The director of ‘Respect’ explains why you don’t see Aretha Franklin’s rape explicitly in the film: ‘There is no need to further re-traumatize our audiences’

• "Respect" chronicles the ascension of Aretha Franklin from church soloist to chart topper.
• The film manages to document the abuse Franklin faced in her life without leaning on violence.
• Director Liesl Tommy told Insider she didn't want to contribute to "images of violence on Black bodies."
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

"Respect" follows the story of Aretha Franklin's rise in the music industry, detailing childhood sexual assault that birthed two pregnancies by the age of 14, and domestic violence by the man she loved, with the discretion and subtlety of its heroine.

The biopic differs from similar projects about the late icon by showing this restraint. Debut director Liesl Tommy's vision and Tracey Scott Wilson's script spared audiences lengthy scenes of star Jennifer Hudson enduring physical distress.

Instead, viewers saw the glimmer of a swollen belly, stilted conversations, and a loaded inquiry from a family friend (played masterfully by Mary J. Blige) to replace extended beatings and explicit sexual assault scenes early in the film.

Tommy also opted for news voiceovers, press conferences, and fateful phone calls over footage of attack dogs and fire hoses to capture the Civil Rights Movement in "Respect," which spans Franklin's career until her chart-topping gospel album, "Amazing Grace," in 1972.

"That was always my intention," Tommy told Insider. "There is no need to further re-traumatize our audiences."

"We are saturated culturally with...images of violence on Black bodies, on Black women's bodies," she added.

The director of 'Respect' said she 'didn't want to be part' of perpetuating violence on Black bodies in film

It's true: Violence enacted on Black bodies is widely accessible in contemporary film. In Ridley Scott's 2007 film, "American Gangster," an unarmed Black woman is shot in the back as she's fleeing her abuser. In another scene, a Black man is shot in the head at point-blank range. Curiously in contrast, a dog is later slaughtered off screen.

In Lee Daniels' acclaimed film, "The United States vs. Billie Holiday," viewers see the jazz legend being beaten by her abusive partner in one scene, and in another she's shivering cold, naked in a jail shower. To the end the 2021 film, Holiday, accused by federal narcotics agents of possessing heroine, is shown shackled to a hospital bed as she lay dying.

"I didn't want to be a part of it, frankly," said Tommy. "I did not want there to be a single scene in this film that felt traumatizing to the audience."

"I'm interested in the audience actually using their imagination," she continued. "I'm interested in not handing them everything. I want the audience to be a participant in the storytelling. I don't want them to just sit back and let it wash over them."

Not making brutality a costar in "Respect" could be considered a risk. It reverses filmmaking's golden rule by telling more and showing less.

"It's actually harder to use restraint in violence sequences in film than to just let it go," Tommy explained. "It's harder to edit. It's harder to shoot. It's actually quite complex to come up with how to tell the story of violence without showing the story of violence."

Tommy was inspired by Franklin herself to inform how much violence was shown in the film

Franklin was in private when she abandoned the feather trims and gilded headdresses of the stage. She declined to answer questions from the press that she found impertinent and insisted on formality in business meetings with music executives. Her hopes, desires, and the names of her children's fathers were even disclosed to the public on her terms.

"I wanted to use the restraint that she kind of conducted herself with," said Tommy. "We have delicacy too as Black women and so I wanted that to be threaded throughout."

Tommy also made sure that "Respect" let viewers inside the female interpersonal relationships Franklin had, instead of solely focusing on her relationships with men - the relationship with her father Rev. C.L. Franklin, the relationship with her husbands, and the relationship with record executives.

"So many of these movies are made, written, and directed by white men. And so that filter is just always through those movies," she said. "For me, I just know ... how powerful our female friendships are and how important they are in pivotal moments when we're experiencing change. It seems central to put them in ... the movie."

Instead, viewers saw in one scene Franklin connecting with women who supported her through their trials. In another scene, they saw Franklin interact with her sisters who served as her backup singers. The women shown in "Respect" represented the connection of Black women to "our aunties, sisters, cousins, girlfriends, mamas, grandmothers," Tommy said.

"This is part of the female gaze or at least the Black female gaze," explained Tommy. "For so many of us, the women in our lives are so powerful."

Tommy even used herself to show the impact Franklin had on women in an uncredited cameo. Portraying a fan, she gushes with gratitude in a scene where Franklin and her husband, Ted White, are walking through the lobby of a hotel.

"I loved Aretha Franklin so much. I never dreamed that I would actually be able to make this film," said Tommy. "Putting myself ... in that role was a way to tell her on camera when I was never able to tell her in real life."

"Respect," also starring Marlon Wayans, Forest Whitaker, and Audra McDonald is now in theaters.