JEFFREY BROWN:

The film won the audience award and the grand jury prize at Sundance. Fox Searchlight bought its rights for a festival record $17.5 million, and its national release is due in October.

But, earlier this month, headlines emerged about a 1999 rape allegation made against Parker when he was a student at Penn State. The alleged victim claimed she'd been unconscious. Parker was charged and later acquitted.

Parker's friend and "Birth of a Nation" co-writer Jean Celestin was also accused in the case. He was convicted, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.

In a recent interview with "Variety" magazine, Parker reiterated his claim that the sex was consensual.

"Seventeen years ago," he said, "I experienced a very painful moment in my life. It resulted in it being litigated. I was cleared of it. That's that. Seventeen years later, I'm a filmmaker."

The remarks struck a nerve, especially after the revelation days later that the alleged victim had killed herself in 2012.

Last week, in his first interview since learning about the suicide, Parker changed his tone, telling "Ebony" magazine: "I was acting as if I was the victim, and that's wrong. My only thought was, I'm innocent and everyone needs to I know. I didn't even think for a second about her."

Also last week, the American Film Institute canceled a screening of the movie.

And we explore some of the issues surrounding this with Roxane Gay, writer/author of the essay collection "Bad Feminist," and associate professor at Purdue University, and Mike Sargent, chief film critic for Pacifica Radio and co-president of the Black Film Critics Circle.

Welcome to both of you.

Let me start with you, Roxane Gay.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2Bjsri%2Fx6isq2ejnby4e8%2Baqq1lkZiwtr%2FAraCopl2YvK6x0majop%2BYqXqntcumpJqjlad6r63TnmSpmaKgsrN51qKjpWWmnrK4sdGsZLCZnql6uK3TnJ8%3D