Pay Attention, Y’all, PLEASE
Excerpt from “No Blurred Lines: Rape Culture in US American Television”
Originally published April, 2017
“Critical discernment leads one to see the cultural myths that justify subjugation for what they are: myths.” — Josephine Donavon.
As a woman, there are certain things you’re required to know. First: if you curl your hair when the humidity is too high, you’re destined for disappointment. Secondly: no one (re: man) will take your complaints about your period seriously, but it is the best way to take a break from class, even when the professor has a strict no bathrooms rule. And finally: one in three women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime and, regardless of how much it will never be your fault, it’s somehow still your responsibility to keep it from happening.
These aren’t necessarily things I’ve learned through the words of my mother or friends, but rather through observation. I know from so many frustrating stomps through the wind that my hair will be bad; from angrily blurting out exactly why I was going to go to the bathroom, rules be damned, that I have an ace up my sleeve; from the fear and the caution expended when I’m alone around men that I am in danger.
These aren’t things I’ve been taught but they are things I know. They are things that, for the most part, we all know. Girls and women are aware of the danger that proceed them when they walk into a room and linger as they leave. It’s a part of us, as much as our eyes and hands, and because of that, sometimes we forget that it shouldn’t be.
Girls are trained from an early age to be prepared for and protect themselves against assault because of rape culture. Rape culture (RC) is a society that trivializes and normalizes assault and rape, often blaming the victim and excusing the assailant.
RC is perpetuated through the use of rape myths, or fallacies about rape/assault. Rape myths are particularly dangerous because they turn lies into common opinion. John Hamilin of the University of Minnesota compiled a list of rape myths that are fairly extensive and cover a lot of ground. Let’s go through and debunk a few of them ourselves, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.
“Rape is a crime of passion or sex.” Nope. Just— nope. Rape is, and always has been, an act of violence. It is about the exertion of power over a victim.
“Many women ‘cry’ rape.” Again, nope. I guess I could just answer all of these with my angry nope, but that won’t get us far, so let’s turn to statistics instead. The FBI puts out a list of statistics for all crimes and false rape accusations falls between 2 and 8%, which is average to all other felonies. There is no evidence that women lie more about rape than any other crime and, considering the high percentage of assault victims don’t come forward due to pressure or fear, it’s probably even lower than that.
“Rapists are creepy strangers.” There are some cases of assault that fit what we think of as rape— a strange, creepy man grabbing a girl in the dark alley. But, actually, 70% of rapes occur by someone the victim knows, people they probably trusted or even liked.
These are just a few of the rape myths listed on the site. But I think you catch the point— we believe things as a society that are rooted in prejudice and stereotypes rather than fact. It’s not that we condone rape or think it’s okay: it’s that we really don’t understand that it’s our fault it’s so acceptable.
Are you thinking about that quote I gave you at the beginning yet? Wondering why it’s relevant at all to this suddenly quite rape-themed blog? Let’s go back to Donavon’s “Feminist Theory”.
“Critical discernment leads one to see the cultural myths that justify subjugation for what they are: myths.” Essentially, she’s saying that if we think critically about a thing, rather than just glossing over it and nodding, we’ll be able to see what is and isn’t true. Donavon is specifically talking about critically looking at sexism in our everyday lives, but I think she won’t mind us broadening her work a little to talk about rape myths. After all, even if she doesn’t explicitly talk about it, RC is a huge part of feminism.
The base of feminism is the belief that men and women are fundamentally equal and should be represented as such in society. This is the core belief and from it stems the various approaches that feminists take to get this equality. Knowing this and knowing that RC is rooted in misogyny, we can see that a perfect feminism would include eradicating RC. RC’s backbone is women being beneath men, or femininity being worth less than masculinity, which is inherently anti-feminist. A world with no battles for feminism as it is today would obviously mean a world without RC.
Rape myths are perpetuated through common vernacular, laws and legislations, capitalism, and the media. For the purpose of this blog and its videos, I’m going to be narrowing in my focus just to television. So, prepare for that narrowing now.
If we can agree that rape myths are the base foundation for the rape culture we live in and that rape myths are perpetuated through several things, including television, then it would stand to reason that rape culture is perpetuated through the television we watch.
Television influences what we think and believe through several ways. Looking at television through Cultivation Theory, crafted most notably by George Gerbner, we can see that the effects of television on our psyche are both obvious and subtle: obvious in the fact that they’re indisputable and subtle in the methods that is used to change our opinions. Particularly as we spend more and more time consuming television shows, we can’t really ignore the fact that television is a big part of our dialogue with society, even if it is one sided. We learn lessons, stereotypes, and cultures through television. This, in turns, allows it to shape what we know of our own world. Gerbner says, “Culture provides the overall framework in which we imagine what we do not encounter directly, and interpret what we do encounter directly. It is the context in which our experience becomes consciousness.” If we see the way that television shapes and infiltrates our culture, then we can see that it has the power to help us create these mental frameworks.
If we’ve consumed television that supports and furthers RC, then we’ve created a cultural framework that supports it, as well. When we hear about these topics in real life, they don’t go through the framework of someone informed about why sexual assault happens, about the intricacies of victim blaming, and the importance of analyzing what you consume rather than just mindlessly watching it. Instead, the framework is someone who is already entrenched in rape culture.
