Danni’s lies spiral out of control after she adopts a friend from a school shooting survivor in order to make her own “survivor story” seem more credible. She gets a taste of the fame and followers she always wanted by co-opting the trauma of others and pretending to be a bombing survivor. Danni’s lies eventually cause her to lose touch with reality, leading to her death in an attack.
Why does Danni Sanders lie about Paris?
Danni Sanders is a lonely writer who is often critical of herself. She works at Depravity, a magazine that covers dark and morbid topics. Her boss, understandably, does not appreciate her tone-deaf writing style. Recently, she wrote a piece about how she’s feeling FOMO (fear of missing out) because she wasn’t present during the 9/11 attacks. ..
That’s Danni in a nutshell. Constantly worried about missing out, grasping for tragedy out of her crave of attention. “You guys are so lucky,” she tells a couple of her gay workers after they refuse to invite her to queer bowling night. “You have, like, a community. You have a parade. You have your own bowling night–”
“Being a minority is great,” Danni says, not picking up on the sarcasm in her classmate’s voice. She wears her Whiteness and heterosexuality as the robes of a self-martyr. ..
Danni lies about going on a writers’ retreat in Paris to gain the attention she so desperately craves–mainly from her co-worker and social media celebrity, Colin. ..
Danni created a fake website for the writers’ retreat, photoshops pictures of herself in Paris, and posts them to Instagram with cutesy sayings about baguettes. When Colin follows her, she’s even more justified in her actions.
She wakes up to find that her picture from the night before has been taken down and replaced with a photo of someone else at the Arc de Triomphe. She can’t believe it happened overnight. She spends the morning trying to figure out who took her picture and why.
How does Danni maintain her story of surviving a terrorist attack?
Danni wakes up to the news that the Arc de Triomphe was bombed in a terrorist attack at 9:13 a.m.–just minutes after she posted her picture of it on Instagram. ..
She gets a call from Colin, who tells her that he’s concerned about her well-being and asks if she’s been doing anything specific. She responds with a quick yes, and he asks if there’s anything he can do to help. She tells him that she’s been working on some new projects, and that they’re going to be released soon. Colin is impressed and thanks her for sharing this information with him.
Rather than come clean about her lies, Danni digs herself a bigger hole. She shares with her followers that she survived the attack and is safe. Later, she pretends to get off a returning plane from France to meet her parents. She’s a celebrity when she returns to work, and is even provided an outlet at Depravity to write about her experience. ..
The problem is that Danni doesn’t know what it means to be a survivor or how to make her story believable. She finds a workaround, however, in joining a support group for survivors of shootings and bombings. In co-opting their trauma, Danni finds the fame she always hoped for. And she doesn’t want to let go.
Who is Rowan Aldren?
Danni, a high school student, meets Rowan Aldren, a Black activist who rose to fame after surviving the school shooting that killed her older sister. Danni and Rowan become close, at first because of Rowan’s fame but soon come to see each other as sisters and best friends. ..
Danni becomes deeply involved with Rowan’s cause to reduce gun violence, but she isn’t self-aware or compassionate enough to see how she’s stealing from her new friend. She takes Rowan’s own sentiments and passes them off as her own in her article, “I Am Not Okay.” Danni then, not Rowan, becomes the face for a movement Danni likens to MeToo: #IAmNotOkay. ..
Not Okay: Danni’s privilege starkly contrasts Rowan’s earnest activism. When the internet takes notice of Rowan, it’s often to turn her into a “villain.” ..
Danni is trying to say that the internet loves to turn people who do bad things into victims, but she accidentally says it applies to herself. ..
Does Harper out Danni for her lies?
Danni has been having a great time at work, until one of her co-workers catches her in a lie. ..
Danni’s new celebrity status has forced Harper to defer to her judgment at work. She is a more talented and thoughtful writer, but her new celebrity status has made her less able to make decisions based on evidence and more reliant on her own opinions.
It’s Harper who sees through Danni’s facade. Instead of exposing her scheme to the world, Harper gives her the opportunity to come clean herself. ..
Danni Sanders finally comes to understand what people mean about internet vitriol. After confessing her lies in an article, she makes a promise to do better. With her story exposed, she becomes the most hated woman on the internet.
Danni finally realizes her privilege–how her life was so easy before. She craves for people to ignore her like she used to crave their attention. It’s too late for that, however. ..
Does Danni Sanders get a redemption arc?
Not Okay ends with Danni attending one of Rowan’s spoken word performances, intending to apologize. But when Rowan’s poem is an indictment of all of Danni’s actions, of her theft of Rowan’s trauma and words, Danni only applauds her and gets up to leave.
Danni realizes that she doesn’t have to bring evidence of her change to her victim, Rowan. Danni isn’t owed forgiveness, but Rowan should be afforded time to heal in relative peace. ..
Is ‘Not Okay’ based on a true story?
Not Okay is an indictment of influencer culture and privilege that many viewers probably can’t help but wonder if Danni Sanders is based on a real influencer.
Director Quinn Shephard has said that Danni is a fictional character, but she is representative of a widespread phenomenon that the director has seen in discussions of trauma, privilege, and cancel culture. “Danni is intentionally both terrible and very relatable,” Shepherd said in an interview with Newsweek. “I think especially for young white women on the internet.” ..
Not Okay is a deeply satiric film that blatantly satirizes the ways we as a society platform inauthentic voices even as we downplay the real, lived traumas of marginalized people.
Not Okay is a terrible movie.
