19: Sexual Violence In Entertainment
- Posted by Cara on July 26th, 2008 filed in day of blogs
Recently, Renegade Evolution put up a post about a Law and Order: SVU episode, expressing her horror:
Det. Benson went undercover in a women’s prison where a guard was raping prisoners. In the course of the episode, while undercover, Benson is handcuffed, taken to a basement, repeatedly threatend, beaten severely, and almost forced to perform oral sex on a guard. This is prime time non-cable television, and they show her getting beaten with a nightstick, shoved to her knees, there is a sound of a zipper, then the male guard character shoves his crotch in her face. He says “if you bite me, I’ll kill you.”
I don’t watch SVU, because I got tired of the only show on television that really deals with sexual violence sensationalizing and misconstruing it in the way that the show did back when I did watch. But this post got me thinking about representations of sexual violence on television and in movies. I’ve always had a problem with them. On a purely emotional level, they’re difficult to watch. But in my experience, rape scenes also tend to a.) glamorize and eroticize sexual violence, b.) portray sexual violence as something other than sexual violence, c.) portray sexual violence as outrageously violent in other ways, making it true to some cases but not the majority or d.) some combination of the above.
One scene that comes to mind, because of the pure graphic nature of it, was the main rape scene from Monster, where Aileen is beaten by a John and brutally raped, including with a tire iron. On the one hand, I’ve always felt that the scene was necessary to the film — it depicted a real woman’s life, and this was the event that was supposed to have set off her killing spree. It was horrifying, like rape is. But it also felt somehow exploitative, and since these are the only types of rape that are usually portrayed as rape, that it feeds into the “this is what real rape looks like” myth.
Scenes that I felt were more realistic to the vast majority of rapes were included in both Traffic and Magnolia, both of which contained depictions of drug addicted women being raped while semi-conscious. At the same time, while the encounters in these scenes absolutely were rape, I’ve never been certain that they were intended to be seen as such rather than just being “unethical” sex. The word isn’t used, and the women don’t talk about it enough for us to really know.
Interestingly, the most responsible depiction of rape I’ve ever seen had to have been in the TV show Felicity (don’t laugh — I was a teenager). Felicity’s best friend Julie is raped in her dorm room by a date. The next morning, she is distraught, tells Felicity what happened but refuses to call it rape and becomes angry when Felicity does — explaining that “this sort of thing” has happened a bunch of times before. Felicity eventually convinces her to go to the doctor, who validates for Julie that her experience was rape, even though she didn’t really fight back, even though she consented to kissing and fondling, even though she was drinking and underage. Her rapist doesn’t seem to think that he did anything wrong — because hey, it’s not like she screamed or fought or anything. Eventually, Julie does report — at least to the school — and her rapist shows up demanding answers, saying he’s not a rapist, and whines about how she’s going to ruin his life over this little misunderstanding. As I remember it, she then stands up to him, tells him that it was rape, says that she’s not dropping the charges, and I think threatens him with a restraining order or something.
Now, it of course ended somewhat unrealistically — with a sympathetic doctor and police officers who are just dying to take her report, with Julie actually deciding to report and confronting her rapist in the end. But the basic dynamics of the situation, I thought, were done very well. It showed the tendancy of a victim to blame herself and did so with compassion, while still not buying into her conclusion. It absolutely affirmed that what happened was rape, regardless of all of those circumstances that so many people argue makes it not rape (some might even call it “gray rape”). It portrayed the rapist as a normal college dude who didn’t appear all scary and evil, and who actually claimed to have been a virgin when he committed the rape. And that, I find, is a rarity.
So what are your thoughts on depictions of sexual violence in entertainment? Have you seen any of the ones that I’ve mentioned above and agree/disagree with my assessments? Can you think of other positive/negative ones? And as I’ve described it, do you think that the Felicity episode on rape was actually a responsible episode? I’m interested in thoughts on this one.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
First, congrats Cara on the marathon blogging! It looks great so far!
On your q, it does sound like this Felicity episode was pretty responsible… It’s not realistic, but hopefully it gave young women the feeling that they *deserved* the type of treatment Julie was given by the doctor and authorities. When people feel they deserve something, they’re more likely to demand it.
