The specter in the room...an attempt to talk about the rape story trope in media

[shadowkat]

It's late and for a while I thought someone was exploding fireworks outside my window.
Lots of banging, but no clue where it was coming from.

Cool too, that weird half chill, where you put a sweater on and look forward to that relaxing hot shower.

I'm about to talk about something in my livejournal that...I'm not sure I should talk about, but it's been hanging in the back of my mind for a bit, festering there. And it seems to hang in the corners of the world I live in like a specter that you don't quite see, just out of reach. It's not in your life, it's beside it. In the corner. And you think if you don't look, pretend it's not there, don't think about it, it won't bother you. But it does.

I wonder sometimes if it is better not to talk about things. I remember several years back telling a woman in a job interview that I had just been robbed, I was in my bed, asleep, when it happened. Someone came into my apartment while I was asleep and stole my lap-top, leaving the windows wide open. The woman told me how she'd been raped and sought counseling and I should do the same. I said that would be focusing on it, and it was better not to. To forget. Besides two different things.

I've never know how to talk about rape. How do you? The word itself feels like an assault on the senses. And I've seen it handled in stories in multiple ways. The papers are littered with reports of sexual assaults - they avoid the word rape and use assault, molestation, attack or groping instead. After a while...you get used to it. What an odd thing.


I find I can no longer watch or read about it on tv or in the papers or in books without feeling a desire to pull inwards, turtle-like. My mind wrestles with it - attempting to turn it into seduction - as Margaret Atwood and Nancy Friday write in rape fantasies, where victims and women often flip rape into seduction, turning the story into a bodice ripper romance, where the rapist is in reality a damaged soul, and is in love to the point of breaking with the heroine. She has the power in the story, and the rape is his downfall not her's. A mental coping mechanism. Or my mind rejects it completely - pushes it away from myself and suddenly I find myself filled with rage, thinking if someone tried that with me or someone I cared for? I would kick him in the nuts or better yet grab his private parts twist and pull, possibly do a Lorena Bobbit. I half-agree with my Aunt, castration is the only solution. Castrate the guy. Clip it off.

It is an unavoidable topic. Particularly if you like genre. Daytime soap operas can't seem to go more than five years without doing a rape storyline. I guess I should be thankful they can go five years. The latest storyline on GH is enough to make me reconsider watching the show. I can't decide if it is exploitative or not.

My difficulty with art imitating life or shedding a bright light on this type of violence be it torture or rape...is I can never quite figure out the motive. It seems odd somehow for something that is meant as entertainment, is made for commercial purposes, to depict things that in reality leave behind deep emotional and psychological scars. I guess it would be one thing if the story-teller were telling his or her own story. Which circles back to that time-old dilemma every writer faces - to what extent should we limit our writing to what we know? Isn't part of the point of writing to delve into that which we don't know - to figure it out, to attempt to understand it and get inside of it? Should we not write about things and people outside of our own circle of experience? If this were true...how many works of great literature would never have been written? Or films for that matter? Or stories?

I remember several years ago discussing a French horror film with a video store geek who was a bit of film expert. He had just seen the controversial art film Irreversible -which many people couldn't sit through and had people throwing up, and many women walked out of in the middle. His co-hort, the other video store geek, creeped both of us out by being turned on by his description of the film - which featured possibly the longest and most graphic rape sequence on record - I think close to 15 minutes or so he said.
He stated that the film was shown in non-linear fashion and the strobe lighting was an issue with motion sickness. I remember saying while it sounded interesting from a structural perspective, I would not be able to watch it. And we were speculating on the purpose - he believed the writer and filmmaker was attempting to depict the effects of violence or the permeation of it and make the audience feel the violence, not just be voyeurs.

In direct contrast...about two years ago, I had a rather violent argument with a close friend...it was the last one we ever had. We have not spoken in three years nor do I see that changing. For a lot of reasons, not just based on this argument nor because of it. The argument was a symptom, not a cause. At any rate the argument was about a video game I'd read about in the paper. The video game...is a sort of role playing game in the same trope as Grand Theft Auto, except it is Rape-Play. The character you are playing is a recently released sexual offender who is pursuing the woman who put him away, along with her mother, sister, and friends - you get points for each woman you "virtually" rape in the game. The existence of this game offends me. It falls into the category of things...that well should be censored because they harm others. My former friend argued that it was harmless, played in the privacy of one's own home. And we should be permitted to play such games or watch such things without someone censoring them. After all she was a libertarian. To this day, I can't decide who was right. I find myself torn - as much as I am against censorship, I don't think that we should to the opposite extreme. How far down that slippery slope do we want to go? And don't games like encourage this behavior? No. I still think my friend's logic on this issue is wrong. And I find myself again wondering what is the point in creating this game? What are the creator's thinking? And how about we create an alternative game - castrate the rapist. You earn points for the number of rapists and sexual offenders that you kick in the balls or castrate.

From these extremes...we go to television dramas...tv shows that are largely made to sell commercials and to entertain. I think if you were to ask most tv writers why they do what they do, they'd state it was to entertain. To a degree they also want to create art, but let's face it - at the end of the day this is a job.

General Hospital, and largely the reason for this post, is currently doing a rape story. It's...I've lost count of how many times they've done these stories to be honest, rape storylines seem to be a soap opera mainstay...which has always annoyed me. It's gotten to the point that I think the soap will do them, even when it decides not to. Sometimes they do a very good job with the storyline, because they can examine every angle imaginable and over a long period of time and in most cases it becomes a survival tale - depicting how the victim comes out ahead and turns things around and the rapist never quite rises above it. The Luke and Laura story oddly ends up that way, Luke in the long-run never quite out runs his own acts, and Laura by forgiving and loving him, ends up in an abusive relationship that eventually causes her to lose her sanity. Over the long-term, it is not a happy ending. The rape of Laura by Luke - also results in the alienation of his kids, who live with its specter.Laura does come out of it, regains her sanity, goes to Paris, reunites with a past love who she knew before Luke and has nothing to do with him any longer. They barely talk or see each other.

The current rape story is gross however...and difficult to describe. After mob hit man, Jason Morgan, marries his one true love, Sam McCall,Franco - the serial killer obsessed with him - drugs them both, puts Jason in a cell with only a tv monitor, and then forces Jason to watch as he takes the "drugged" and naked Sam to bed. He covers the monitor before he...allegedly rapes her. Later Jason, finally freed from his prison cell, asks Sam what she remembers - she remembers being in the shower dizzy, Jason lifting her from the shower, and being in bed with her. Jason informs her that it wasn't him, it was Franco. Sam breaks down. He tries to convince her to go to the hospital, but she just wants to get clean. And scrubs herself raw in the shower. And I find myself wondering why they wrote this story?

