Rape Culture: Visceral Storytelling or Gutless
Exploitation?
I remember sitting in the living room with my cousin watching Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007). We were watching the movie, appropriately disturbed by viewing a little boy torture animals on his bleak path to full-fledged sociopathic status. But then all I remember is staring at a pretty, floral-striped shower curtain in the bathroom because I got up and left the living room. I didn’t leave because the movie was too scary; I left because of a scene, not too far into the film, where a woman is raped.
Rape is uncomfortable for me as it should be. As an avid film viewer I’m aware that there are numerous films, many critically acclaimed, which involve scenes of sexual assault. Yet, as with all mediums—books, films, art—it is up to the director (and writers) to be responsible with the presentation of such content.
Murder, abuse, and rape are ugly topics and unfortunately such topics hold a place in the stories we tell: life is full of horror. For example, Law and Order: SVU is a T.V. show all about sexually based offenses and heinous crimes. Rarely do I smile when I watch the show. But the abhorrent themes are presented with a seriousness and tact that conveys the horror without overdoing it. Oftentimes a rape occurs, sending the viewer on a manhunt with the detectives, without beating the viewer over the head with gratuitous content.
The scene in Zombie’s Halloween is empty and flat: it does nothing to propel Michael Meyer’s story. Did the filmmaker run out of dialogue and content and think to himself, “It’d be nice to fit in a gratuitous rape scene right here, just for the hell of it?”
Also,
the rape scene is pretty lengthy. From the bathroom I’m thinking:
Alright already! The viewer knows this girl is being brutalized! How long do we have to watch it? Why is it necessary for us to gaze endlessly upon the victimized, objectified woman?
If my memory serves me correctly, I think Michael kills the rapist, but the kill doesn’t do anything to redeem Michael or affect some sort of turnaround for the mental and emotional state of the character—he goes on to murder many more people throughout the remainder of the film. And the woman who was raped? What of her importance to the propulsion of the plot? Seems to me she was cast merely to be a naked, stripped, and brutalized female body.
Many young people are desensitized as it
is! I actually walked out of the theater a few years back when I overheard a
group of young boys, teenagers, laughing and snickering when a girl on screen
was being raped. Laughter, watching a woman being raped is laughable?
Disgusting!
I’m not proposing some ban; I’m simply calling attention to the offense of some filmmakers and writers who take a lackadaisical approach to content that inevitably perpetuates the casting of women as the center of violence and objectification. Am I the only one who notices that a naked woman garners much more screen time than a naked man—what naked man? He rarely exists!
How many films have you seen where a rape scene is centered on a man? With this line of questioning I am not suggesting that I want to see gratuitous male rape scenes either, I’m simply making an important point. There are films where this is the case, and I ask that we put these male-centered scenes up beside that of the one in question from Halloween and perform an analysis. American History X (1998) is an absolutely wonderful film—visceral, brutal, and dealing in heavy themes that are not easy to watch. But there is a stark contrast in how the assault and rape of the male protagonist was shot, and ultimately how his rape is a turning point for his character arc, integral to the development of the story, as opposed to the poor girl in many movies I see whose assault is hinging on pornographic.
As a film student I remember reading that in horror and suspense it is oftentimes what we don’t see that achieves a delightful level of terror. Think of Alfred Hitchcock films; think of the creepy sounds and shadowy silhouettes lurking in dark corners. What are we doing to minds and hearts when certain horrors are exploited and crammed into numerous frames of current film and television content? Would it warm your heart to think of your son smiling and laughing upon a scene of brutality and terror? On the other hand, would you want to send your daughter out into a world where rape is thrown around like mindless filler in a story?
