It was one of many layers to this thoughtprovoking film.
Tell Them You Love Me ★★★★ Death in Paradise ★★★
It is the 100th episode of Death in Paradise (BBC One). To mark this milestone, the BBC trumpeted that it was bringing back a much-missed actor. Ooh! Could it be Ben Miller? Danny John-jules? No, it’s… Sean Maguire, who appeared in the first episode in 2011 playing a thief at a yacht club. Now he’s back and managing the yacht club. This is the sort of character development you get in Death in Paradise. Best not to think about it too deeply.
The plot here was a big one: a shooting at the yacht club, and the victim is none other than Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington), at a lunch to commemorate his 50 years of police service. Luckily, he survived. In no time at all, a suspect had been identified and tracked down. He even confessed. But that happened 15 minutes before the end, which meant there was going to be a twist. It was, in many ways, vintage Death
in Paradise: lovely tropical views, gentle comedy, terrible attempts at Caribbean accents, jeopardy so low that the NHS could prescribe a weekly episode to combat hypertension. It provides some much-needed escapism at this time of year, and we should be thankful for some light-hearted TV when so many detective dramas are horribly dark and graphic. The show remains so popular that it still brings in millions of viewers every week and has been licensed to 230 territories. But isn’t it time for a change of lead?
Ralf Little’s character, DI Neville Parker, had a quirk when he first arrived – he was allergic to everything, including sand, which made him a comical fish-out-of-water. But now he’s deathly boring and Little plods through his lines with all the subtlety of someone in a school play. The actor was a gem as Antony in The Royle Family and early in his career had an Olivier Award nomination for a play at the Royal Court. He needs to get out of formulaic filler like this and rediscover his talent.