GH is not alone in its desire to depict rape. Criminal Minds in its first season, did an episode where a serial rapist was shown paralyzing his victims with spider bites then raping them. I remember thinking - I could have lived a long time without seeing that, thank you very much. Granted, it has moved away from these storylines since.
And of course...there were all those fantasy and sci-fi series written by Ron Moore and Joss Whedon that come to mind. Horror writers love rape stories. Stephen King wrote a short story about a woman being brutally raped by a trucker and it's about her taking vengeance on him or something like that. And George RR Martin's novels discuss rape extensively even if we never actually view it.

The networks do attempt to squash some rape storylines. Whedon and Minear notoriously wanted to do a story for Firefly, the 14-15th episode, according to a recent interview with Minear - it was Whedon's pitch of this episode that sold Minear on Firefly. The story was allegedly one about Inara being raped by the Reavers, and how Malcolm Reynolds handles it. A tale much like GH's Jason and Sam story - about a woman being raped and the guy handling it. Fox canceled Firefly before that episode could be shown. It was written but not performed. And is one of Minear's regrets. Another episode, this one nixed by the WB, was for Angel - and it was written by David Fury, it introduced Kate as an undercover cop, working as a heroine addicted prostitute who gets raped or something like that. Episodes that did make it on the air - included various rape scenarios...such as Seeing Red - Spike attacking Buffy, an episode in Angel S2 - where Angel launches himself at Darla. Xander attacking Buffy in early S1. Willow's mind-rape of Tara. Warren's rape of Katrina. The attempted rape of the female characters by the demon biker gang. In Dollhouse - almost every episode of the entire series featured rape - either sexual or mental. One episode showed a rapist kidnapping his victim, putting her in an insane asylum, mind-wiping her, and placing a new identity in her - that would make her amenable to sleeping with him. She eventually remembers who she is, and what he did to her, and kills him, then is forced to live with it. The only other option? To be mind-wiped again. In Battlestar Galatica - the characters Six and Athena are gang-raped. In Caprica...rape is alluded to.

And again I ask why? Is it about power? Because rape is in the end a power game.
One person asserting their power over another. That's the simplest explanation. But I think the reasons people write about it is more or less the same reason I am at this moment doing so, or I have written about it...to try to put a face and a name on the specter lurking in the shadows. Stories often are about exploring what scares us, what keeps us up at night, our own demons, the dark part of own soul. If we can shed a bright light on that part of our soul...maybe we can exorcise the demon...or maybe squash the fear or impulse? Stories aren't just about survival, they are about well, what-if. If I do this...what will happen? What are the consequences? To get inside the thought patterns of a mind that is not our own. The stories about serial killers are basically ways of exploring the mind of the boogie man, by exposing him, facing him, dead on - he no longer is quite so scary.

I think that is part of it. Whedon when interviewed has stated much as Ron Moore and George RR Martin has that he writes about abuses of power, attempting to understand how and why people use it, and he remains fascinated about those who are appear to be powerless, the victim, how they handle power or the lack thereof. All our stories, it seems to me, are about power. Rape is an expression of power, an abuse of power.
Why some people can't handle power. Can't control the impulse. It's I guess no different than writing fanfic...you write to explore possibilities.

The question is...to what degree should these topics be explored? And is it really better in all instances to squash that creative impulse? Should we edit people like Whedon, King, Moore, Martin? Or will the public and popular opinion eventually do it for us? After all - Firefly could not get an audience, nor could Dollhouse - scaring off many viewers. Irreversible never made it into the mainstream or popular culture.

I'm uncomfortable condemning these works, for much the same reason I'm uncomfortable condemning out of hand the photos by Richard Mapplethorpe. For like all things there are vast number of ways to interpret the writers/artists intentions. I'm not sure it is wise to assume that just because we perceive it one way, everyone else does as well. Art changes depending on the viewer and the mind viewing it. My brother, who is a conceptual artist, once told me, and I think he is right about this, that the viewer or audience interacts with the art, we bring ourselves, our baggage, our issues - we project on it what we want to see. You see this on fan discussion boards, where viewers and readers will often express various and contradictory impressions of the same thing. It feels at times like they've all watched or read different books or tv shows. And they have.

A story about rape is not the same, I don't think, as the rape-play video game. We as viewers, who fall in love with characters, may feel that what the writer is doing to them is painful beyond what we can endure. I am reminded of a scene in a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy...where Lexie, one of the main characters, asks Alfre Woodward who portrays a romance writer, how she can put her lead character with one man over another - when clearly the character would be better off with the other character. The writer states she must go with the needs of the character, what the character wants...as the writer sees it. The writer has a story to tell, I think, and it is up to us if we want to watch or read it. We don't have to.

But I've galloped off topic, haven't I? I don't know why we feel the need to write about a topic we struggle to talk about. Maybe that is why. It is a way to have the conversation. When asked why he did the attempted rape storyline in Buffy, Whedon stated that he wanted to explore the issue of rape from another angle, he felt that too often we demonize the rapist...and he wanted to see it as a human crime, a complicated crime, and determine if it could be a forgivable one. Does it taint you forever? Can you come back from it? As a man, he was looking at it from the male angle, but also from the female one. He wanted to talk about it. But didn't quite know how to. And I know in interviews, Ron Moore explained that in BSG he was looking at torture, why we did it, and crimes against prisoners of war - he was tackling the crimes during the Iraq War by the US, grappling with why we did it.

Why, admittedly has always interested me. But I struggle with art that depicts torture and rape. Sometimes, as in the case of Buffy and even BSG - the storyline did delve into new territory, while at the same time, I felt it repeated old territory to the point of cliche and I wished they'd done it differently or something else. I was and continue to be of two minds on the topic.

It is late. Past one here. And I've rambled on long enough about a topic that I find difficult to discuss. Because it bears such painful scars. Psychological and emotional. And everyone views it from a different angle. It's the specter in the room, the ghost beneath the bed, the shadow stalking us on the way home...lurking in our papers, our media, and on the corners of the internet. We attempt to ignore it, but we can't quite do it. And for those of us who have been raped or sexually assaulted or have had a loved one who was..the specter isn't a specter at all, but a stinky rat that won't go away. Stories may be the only way we can deal with it in all its permutations, and maybe that's why there are so many stories that do?

