Emily Atack’s mother, actress Kate Robbins, breaks down in tears after she finds out about the crude, sexual messages and videos that her daughter receives on a daily basis. In scenes that feature in new BBC Two documentary, Emily Atack: Asking For It?, the 33-year-old Inbetweeners star opens up to her parents about the ordeal.
“When it comes to messages, I don’t think you know the details of the stuff that I am sent. Why don’t you want to see it?” Emily asks her parents at the dinner table. In response, mum Kate replies: “Because I’d worry that they’re going to come and kill you.” Dad Keith, meanwhile, is keen to see an example of the messages so he can understand what his daughter has been putting up with.
“I can’t even read that,” says Kate after she plucks up the courage to look at one of the disturbing messages, “It’s just so disgusting”. Visibly sickened, she adds: “I can’t bring myself to read it. It really upsets me.” Kate then says that although she understands why Emily hasn’t shown her the messages before, she is scared of the “psychological impact” that it is having on her daughter. With that, she leaves the table in tears.
Following the emotional moment, Kate describes how she is worried for Emily’s safety. “I had never known anything like what she showed me in those messages. I don’t want her to be subject to that and I want to protect her as a parent.”
In the hour-long film, Emily tries to understand why she, and women in the same position contacting her, have normalised this kind of sexual abuse for so long, and questions why the blame for unwanted male attention is so often put on the victim.
The film follows the actress as she continues the debate that took her to Parliament in February 2022 to try and make cyber-flashing illegal. She explores whose responsibility it is to make this behaviour stop, whether enough is being done to protect young women and girls online, and what needs to change.
She looks to men themselves, trying to understand the psychology behind this behaviour, and she also reaches out to try and speak with some of the men directly who routinely send her sexually explicit content. She also delves deep into her own story, unpicking things that have happened to her as a result of attracting unwanted sexual attention from a very young age.
Emily Atack: Asking For It? airs on BBC Two at 9pm on Tuesday, January 31. If you can’t wait till then, it is available right now on BBC iPlayer. For more TV and showbiz stories, subscribe to our newsletter here.
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