I forgot
I forgot to blog about this earlier, but I just remembered it (again). For some reason, I remembered watching what’s that movie, Swiss Family Robinson or something when I was a kid. It’s an old, old movie and what I liked about it was the usual build stuff out of what you got to make a fort, make home and make a defense for intruders (the one about some rich family that crash lands on some remote island, I might be thinking of the wrong title). Anyways, I watched this when I was pretty young and even then, I remember knowing why at one point in the movie, the sailors, sea captains or whatever try and pass a young woman they had with them as man. If they realized that it was a woman, a young woman, they’d take her away and rape her. I don’t think I was old enough to know clearly about rape or that it was called rape but I do remember thinking that there would be trouble if they found out he was a she. It’s a pretty sad comment that I realized this at that young of an age and when I tried to think how I could’ve connected the dots (I don’t think they say “hey, cover up or they’ll see you’re a woman and rape you” nor do they just non-chalantly cover the woman up) I realized that watching all that tv and all those movies I did (my uncle let us rent whatever we wanted) I probably saw dozens of instances of violence/sexual assault against women and hundreds of the threat of sexual assault against women. Though there is a great deal of the former in media, the latter I think is what goes so freely without anyone wincing. It’s almost as if people say, “well yea, duh she’d get attacked or raped if she did [scenario].”
renee said,
May 13, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
You just described one of my pet peeves. It seems no matter what I watch or read - movies, tv, books, graphic novels, whatever - the implied or overt threat of rape is omnipresent. And like you said, it’s even in lighter fare and stuff intended for kids.
I’ve been watching the 2nd season of Heroes and there were like 3 or 4 attempted/threatened rapes in the first 3 episodes or something - all basically plot devices so the male heroes can rescue the women.
It was seriously upsetting to me. I can’t watch something like that without it coloring the whole rest of the show/movie etc. I can’t imagine how upsetting it would be for a rape survivor.
Arg. Ending this rant now before it gets out of hand!
admin said,
May 13, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
I think it’s so bad in tv/film today that it’s to the point where if i’m watching just about any scene and a man or a group of men are in a showdown situation with a woman or women, i’m automatically thinking in the back of my mind “he’s/they’re going to beat her or beat her and sexually assault (or) rape her.”
And I think when The Skeptics hear this, they’re not realizing the millions of scenes that most peoply don’t equate with the stereotypical jogger-and-rapist-in-the-bush rape or date rape. In Shoot ‘Em Up with Clive Owen, a male character at one point has a woman captive and he takes the hot tip of his gun and sexually molests/assaults her to get information.
Even one of my favorite movies, Dawn Of the Dead (yes, a zombie movie i’m not ashamed to admit) there’s a part (spoiler alert) where there’s a faceoff between two camps of survivors. 3 men vs. a group of men and women and the 3 men happen to have guns. As a woman and one of the gun wielding men start arguing, someone says “you’ve got quite a mouth on you” and what does one of gun wielders say next? You got it. “Someone should show her how to use it.”