Comments

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

In my dotage, I also feel the way about Holocaust stories. Not because I'm a denier, or it isn't hugely important, but because I feel like nothing has really changed, that fascism is a very real threat, and that revisiting the events in the same ways normalizes something that should always and forever be considered abnormal. Institutionalized cruelty does not seem to be on the decline, you know? Nowadays I find it to be about as far from entertaining as you can get, so it rankles to see it in "stories".

It's the same with rape "stories". They accomplish so little because they are so seldom "transformative" in a real world sense. It's more like wallowing than solving a problem. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it, because those kinds of facts are not helpful in discerning solutions. I want something that changes peoples thinking on the subject, but all we get are reinforcing images.

While I am not actually a fan of castration as a solution, your game idea would definitely show another way of thinking about the issue, one that doesn't make women subjects. (My theory is that sterilization of rapists would lead to a happier world all around within a few generations. I could be naive on this point.)

It's tricky stuff, and I don't blame artists for wanting to work through it. I just wish they'd come up with another angle, perferably a non-violent one. (Did you see the Dexter arc with the survivor? I'm still parsing it.)

Another weird note: Do you remember the "Modesty Blaise" novels? Naturally, the bad guys would attempt to terrify Modesty with the spectre of rape. She'd be blasé about it, and had actually developed a coping mechanism — she'd pass out, thereby rendering herself mentally removed. I'm not sure I know what to make of it, but it turned it into a non-issue from Modesty's perspective, supposedly.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

It's more like wallowing than solving a problem. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it, because those kinds of facts are not helpful in discerning solutions. I want something that changes peoples thinking on the subject, but all we get are reinforcing images.

I think these problems are systemic and that's the reason art/media/culture is only able to wallow in these problems if it doesn't grapple with this fundamental truth. If you don't want to radically change society - you'll never be able to offer a solution (to rape, to the Holocaust). But since it is still a problem - people talk about it, show it on TV, write stories about it. But, as you pointed out, they wallow in it because they cannot offer a "way out". The only way out is a radically different society - and i haven't seen pop culture grapple that idea in a very, very long time.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Change is scary, isn't it? Also how do you change society without making it worse?

Science fiction has played with some ideas on the issue. There's Alfred Bester's novel Demolished Man - about a society that "reprograms" criminals so that they can be functioning citizens. And Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange - about an experiment which entails conditioning violent youths to despise violence. Although that isn't the change that you are referring to.

I've been grappling with the idea myself inside my own head, telling a rather lengthy sci-fi about how it can be changed. I run into the same obstacles, the human condition and a human tendency to repeat patterns.
As frenchani comments below, we are a violent species, there is a sadist in all of us. Can we rise above these sadistic tendencies enough to change things?

It's not like we haven't tried. We have at different points, but...our own weaknesses and flaws seem to get in the way. Some would call this natural selection or survival of the fittest - the aggressive urge. Whedon discussed the idea in the film Serenity - where society tries to change by eradicating the aggressive gene in humans. Unfortunately the experiment results in two extremes - people who die because they just don't care any more, they have no passion, no impulse, vs. the Reavers - who are only aggression, nothing but aggression - pure aggression, raping, taking, murdering all the touch.

And if you've read mythology - from the Bible to the Greeks, you'll see the attempts there as well. Jesus wanted radical change. He tried to overthrow a system. As did Buddha for that matter. Most if not all revolutions are about the desire for change - dramatic change, but few result in it or they do, but it well is just another model of oppression. You can say that the American Revolution resulted in positive change and it did for the most part, but it also depends on who you ask.

So I guess my question is how do you radically change society without losing the things we all desire - those basic freedoms? How do you do it without falling into facism? Without someone taking the reins and becoming corrupted by power? And how do you do it without killing, raping and maiming?

People hate change. We are creatures of habit, I think. We are willing to change things, but only if we don't lose anything as a result. We don't want to pay the price for change - and the type of change you are talking about does come with a hefty price tag.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

and the type of change you are talking about does come with a hefty price tag.

That's certainly true. But look at the world now - it already has a "hefty price tag" for billions of it's human inhabitants. And, the american and french revolutions didn't come with flowers, either. Still, i think the world is better off with those two revolutions successful, than without them.

I tend to think beyond the immediate gratification of change for my personal life - i see the flow of history and the generations which came before us and will come after us.

And how do you do it without killing

You don't. As they say - first comes the revolution, then the civil war and then the terror. It's the way we humans do revolutions. Of course it is cynical to ask of people to lay down their very lives in bloody upheaval. But we wouldn't be were we (= western world) are now without those willing to pay the price.

What i think is needed (and not done) is a discussion about the human society and the societies which came before ours without prejudice, or blinders.

Work out which was/is good, which was bad and ugly and try to mold it together into something better. Maybe that will fail, but not trying means prolonging the misery of billions upon billions of people (and you and me, we get away lightly considering the state of the world).

Me personally? I think the economic has to change the most drastically to provide for all the inhabitants of the world, thus reducing violence and death a great deal. But i'm not a politician, i don't have clean cut solutions.

Edited comment..I need to learn to proof first.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think that revolutions don't necessarily result in positive changes.
Bolshevik Revolution just replaced one dictator with another. As did the French which ushered in the Napoleon Age.

Also the thing about change is it is constant...

I don't know, I think it is easy to discuss the need for change from an academic view, but not from the trenches. I've worked in more companies and organizations than I can count that under-went vast and systematic changes, grueling ones...and the body count was painful but not literal - people got laid off, jobs merged, and I would not say the change was positive..necessarily, but at least not violent.

I think it is easy to say violence or death is necessary when it isn't you or your loved ones dying. It reminds me of the film REDS, where the people in the US romanticized what was happening in Russia, and then they went there and realized the reality wasn't what they envisioned.

When we discuss it at arms length, not in the trenches with the soldiers getting their bodies pelleted with bullets, we tend to forget that not one life is worth the changes we believe so wholeheartedly would make the world a better place. Change that comes at the price of human life, at the sacrifice of compassion, and with violence results ultimately in a cycle of more. See Battle Star Galatica as an example - all this has happened before and will happen again.

Can you honestly state looking at the history of our world, all the revolutions that have occurred that the change that happened as a direct result of that violence was worth the violence or did not in return perpetuate more of it? We win our freedom from the British and turn around and fight the Indian wars and continue a history of slavery that exists far beyond the British rule. The French revolution which resulted in the horrible deaths of millions, issued in Napleon and the Napoleoan Wars...WWI resulted in the deadly WWII, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and Stalinism. China's revolution resulted in more violence. OR look at WWII - with East Germany and West Germany, the Wars in the middle east...