I also think representing authority figures as responding to acquaintance rape seriously would give the viewer the impression that acquaintance rape should be taken seriously. People put a lot of stock in what authority figures (even fake authority figures) do.
SVU, on the other hand, consistently has major issues, and I’ve heard bits of behind-the-scenes info about some stubbornness from the people in charge even when someone who knows more about sexual violence tries to correct their representations to be more accurate and responsible.
I’d say that most representations of sexual violence I’ve seen in movies and on TV have not been responsible. They tend to portray rape as always including extreme violence in addition to the rape (Monster, SVU), or the rape is used as a plot device to move forward the story of some male character (City of God, Cape Fear, K-Pax), or the rape is sexualized (The Accused), or the survivor is portrayed as being A-okay after a long, cliched shower (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Boys Don’t Cry), or the rape is treated as if it might not have been a rape (Kids, Veronica Mars, American Beauty).
How sad is it that I can pull that many examples outta my brain in 30 seconds?
July 26th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Thanks Ashley!
There’s a rape in American Beauty? It has been a long time since I’ve seen that movie, but I’m not remembering a rape. Or in K-Pax, but I really don’t remember that movie at all.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I seem to recall the show Sisters did an okay job of having one of the teens on the show raped. She had been sexual with the guy earlier in the evening but turned him down for sex. He waited till she was alone, and then because so many people had seem them together they argued it was consentual. She was messed up for a long time - and it even showed guys who wouldn’t date her after they found out she had been raped (and then had one of them come back), showed the way her family reacted, showed a lot of stuff around it. Flash backs, nightmares, not-necesarily-believing cops. Sadly, the guy got off - and then was shot by another woman he had raped on the court house steps.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I thought Degrassi the Next Generation dealt with Paige’s rape pretty well. Paige was excited about being at a cute, older guy’s party, and goes up to his room with him. After asking him to take it slow, he pulls out a condom and proceeds to rape her. She says “no” and “stop.” Afterwards, she doesn’t tell anyone right away, because she’s got a sexual reputation at school and feels that no one would believe that it wasn’t consensual (especially since she had a crush on the guy).
She does eventually take him to court when she sees him hanging around a younger friend and is worried about what he might do to her. Though she makes a strong statement on the stand (something to the tune of “it doesn’t matter that he was wearing a condom and that I liked him, and it doesn’t matter that I didn’t physically fight back, he was older than me and stronger than me and I was scared and I said no, and he raped me anyway”), she ends up losing the case.
I’m not going to say it was a perfect handling of every detail, especially since it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen that episode, but I remember thinking at the time that they portrayed lots of aspects pretty realistically. I actually think they do a great job with a variety of difficult topics on that show.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
This is an excellent posting and one of the best I’ve read on the subject.
I think you are on to something where you mention that the only rapes clearly identified as such by media or entertainment are those that are physically brutal.
Given the general intellectual laziness of the average American these days, unless a concept is spoonfed over months and years, it does not stick. Rape is only rape if the victim is beaten senseless is they only thing they want to know.
I guess this is why I was told that I wasn’t raped after being taken twice (at least) in one night while incapacitated for several hours due to alcohol. Of course, there is also the whole “women can’t be rapists” thing to contend with as well.
Media reinforcement of rape ONLY involving brutal violence to subdue a victim combined with intellectual laziness on the part of many people is hurting all survivors by promoting/tolerating the perpetuation of such stereotypes.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Not a rape, but an almost rape… Remember the teenage girl Kevin Spacey’s character almost “had sex with?”
I can see how you wouldn’t remember the movie in general though… It’s one of the seemingly endless stream of movies devoted to the theme of “I’m a dude in crisis because I’ve been taught my whole life that I’m entitled to everything in the whole world but my real life sucks. However, I am completely unwilling to deconstruct masculinity to address the actual root cause of my dissatisfaction. Instead I prefer to sulk, and maybe beat some people up.”
Bo-ring.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Thanks Ashley. I realized later that this is what you were likely referring to.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:41 am
[...] Sexual Violence in Entertainment [...]