I stopped watching when I realized it was propaganda for ‘if it wasn’t for these pesky defendants rights we could get this guy that’s clearly a scumbag.’
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I’d prefer to think for a bit about how it would be if violence were subject to some de-emphasis.
As a youngster I read a cubic shitload of scifi, and IIRC violence was certainly an element, but hardly a major one.
I look at what’s on telly, and I’m tired of the same old shit. Bloody cop shows!
I am reminded of a period of time during the Reagan Administration when there was a bit of popular pushback against the violence in Bugs Bunny cartoons. For a while there, Warner Bros felt obliged to bowdlerize their classic cartoons, removing all the sticks of dynamite, hatchets, and gunfire. Road Runner cartoons in particular seemed hacked down to half their original length. Around that time, there was that G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon. I remember how no matter how thoroughly any Cobra helicopter or jet was blown out of the sky in flames, the cartoon conscientiously always showed the human villains deploying a parachute to fall to safety.
Life must be cheaper today.
I wasn’t going out on any temporal limbs there with ‘as a youngster’; I’d imagine scifi is pretty similar to what it was twenty years ago…
It’s surprising to see Reagan connected in any way with a backlash against cartoon violence; in my mind conservatism and violence go hand in hand. But I guess the ‘moral majority’ schmucks can occasionally be right about something, in much the same way as a stopped clock.
…Not that I approve of bowdlerising revisionism, of course.
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Yeah, I don’t necessarily think this was the product of either of the Reagans’ imaginations, just that period of time when the Baby Boomers were raising kids and feeling somewhat appalled about the liberties the last couple of decades had taken with the morals of the nation at large. The PMRC arose during 1985, too, and that was the brainchild of Tipper Gore and her pals.
Maybe it happens to most people as we get older. I was never opposed to violence in video games, but some of the moments in the last couple of Fallouts and Bioshocks have been messily over-the-top, far beyond what I would have considered sufficient for the purpose. Maybe that’s because I’m a dad now. I dunno.
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I’m not going to make a choice between rape and murder for myself right now 
but for narrative purposes, I think there are key differences between rape and other types of violence.
For instance, murder can be done for many different reasons: Passion, revenge, justice, defense, duty, mercy, bloodthirst, sacrifice… It’s not uncommon to see two characters battle and even kill each other but still see each other as worthy opponents, or have begrudging respect, be conflicted about it, etc. Film and literature feature lots of memorable, poignant duels and death scenes. Rape is much simpler an act and has less nuance possible. It’s an act of contempt. There is never a worthy reason for a character to rape and that is why it is so irksome to people. It is lowly. It is not as complex or debatable as murder or battle can be in a narrative.
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Yes, but the thing is, rape happens far, far more often than the other two (of course). So it matters differently if it’s portrayed a lot and in certain ways. That’s why I find portrayals of it much more offensive.
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Also, characters don’t generally get murdered in their backstory as a way of making them ‘strong’.
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I’m not sure if it’s the best cinematic way to do a rape scene but it was the most effective I have seen up to now. It was impossible for me to watch the whole scene, it lasted forever but I think that rape scenes shouldn’t be enjoyable. It showed the helplesness of the victim, the rapist was gay so he didn’t do it for his sexual enjoyment but to dominate and humiliate the victim. I think that’s what is rape mostly about. It also played with the hope of the viewer that someone will come and help the victim and punish the rapist when a person showed up at the end of the tunnel but then just walks away. I don’t think that Gaspar Noe filmed this scene to be enjoyed by the viewer, that’s a big difference to torture porn. I think everyone who enjoys watching that scene has serious issues, that may also apply to people who really enjoy torture porn, the big difference is that torture porn is meant to be enjoyed.
I was actually surprised, both given GoT’s willingness for full nudity/explicit violence and the internet hyperbole that abounded, that when I saw the scene it was actually more emotional than physical. Visually, you didn’t see much more than reaction shots of the characters faces; Theon’s horror, Sansa’s pain and Ramsay’s sickening pleasure. Yes, it was clearly rape but it wasn’t graphically or explicitly as violent as had been implied.