The Noble Peace Award Winner Noam Chomsky stated two things...
"one must be a revolutionary before a pacifist", and more interestingly..."When you decide to take part in an anti-fascist war the problem with the victor is he thinks war and violence was justified and necessary, who will teach him otherwise." Indeed.

You can't build a peaceful non-violent society such as the one you dream of on the graves and bodies of others. It is not possible. If history teaches us anything it is that. The only way out is the option we have yet to choose - the non-violent option. It is a lot harder, takes more time, more frustrating, and a lot rockier road, often feels like pulling a rock up a mountain. Certainly more boring. It's so much easier after all to kill the person you violently disagree with than to face them across a table and find a way to compromise. Again - see Battle Star Galatica, Star Trek,
and Bablyon 5 as examples.

Re: Edited comment..I need to learn to proof first.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

I think that revolutions don't necessarily result in positive changes.

I agree. I'm not for a revolution for the sake of revolution. Heck, i live in central Europe - we've had our fair share of really ugly (counter-)revolutions!

Bolshevik Revolution just replaced one dictator with another. As did the French which ushered in the Napoleon Age.


I have a different POV on the bolshevik revolution as well as on Napoleon:

Napoleon, while bringing war and suffering, tried to free Europe from feudal oppression. He brought the "code civil" and the "code pénal" to France (and Europe) and is ultimately the father of the bourgeois republics of continental Europe (the English were always a few step ahead anyways ;) ).

And, what is often forgotten in discussions about the bolsheviks is that they actually brought bread, education, health care, literacy, electricity and industrialization and peace. We should also remember that the bolshevik revolution was more than 100 times bigger than the american revolution, comparing land mass and population.

Add then that Napoleon, as well as the bolsheviks, ultimately lost and that we read the history books of the victors. They were the enemy, it would be ridiculous to assume that we have a fair and balanced view on those historical events.

Now, don't get me wrong, i get what you're saying. Things were not all puppies and roses and i've read enough us-american "revolutionaries" to know that they were shocked by the life in the Soviet Union. And that's what i'm getting at: dissect the good from the bad that different societies brought forth and try to use the good.

When we discuss it at arms length, not in the trenches with the soldiers getting their bodies pelleted with bullets

Yes, i know what you mean. But i was actually part of the unrest in Germany in the 90s when the Nazis tried to take over whole provinces with street level terror - i lost two dear friends to those bullets from croatian mercenaries (i was a field medic back then, i've seen more blood than i ever wanted).

It is these dire and grave circumstances which led me from a young and idealistic "let's keep our friends from migrant families safe" kind of guy (the one you mention above: the armchair sociologist) to the person i am now and it informs my thoughts that we actually need a deep level change in society because that threat is real, and deadly. (And just to elaborate: We ultimately lost that struggle, in today's Germany there are huge "no-go areas" for people of color, for homosexuals, for Jews. And i tend to think that part of the reason we lost that struggle is that we refused to take up arms ourselves.)

I'm also not a romanticist: As i said, i don't believe in paradise on earth. History is a slow train and it will take generations to achieve anything resembling a society of free and equal beings (or to put it another way:

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<i>I think that revolutions don't necessarily result in positive changes.</i>

I agree. I'm not for a revolution for the sake of revolution. Heck, i live in central Europe - we've had our fair share of really ugly (counter-)revolutions!

<i>Bolshevik Revolution just replaced one dictator with another. As did the French which ushered in the Napoleon Age.</i>


I have a different POV on the bolshevik revolution as well as on Napoleon:

Napoleon, while bringing war and suffering, tried to free Europe from feudal oppression. He brought the "code civil" and the "code pénal" to France (and Europe) and is ultimately the father of the bourgeois republics of continental Europe (the English were always a few step ahead anyways ;) ).

And, what is often forgotten in discussions about the bolsheviks is that they actually brought bread, education, health care, literacy, electricity and industrialization and peace. We should also remember that the bolshevik revolution was more than 100 times bigger than the american revolution, comparing land mass and population.

Add then that Napoleon, as well as the bolsheviks, ultimately <i>lost</i> and that we read the history books of the victors. They were <i>the enemy</i>, it would be ridiculous to assume that we have a fair and balanced view on those historical events.

Now, don't get me wrong, i get what you're saying. Things were not all puppies and roses and i've read enough us-american "revolutionaries" to know that they were shocked by the life in the Soviet Union. And that's what i'm getting at: dissect the good from the bad that different societies brought forth and try to use the good.

<i>When we discuss it at arms length, not in the trenches with the soldiers getting their bodies pelleted with bullets</i>

Yes, i know what you mean. But i was actually part of the unrest in Germany in the 90s when the Nazis tried to take over whole provinces with street level terror - i lost two dear friends to those bullets from croatian mercenaries (i was a field medic back then, i've seen more blood than i ever wanted).

It is these dire and grave circumstances which led me from a young and idealistic "let's keep our friends from migrant families safe" kind of guy (the one you mention above: the armchair sociologist) to the person i am now and it informs my thoughts that we actually need a deep level change in society because that threat is real, and deadly. (And just to elaborate: We ultimately lost that struggle, in today's Germany there are huge "no-go areas" for people of color, for homosexuals, for Jews. And i tend to think that part of the reason we lost that struggle is that we refused to take up arms ourselves.)

I'm also not a romanticist: As i said, i don't believe in paradise on earth. History is a slow train and it will take generations to achieve anything resembling a society of free and equal beings (or to put it another way: <i<After</i> a Change the real work begins). But since human beings are <i>zoon politicon</i> i think we have no other choice but to try.

Re: Edited comment..I need to learn to proof first.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

Oh crap - i fucked up the formatting. I'm so sorry! :-/

Re: Edited comment..I need to learn to proof first.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's okay, happens to the best of us. Happens to me all the time.;-)

Didn't know you were a field medic during a recent up-rising.
It does change you - first hand experience. Also teaches me not to assume things about people ...again. Probably good to be reminded of that.

I think we more or less agree. I've been grappling with the issue in my own head. Writing a rather lengthy sci-fi story about a woman who fought a guerilla war/resistance against invaders, then realized it wasn't working and is trying to find a way to negotiate a peaceful co-existence with them. Was the resistance she fought worth it? Was the price she paid in lives worth it?

