Anna Sorokin Isn’t Special

It’s not every day that a young immigrant woman steals thousands of dollars and is rewarded for her crimes by one of the world’s best-known streaming platforms. Many of us—and many young girls specifically—were immediately enamored with Anna Sorokin: A Russian con-woman who spent months acting as a German heiress, abusing her friends, and gaining a fanbase that admires her every word.

The fact that somebody so young, in a world with countless obstacles stacked against her, could pull off so many crimes for as long as she did, caused many of us to admire her. She waltzed into the United States, joined our socialites, and manipulated her friends into funding her lifestyle. Clearly, she is just a smart businesswoman who is thriving in a man’s world. She is a true feminist. More power to her for breaking gender norms and chasing after her dreams.

That, or maybe Netflix further disconnected us from the reality that surrounds Anna.

Inventing Anna is a Netflix series that was “inspired by the true story of a total fake.” It spends the entirety of its nine 1 hour and 20-minute episodes following a magazine journalist as she writes an article about the con artist, often showcasing Anna’s extravagant lifestyle and her relationships with elite members of society. It blurs the line between reality and Hollywood, which results in a romanticization of Anna’s life and the events that she caused.

But to Netflix, that’s okay because everybody loves a female villain. A woman who doesn’t bend to the rules of the patriarchy and who prioritizes herself. A woman who won’t take shit from anybody and who will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. A woman who relies on her own personal power.

But what happens when that villain and her consequences are real? Anna Sorokin is not special. She is not a badass feminist or even somebody worthy of fame. She is an abuser and was convicted of three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny; she does not deserve a fanbase of young girls who look up to her as a trailblazer. 

What Anna did to her friends—and more specifically to Rachel DeLoach Williams—is often brushed to the side, but it is inexcusable. Netflix portrays Williams as dramatic and shallow, and while she did profit off her experiences with Anna and their catastrophic trip to Morocco, her life was temporarily in financial, reputational, and emotional ruin. The fact that Netflix kept Williams’s real name in the series appears as if it was an attempt to make their audience believe her unsavory character mirrors Williams in real life, which seems to have worked quite well.

In actuality, Williams is quite different than how she is portrayed. She has spoken out about the abuse she endured and how it almost ruined her life. She has written numerous articles about how Inventing Anna is lining the pockets of a criminal and how “damaging” the series is. But nobody has paid her much mind, and support for Anna continues to grow.

Before Inventing Anna was released earlier this year, Williams wrote an article for Time Magazine which discussed how her character (played by Katie Lowes) undermined her as a person. “... This Netflix description felt shocking. The woman she becomes because of Anna. Seven little words that in one fell swoop stripped me of my agency, accomplishments, and truth. Were we meant to believe that the woman I had become was not on account of the parents who raised me, the love I shared with family and friends, my own efforts or personal growth, but because of Anna?”

Anna caused all of this harm, and yet more and more of her followers comment in support of her or comment their pity for her—not for her victims or their friends and families. 

“I wish I had her guts and smarts. She pulled off one of the greatest scams. I admire her for that,” one Instagram user commented under her post.

And another comment under the same post: “I am nobody to judge Anna in this case. Regret has her forgiveness. To tell the truth, this lady—she is very intelligent—can do a lot in life. Fulfill her dream, work for the government, or some very strong industry. Anna is an icon. Very brave. Whether people like it or not, it is so.”

Why, in 2022, when we are continuously growing and learning, are we supporting and sympathizing with an abuser? Why are we continuing to blame and demonize her victims instead of acknowledging and respecting them? Why have we, thousands of people from all over the world, fallen for a scam derived from a woman that we haven’t even met face to face?

Anna is living proof that anybody can fall for emotional abuse and manipulation, even if you’ve never talked to the manipulator. She is proof that, when it comes to abuse, there are double standards that many of us would prefer to ignore. That anybody can be gaslighted and that anybody can do the gaslighting.

Anna Sorokin can, in fact, be anybody in our day-to-day lives. She could be our ex-lovers, our shittiest friends, and even our emotionally-detached parents; which is, perhaps, the only interesting thing about her.