I think the following scene, showing the aftermath with Sansa’s arms covered in bruises was more powerful in implying the brutality of it.
I think given the context of events that lead to Ramsay and Sansa’s wedding and wedding night, it’s hard to justify how the narrative can have gone in any other direction. Sansa was wedding Ramsay under duress, she certainly wasn’t willing but was resigned to her fate. Ramsay, the delightful socio-path that he is, was definitely going to ‘do his duty’ and enjoy it all the more for Sansa’s discomfort.
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I’m with those who say effects matter more than intentions. The effects of that movie cannot of course be measured, but I’d wager that the bad outweigh the good.
What are you talking about? Torture, spaceflight, explosions, and rape all happen in real life. None are accurately depicted in the movies.
The worst for me are fist fights though. The movies do a terrible job depicting them, but if they were depicted accurately, they would be boring as hell. Contrast that with rape – I think if rapes were depicted more accurately they would be far more terrifying (in a cinematic sense).
I think you underestimate how common rape fantasies are among men and women. I think fictional works (movies, television, and books but maybe plays and music as well) often depict rape the way they do because of that.
I’m confused–where did I offer an estimate of how common those are?
Have you never read a vampire, zombie or ghost story?
The TV series IZombie basically starts at the point where the main character dies, becomes undead and develops Zombie derived crime busting superpowers.
where did I offer an estimate of how common those are
Here:
the bad outweigh the good
I can explain what I meant:
Rape in books, music, movies, television, plays, etc… could be assigned some economic value. That value, I would argue, is the good. There is also artistic good, but that’s pretty hard to quantify. If enough people are attracted to fictional works that include rape, then the good may very well outweigh the bad in an economic sense. I think the number of people attracted to those works would be correlated with the number of people that have rape fantasies. That’s why I think you underestimate the prevalence of rape fantasies.
Physical violence is even more valuable and I think that’s why the cliche mano-a-mano fight scene is almost inevitable in lots of movies and TV shows.
Compare that with scenes of pedophilia. I think it’s pretty clear that the bad outweighs the good and so creators use pedophilia in their work more sparingly and not often in a titillating way.
The Accused, A Clockwork Orange, Rashomon, Straw Dogs, Irreversible, Happiness, Fat Girl, Man Bites Dog, Trust, The Virgin Spring, Cape Fear, Deliverance (it counts unless the author is gender biased), Freeze Me, American Me, Multiple Maniacs, The Evil Dead, Boys Don’t Cry, Ebola Syndrome, Hounddog, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The General’s Daughter, Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
I guess one person’s laziness is another person’s art.
The fact that you are uncomfortable and offended by random violence is how you’re supposed to feel. But walling off that area of human experience and saying “artists don’t go there” strikes me as being more about imposing your values on others than anything else. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.
And in the context of television, now, it’s becoming a lazy trope. You do understand that it can be “art” in one case and lazy in another, right? It’s not an all or nothing argument.
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[Here’s] a comment from former ComicsAlliance editor-in-chief Laura Hudson, who was asked for her thoughts on a scene from Kick-Ass 2 in which a group of villains gang-rape a teenage girl:
“There’s one and only one reason that happens, and it’s to piss off the male
character,” she said. “It’s using a trauma you don’t understand in a way
whose implications you can’t understand, and then talking about it as
though you’re doing the same thing as having someone’s head explode.
You’re not. Those two things are not equivalent, and if you don’t
understand, you shouldn’t be writing rape scenes.”
Read More: Mark Millar Discusses The Depictions Of Rape In His Comics | http://comicsalliance.com/mark-millar-rape-kick-ass-2/?trackback=tsmclip
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I haven’t read the comic, but I remember that in the film they turn the rape scene (assuming it’s the same thing) into an awful impotency joke. Not sure if that’s better or worse. Just in general, they got the tone of that film all wrong (but maybe the source material was equally as dire). I thought it was all around horrible - and I liked the first film.