And this is why it’s important to critically and analytically look at the things we watch. Viewers need to be able to look at the entirety of what they’re watching, rather than just mindlessly consuming. If we stop and really look at what we’re watching, about why we’re seeing it, then we don’t have to just accept all the messages the show gives. We can pick and choose and recognize certain things as dangerous. Like, if you were eating trail mix but allergic to peanuts. You know peanuts are dangerous for you and so you respond accordingly: are the peanuts sealed off in a way that you can just remove them and keep eating the mix or is it so intricate that you need to just stop eating all together? It’s important not to eat dangerous things; it’s important not to internalize dangerous messages.
I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting the prohibition of television in order to stop its perpetuation of RC. Not only is that a very intense thing to call for, I don’t think it would help. Cutting a huge piece of culture from your life would be incredibly ineffective for changing culture. We don’t need to damn an entire genre of entertainment but instead focus on the inside of the genre itself. There will always be people who argue that we need these storylines, these stereotypes, these depictions of assault in our media because they happen in real life or they’re essential to storytelling or freedom of speech or—
There will always be people who want rape and assault shown on television. We don’t really need to worry about the whys they have; we need to worry about the hows.
So let’s look at a couple of shows and their hows.
First of all, you knew it was coming: Game of Thrones. You can’t talk about rape culture in television without talking about GoT. I’m close to confident the elevator pitch was “You like rape, betrayal, and boobs? Have I got a show for you.” to which the guys in the elevator responded with, “I like it, but can there be rape in it?” (I do not like this show. I am biased. Media are biased. We are all biased. Please move on.) GoT depicts rape in a gratuitous way, showing it as not only violent but sexy. It is sexualized on screen and plays into the porn-influenced male gaze. It includes rape for shock value and continues to narratively force the viewers to identify or root for these “anti-heroes”. The National Center of Sexual Exploitation even named this show on their 2016 Dirty Dozen list, saying that, “[GoT’s] cocktail of pornography and twisted plot lines must be denounced as socially irresponsible, especially in an age when American society is struggling to combat the crises of sexual assault and rape culture.”
There is some pushback on if GoT really does portray rape negatively, such as 5x6, where one of the main characters Sansa is raped by her (forced) husband Ramsay in front of her step-brother Theon. This rape is not shown as something acceptable, as Ramsay is known for being one of the worst characters in the entire universe. But this one example of kind-of-okay portrayal doesn’t change the fact that for much of the show, rape and sexual violence is shown gratuitously. What about Jamie Lannister, raping his sister over the body of their dead son, even when he’s a character we’re still supposed to sympathize with? Joffrey shooting arrows at Ros, a prostitute that was “gifted” to him, which is fairly ignored because Joffrey is known for being cruel? Tyrion, strangling his lover to death, while still being considered a fan favorite? Khal Drogo raping his young wife on their first wedded night, though she eventually loves him and their love story is unchallenged for the series, romanticized in his death? There is so much assault and rape in GoT, in the forefront and the background, that viewers are able to ignore it due to the oversaturation of violence. It’s low thrum of torture porn in most episodes creates a mindset of it just happens instead of why is this happening.
Contrastingly, let’s look at Reign. Reign depicts rape and sexual assault a few times, as any historical or period piece show does. (Apparently, something about corsets and horses make people think that showing rape is not only okay but imperative.) However, I think Reign does a particularly good job at depicting rape, especially with its main heroine, Mary. Mary is raped during a siege of her castle and the entirety of the scene works to show the brutal violence of the event. The mise-en-scene works to create a horrific event that is not once sexualized. Mary’s body is not shown in a sexual manner nor is the emphasis on the rapist’s face, but rather on her own pain. This is emphasized by showrunner Laurie McCarthy, who said: “[My] concern was that it was really portrayed as an act of violence. It was very important to me that it wasn’t eroticized in any way, shape, or form, that it really was an act of hatred and violence and really powerlessness and rage.” McCarthy went into the scene knowing the dangers of portraying rape and actively worked against sexualizing the scene in any way.
But the high point is really the way that the show deals with the effects of the assault: slowly. Mary heals at an incredibly, particularly cinematically, slow pace. She alienates herself from her friends and family, can’t be with her husband, and has to come to terms with the assault in her own way. The way she shares the incident with others is not all at once, but little by little to the people she trusts the most. It shows her healing physically and mentally at a pace that is realistic and refuses to minimize the trauma. Though the show, like any CW program, is quick to add in more drama and plot, they still give Mary the breathing room and screen time to accommodate her assault.
These two shows are by no means the only ones that deal with rape or assault. Its abundance is one of the qualities that keeps RC perpetuated so seamlessly. To go through all of the shows that depict rape would be not only emotionally and spiritually crushing, but so time consuming that it’d prove pointless by the creation of new programs. So instead, for the future, I’m going to narrow my focus even farther. The next post will be about HBO’s Westworld, what it contributes to RC, and why I think Adorno’s an asshole.
If you want to follow this series in a visual way, click here for my YouTube series of the same name. The series is a bit lighter but also is still about RC so, really, how light can it get? Bless. ✌🏻