As a negotiator, I've been trained to see multiple sides of an issue. You have to. I had to as a litigator as well - although not found of litigation. Prefer advocacy to revolution. I'm not good at revolutionary action. And it is something I'm struggling with right now in my discussions with the social justice/action group that I'm involved with. The thing of it is - I'm not quite sure revolutions result in positive systematic change. True the Bolshevik revolutions and French revolutions and even the American revolution, including the Civil War...did change things, in some respects for the better...economics in each case brought these revolutions about. Marx was right about that - economics does bring about change - it incites people to action.

But...I don't know about the change itself. How do you prevent the repetition of past mistakes? The perpetuation of the violence?
The Bolshevik's automatically lost to well Leninism to well Stalinism. While Napoleon may have had some good ideas (I read the Red and Black and quite a bit on it ages ago), he did try to congueor the world. France in some respects is still struggling with these issues. As is most of Europe.

Have you read Maria Doria Russel's novels The Sparrow and Children of God? In both books she discusses systematic change, and comes up with some interesting questions. In her science fiction novels - people journey to a new world, interfere for the best of reasons with that world's ecological balance and class system, and the result is a War. Is the War justified? I don't know. Hard to say.

As I get older, the answers seem less and less clear cut.

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[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

First, i have to say it is a great pleasure to talk about this with you. And you seem to struggle with some of the same questions i struggle with as well. Maybe i seem "more radical" but that's probably due to different life experiences (as well as internet communications). I despise violence. I hate it - too many people, friends and family suffered violence for me to revel in it.

But...I don't know about the change itself. How do you prevent the repetition of past mistakes? The perpetuation of the violence?

The only answer i have is: formalism. Building structures (political and economical) which hopefully are successful "checks and balances". But yes, learning from past mistakes is probably the hardest thing in the world.

The Bolshevik's automatically lost to well Leninism to well Stalinism

This i don't know. Was that really inevitable? I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the world hadn't intervened. In May 1918 seventeen nations (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Romania, Serbia, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, British India, United States, Republic of China, (Poland and Finland later)) declared war on the revolutionary Soviet Union, sending thousands of soldiers and hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as war material to crush the new government.

Without the massive intervention and the disastrous "civil" war - would the Leninists really have ruled the state? People wanted freedom, then and all forms of creative ideas on how to run a society sprung up. From the decentralized system of soviets, to centralized "war communism", to the anarchists of the Ukraine - i think the possibilities were manyfold.

But that is "what if". What the world (and especially the peoples of the Soviet Union) got was Leninism. So, history is on your side.

Have you read Maria Doria Russel's novels The Sparrow and Children of God?

No, i haven't. Will do. :-)

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[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you, for me as well.

Maybe i seem "more radical" but that's probably due to different life experiences (as well as internet communications). I despise violence. I hate it - too many people, friends and family suffered violence for me to revel in it.

I think it is in part cultural...and also experiences. I am more, I want to say centrist in my views...but moderate may be better? And it depends on who I talk to on how radical I am. In part it is who I am surrounded by. My work-place is a mix, but has quite a few ultra-conservatives. And my church is ultra-liberal at times. For me? I want something in between the extremes...for go too far in either direction and you end up with problems. Balance, I think, is very hard to find in life. Personal or otherwise.

Also...while my family, on my mother's side is largely German and we still have relations in Germany...my mother actually learned German and her grandparents on her father's side spoke mainly German, I cannot imagine what it would be like to live there. I visited Berlin in the 1980s, 1981 to be exact, when it was still split into East and West Germany. I saw communism up close and personal - and it did not look all that different than facism. Wore the same face, in some respects. Remember Check point Charlie well...and the fear we all felt going through it. Also the Berlin Wall. I was...no older than maybe 13 or 14 at the time.

But, I know Communism and Capitalism are economic systems not political ones. And have been told by more than one person that I seem to be leaning more and more towards socialism. I am in some respects more a socialist than Capitalist, but I see issues there as well - I work for a government agency and bureaucracy is a problem. No system is perfect. Capitalism - pure unfettered, laizzez faire Capitalism is insane - and cruel. It eats its young. Economic Darwinism at its worst. While pure socialism leads to an overbearing government, malaise, and repression of human rights.

So how do you find the in-between? I think we are struggling towards it.
The US really isn't pure Capitalism - we have regulations, I know, I deal with them on a daily basis. Some are rather head-ache inducing. Great in theory, bad in practice. It's an odd thing to find out the law you fought to have put in place, does little more than cause mountains of paperwork and slow the process down to a crawl. I find myself thinking, why can't anything be simple? Why does it have to be organized chaos?

I have yet to see an economic system currently in practice that works without a downside. There such thing as a perfect system...for all systems are created by humans and we are fallible beings. Even our language has its limitations. German is more precise than English with all its various uses for the same word. Even French is more precise than English. Yet, this imprecise language is the world's for some reason, not that I'm complaining - considering I do not have much of a facility for learning languages and am relieved the one I do know is the standard at the moment.
Sorry that was bit off topic, I think.

I'm leery of communism in part because of the negative propaganda that I've been the recipient of since I was old enough to walk - that Cold War was most of my youth. We were indoctrinated by our media to distrust the "communist" system. As an adult I read about it and saw gaps in the logic, while I agreed with the thesis, I think Marx missed a few things. It's never the working class or proletariat that revolts, it is the middle class that has suddenly found itself squeezed and falling into the working class. Also human beings aren't well as nice as Marx would like them to be...we tend to give into our competitive and aggressive nature - the desire to succeed to be the best. How much of that desire is pure DNA and how much is taught, I don't know.

Off to make dinner. Thank you for taking the time to discuss this topic, even if we've wandered a bit away from the central or core one. ;-)

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[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

Heh! You go off to make dinner and I had to go to sleep last night.

It's funny how we both ended up talking about language. :-) Well, i assume language forms in large parts the way how we think and what terms are filled with life, so to speak.

I like that English is a world language, because it is easy to learn (well, for Europeans...) and easy to use (albeit hard to master). It makes it possible that you and me are able to communicate. :-)

Back to what you wrote after that: I tend to think of communism as an idea, the idea that we humans work together to reach our goals, free of oppression and violence. Not so much as a political or economical system. How to reach that? I have no idea.

It's never the working class or proletariat that revolts, it is the middle class that has suddenly found itself squeezed and falling into the working class.

While that's certainly true from the seventies onwards - the "flailing middle class" has traditionally thrown their lot in with the fascists here in Continental Europe.

And, the large working class movements of Continental Europe were certainly driven by the working class, even if some of their leaders were - as you point out - highly educated middle class. The leader of the German Soviet Republic in Hamburg 1923 was Ernst Thälmann, who was a dock worker. He was leader of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) until he was murdered in 1944.

I have little knowledge of today's socialist or anarchist movements in the USA but here in Europe there is a clear break in tradition with the worker's movement of the late 19th and early 20th century: The fascists killed everybody. 50.000 cadres of the social-democrats, the socialists, and the communists were murdered in the death camps of the Nazis. Not much to build any continuation on.

As of today?

You are certainly right, i mostly see disgruntled middle class kids playing at "revolution". The workers just want to get through their days, mostly. maybe a nice car, or a flat TV.

But at least here in Europe there is a clear chain of events which led to the situation we have now: Before 1933 there was a large working class movement in Germany and Austria (see: Austrian civil war in 1934) which was indeed led by workers themselves. (But of course there is a distinction between workers and lumpenproletariat, the latter will never strive for change).

So, this got more political (again!) than i wanted. ;-)

As i said: I don't know the "right" path. I don't even know any "right" outcome, i have no "vision" beyond what i said above: That one day, humans will work together instead of against each other in peace. (And nothing against competition. Did you know that the Soviet Union introduced performance-based loans in 1920?)

Cont'd

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

"one must be a revolutionary before a pacifist", and more interestingly..."When you decide to take part in an anti-fascist war the problem with the victor is he thinks war and violence was justified and necessary, who will teach him otherwise." Indeed.

Which is indeed a problem which causes me sleepless nights! How do you go from "justified violence" to no violence at all?

My beloved Berholt Brecht wrote about that:

A soldier came back from the war. He had no work. He was hungry. He wanted bread. The baker had bread. So the soldier killed the baker and took the bread. Brought before the court the judge said to him: "You can't kill people!" And the soldier said: "Why?"

I have no way out of this. And it seriously depresses me. But my personal history, as well as my studies on history in general, lead me to believe that those opposing change won't give up in a peaceful way.

They will cling to their ways, their wealth and their power with the most horrific acts of cruelty and sadism; with slave labor and death camps.

When i get into my car and i drive a mere 25 km (16 miles) i stand on a mass grave of 65.000 murdered people, who are testament to that cruelty and sadism. And the even more horrific and terrible thing about that is: If you google for "concentration camp" or "death camp" the place won't even show up on a map of concentration camps. Because it is not massive enough. Because these 65.000 people were so few compared to all the others who were beaten, tortured and worked to death, who were raped and maimed, used in medical experiments or just killed to fulfill the sadistic urges of their tormentors.

At Auschwitz, there is a small grove, and when you walk there the ground is soft, your boots sink into the earth a bit. Because you are walking on the ashes of one million murdered! More than 2 generations later, you can feel the terror just by standing there.

So no, i'm not talking about this from my naive ivory tower. The things i witnessed, as well as the land and the history which surrounds me screams to me to work for change. S/he who wants that the world stays as it is doesn't want that the world stays at all.

Re: Cont'd

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

While it is true that there really was no way to stop what happened in those death camps outside of literally going to WAR and fighting to stop them...I think in an odd way, the previous WAR, WWI lead to it. I wonder if the Holocaust would have occurred if WWI had not?
Violence leads to more violence.

I understand your pain regarding the Holocaust. I don't believe there is anyone on this planet who does not bear its wounds. It drove my grandmother's twin brother insane - he was an ambulance driver during WWII and amongst the first into the death camps. After that, he was never quite the same. And a friend of mine's father lost his entire family in the camps. You cannot do those things...without polluting all that surrounds you. The violence that exists in the Middle East is in some respects a direct result of WWI and WWII and in some respects due to the actions of Britain and Germany during and before and between those Wars. And I wish the genocide stopped with the Holocaust, but google genocide and you see all the places it has continued - Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Thailand and its Killing Fields, Vietnam, the list is endless as it is painful.

I look at WWII and I don't think any country involved in that war came out well...read Kurt Vonnagurt's Slaughter-House Five about the Bombing of Dresden.

I wonder sometimes as I discuss this if I'm talking from an niave ivory tower? I've admittedly never been in a war, the closest I've come to that type of violence is well 9/11. In that, at least, I've been lucky. My relatives have been in War. My uncle was in Vietnam.
And I have seen first hand what that type of sustained violence can do to you. I've seen the drug wars.

And at times, I think, it is very easy for me to say that you can fight a war without violence. People have tried. Ghandi comes to mind, his violence was directed inward - he fasted. Martin Luther King, Jr. Jesus Christ certainly did...he was a non-violent revolutionary and socialist, forget the religious stuff look at the history. Even that is brutally hard. And did they succeed? I don't really know, yes and no. I guess. But I'm not sure there is a winner in War. I look at WWII and yes, to a degree we did win - we got rid of a menace - we stopped Nazism and Fascism. But we entered the Cold War - with its horrors, which while different, were equally sadistic and harrowing.

I just don't think it is simple. It's not A or B. I don't know.
I am admittedly wrestling with it.

Re: Cont'd

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

I think of WW1 and WW2 as one war with a period of cease fire in between.

But, the terror regime of fascism was directed as much inwards as it was directed outwards to the "enemy nations" (Entente). Fascism is really "war on the people", the ultima ratio of capitalism. The German (and Austrian) workers movement was the strongest (and most determined) in all of Europe and it is no wonder the reigning elite used the most abominable forces on Earth to crush them. The world knows of the "Third Reich" as the great war machine, destroying other countries - but there were 6 years of internal war before the fascists waged war against the world. 13 million people perished in the death camps of the Nazis: democrats, socialists, communists, anarchists, republicans, homosexuals, mentally ill, Jews, radical christians, ...

In a way, the people now living in Germany (and Austria) are the descendants of rapists and mass murderers - nearly everybody else was either driven away or killed.

In 1834, 99 years before Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party seized power in Germany, Heine wrote in his work "The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany":

"Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. (...)
Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll."

There are things i simply love about German culture. The language! Oh, the language. Such clarity, such precision. No, it is not a poetic language. But it allows a clarity of mind i haven't found in English, or French, or Italian. Even Russian doesn't reach this precision.

I love the great thinkers which came from this culture. The great innovators of philosophy and engineering, mathematics and social studies.

But the deep down core of the psycho-social structure of the people living here? It is hard to love them. I try. I don't succeed a lot of the time.

I just don't think it is simple. It's not A or B. I don't know.
I am admittedly wrestling with it.

No, it is not that simple. The world isn't white and black. And, as i said: i don't have the solution.

But if we take everything, from Jesus scattering the "great bully in the sky" (and wasn't that one of the boldest concepts ever? To revolutionize the internal mechanisms which drive us? Take away the repressing Super-Ego and replace it with the idea of Love?), to democratic structures on every level, to economic concepts which allow everyone to live - shouldn't it be possible for the human brain to cook something up?

I don't know, either. I'm wrestling with it. And history is a slow train.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

(My theory is that sterilization of rapists would lead to a happier world all around within a few generations. I could be naive on this point.)

Sadly, I think rapists are molded, rather than born. Even if we actually isolated rapists from the population, you know, actually sent them to prison, our society's still creating more.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think you are right. We, like it or not, tend to create our own monsters.
My Aunt, who is a school nurse, told me a story about a little boy who was bullying and attempting to rape another little boy. She finally talked to the boy doing the bullying - and figured out that he was to a degree copying behaviors learned at home. That he was being abused, and at school copying this behavior pattern. She's been a nurse in this particular area for 40 years, and has seen five generations of children grow up and have kids of their own often in high school, and the patterns repeat themselves. Their parents abused them, they abuse their kids, and so on. She has tried to intervene, to even report these crimes, but it is so hard to prove and the laws often protect the parents. Society works against her, throwing up obstacles.

I don't know the solution. Prison while a helpful punitive measure doesn't work as a rehabilitative one. Since the problem with prison is the people you share it with...yet you need some way to stop these acts. Something to dissuade people from doing them - so prison is the only peaceful preventative that I can think of.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

It could be nature, nurture, or a combination thereof. Reducing the number of kids subjected to people with these tendencies might have an effect. We'll probably never know.

I am no doubt overly inspired by a single example in nature: A baboon troop suddenly lost all its violent alpha males when they ate tainted meat (they didn't share with any lower caste troop members). Researchers waited for the beta males to turn alpha, but it never happened and the troop became peaceful and less stressed, into later generations.

It's at the end of this article: http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/14/move-over-alpha-males-why-being-a-beta-may-be-better-at-least-for-baboons/

That version doesn't have as much detail as the one I originally read, which mentioned rape as one of the common behaviors pre-alpha demise.

[ann1962]

That is really fascinating. Thanks for linking.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I vaguely remember the "Modesty Blaise" novels or rather the comic book version? She passes out. A coping mechanism that has been examined in other stories...as well.

It's tricky stuff, and I don't blame artists for wanting to work through it. I just wish they'd come up with another angle, perferably a non-violent one. (Did you see the Dexter arc with the survivor? I'm still parsing it.)

Yes to both. I equally struggled with the Dexter S4 arc with the survivor portrayed by Julia Stiles. It reminded me a little of some Jodie Foster and Farrah Fawcet films - where the victim becomes a kick-ass vigilante. Whedon took a similar tact. And this is also the tactic we see in the La Femme Nikita and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tales. I like to call it the victimized girl hero arc.

But I feel like it has been over-done now. To the point that I'm not sure I can watch it anymore and it isn't quite realistic. Most of us would not and could not cope with it in that manner. And oddly everyone who has written that trope seems to be male - it's how a man would visualize dealing with it, I think?

I need another angle.

They accomplish so little because they are so seldom "transformative" in a real world sense. It's more like wallowing than solving a problem. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it, because those kinds of facts are not helpful in discerning solutions. I want something that changes peoples thinking on the subject, but all we get are reinforcing images.

I agree and feel much the same way on both the Holocaust and rape stories.
I find it increasingly difficult to read or watch tales that deal with either issue. And it is because it feels like we are "wallowing" in it.
Spending far to much time examining the reasons why someone does it, or how the victims respond...and not coming up with a solution. These stories as you state do not feel transformative to me. And I think that's what I need and want is a transformative tale - a way to resolve the problem, not a way to rehash it again and again.

There's a difference between discussing the topic, I think, and wallowing and reinforcing it.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

You never watched OZ, didn't you? Rape was almost depicted in every episode over 6 seasons, because it's part of every day prison life.

The video game thing is quite disturbing. Not only the rape-Play but every video game that allows the player to be violent and kill.

Violent behaviours are part of human kind so it makes sense for art works (books, movies, tv shows)to tackle the issue. But a game, that is pure entertainment and playing at being violent, at harming others and killing them, that's something else.

That said, from an early age, children often play at being Cowboys vs Indians, or Cops vs Big Bad, and enjoy the fact of pretending either killing or being killed. They even play at torturing others. Children are very sadistic.

So nothing really new under the sun. The little sadist in us, remain there, even when we grow up, which, I guess explains the appeal of such video games.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You never watched OZ, didn't you? Rape was almost depicted in every episode over 6 seasons, because it's part of every day prison life.

No, I didn't have HBO when it aired. And the subject matter didn't interest me. OZ is in a specific trope that I've entitled "hyper-realism" or an exaggeration of reality. In reality - rape isn't part of every day prison life any more than it is outside of prison.
To a degree, yes, but not to the degree depicted or as I've been told has been depicted in OZ.

Similarily The Wire was an exaggeration of the systematic failures of the cops and institutions in Baltimore, acting as a social critique in the exaggerations of those realities. Reality is far more bland in comparison.

Another example of Hyper-realism is Breaking Bad - which exaggerates the violence and the drama, shining a light on it.
This is similar in effect to the French art film "Irreversible"which also exaggerates the violence. Dead Wood and Justified fit to a degree within this trope as well.

It is a depiction of reality, exaggerating the sadism and violence, showing humanity at its worst, in an attempt to comment on the patterns and problems. In OZ - the commentary may well be on the failure of the prison system to truly rehabilitate the prisoners due to the people they are imprisoned with - which is true to an extent. (I used to work with prisoners.)

Dead Wood exaggerates the violence of the Western, de-romanticizes the trope, yet romanticizes the violence in another newer way.

Violent behaviours are part of human kind so it makes sense for art works (books, movies, tv shows)to tackle the issue. But a game, that is pure entertainment and playing at being violent, at harming others and killing them, that's something else.

But isn't that to a degree shrugging off our responsibility for our own behavioral choices? And what we teach others? We can chose what we teach children, the behavior and play that we endorse, can't we?
A parent does to a degree have some control over the material they show a young child.

I know as a young child I joined a "I hate Debbie group" - I was pissed off at my best friend, Debbie at the time. Being a very young child, I told my mother - who told me that we do not join hate clubs and explained why. A neighbor found out about the group and formed a "I hate S'kat group" where you had to do cartwheels to get in - I couldn't do one to save my life - to teach me a lesson.
The lesson worked - I realized how wrong exclusive groups were.

To say violence is part of human kind is an easy excuse, I think.
It lets people off the hook. Oh it's okay if you go out and hit your friend, because you know - that's your nature. Except we can learn not to do these things. We aren't dogs or cats...we do have the ability to think for ourselves.

I think it is true that there is a little sadist in all of us, but we get to choose how to react to it.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Oh but OZ wasn't realistic at all (most of the plot took place in a special area called "Emerald City" after all); it was a Greek tragedy, with a Greek chorus commenting on the plot and the forces of Fate breaking mortals over and over, even though it did dealt with many real life, or American (like all the ethnic groups within the prison, very salad bowl-like), issues! Quite different than The Wire that pretended to be realistic in its forms and content.

The wonderful thing with OZ was that, in spite of all the violence, all the horrible things happening, of all the nasty behaviours, the human element was never lost so the characters resonated with us, and all kind of human emotions or human relationships happened in a very touching way.

That said, prison is a violent world, and I do think that there's more violence inside than outside of prison.

What I am trying to say, in my clumsy way, is that, in art, you can tackle real issues that have to do with mankind, without necessarily working in the realm of realism, and that doesn't make said issues any less real in the process.

Same with Deadwood. It was a pure work of art, using history the same way playwrights used to, not a depiction of reality. Even the language is completely un-realistic! Have you watched it finally? It looked like a Western because of the time and places and the cowboys stuff, but it was something quite unique. Yet the situations the characters experience, what they go through can feel totally "real".

I guess, it's the magic of great art, to create "truth" out of lie, artificial means and forgery.

We can chose what we teach children, the behavior and play that we endorse, can't we?
A parent does to a degree have some control over the material they show a young child.

But of course! The sad thing is that in this "kid is king" society, parents have forgotten that, and the kids often get what they want instead of what they need (am I channeling Joss Whedon?! ;- )) which of course suits the consumer society that cares very little of moral development...

When adults enjoy playing at games like the one you mentioned, it's deeply disturbing, but not that surprising, alas.

But I also find appaling hunting as a sport, enjoying corrida or animal fighting and all those kinds of unbearable shows that are based on real violence and real suffering.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen Deadwood yet, just read reviews and my mother was telling me about it - since she had rented it. Nor have I seen OZ.
Both may be too violent for me at this point in time, considering I'm struggling with the Walking Dead and can't get myself to watch Hell on Wheels, relatively minor in comparison.

Anyhow... I More or less agree with everything you state above. I guess, I'm questioning whether the level of violence portrayed is necessary? Or when does art...stop being art and become well titillation? Do we need to go so far? Does Al Sweargerin need to feed the bodies to the pigs or Titus Andronicus make meat pies out of his victims...does the exaggeration show us the ludicrousness of the violence, how it rips death of meaning?

The Greek plays are obviously the most violent...and Shakespeare certainly was with Titus Andronicus and Macbeth. And they are in a way a commentary on the violence of society, but also violence in entertainment. Pretend, as opposed to the far more shocking and unbearable violence of the Roman theater - Gladiators and feeding the Christians to the Lions. In some respects... art is a safer way of examining how we handle violence and consequences of it. The actors get up after the end. No one really does.

What I was trying to say about hyper-realism is that it isn't "real". And that's not a criticism. In some cases...I prefer hyper-realism to reality tv, which isn't real either. It's just another type of narrative style. Sort of like painting? Impressionist vs. realism (Renoir), vs. Hyper-realism (which is contemporary art movement, or post-post modernism.) I am not that fond of hyper-realism, I find the violence painful - too sharp, too aggressive, which has a great deal to do with what I do...it is, how to explain, a bit like how you feel watching Glee, I think? Even the Wire I struggled with...I had to get past the drug dealer storyline and the violence, to enjoy it. I can't watch drug dealer stories anymore..again personal experience gets in the way.

[ann1962]

"Fox canceled Firefly before that episode could be shown. It was written but not performed. And is one of Minear's regrets."

I didn't know this. Thankfully it was in time before we'd have to see that.

Castration isn't a solution. They can rape you with other things. Corncobs the example I know about for a rapist that couldn't get it up. Rape crisis center memories. At the center, we decided lobotomy was the best solution, because then they wouldn't know to do what they wanted to do.

Anyone that really enjoys games like the one you cite, or watching movies or shows that depict extended rape scenes, is enabling a culture of violence, and is just really warped. Yes, culture is already violent, but if you don't make your own mind less so, society never will be. One needs to ask oneself, why they got off on such things. This is often a generational crime. Especially in the case of child rape. And I think the infantilizing of woman in its many forms, also contributes to this as well. Where is the line when women need to look 13 to be considered beautiful, and sexy? Then children are considered the model. And for those who already have those predilections, well, the slope is already built.

It is a struggle to talk about, it is complicated. It should be. That's ok. It's a horrible sad thing. (I'll stop now.)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Castration isn't a solution. They can rape you with other things. Corncobs the example I know about for a rapist that couldn't get it up. Rape crisis center memories

Very true. Sometimes far far worse things. It's just the only thing I can think of that matches that level of sadism and abuse of power.
But I know it would not act as a preventive measure, just a punishable one.

At the center, we decided lobotomy was the best solution, because then they wouldn't know to do what they wanted to do.

Have you ever read the book "Demolished Man" by Alfred Bester - in which a killer is captured and his memories, the part of him that made him a killer is removed? It's actually closer to what you describe than...Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange - where Alec is conditioned to find the idea of rape and violence painful.

Anyone that really enjoys games like the one you cite, or watching movies or shows that depict extended rape scenes, is enabling a culture of violence, and is just really warped. Yes, culture is already violent, but if you don't make your own mind less so, society never will be. One needs to ask oneself, why they got off on such things.

Yes. This. This is why I keep thinking that doing these sorts of tales in an entertainment venue is not always a good idea. It is perpetuating a cycle, enabling it. Encouraging it - that's the word I'm looking for.

I think it is how you do the story that is important. How you tell it. And it has to be done carefully.

And I think the infantilizing of woman in its many forms, also contributes to this as well. Where is the line when women need to look 13 to be considered beautiful, and sexy?

I've noticed this as well. I keep hoping it will change. But I see it repeated over and over in our popular culture. It's again, I think about insecurity and power. The more powerful women become in the workplace and the political arena, the more men find the waif-like infantile female attractive. It is a reaction I think to that power. Demeaning the person who has more power than they do.
Or who threatens them.

Our culture is odd. I was in my boss' office the other day. He interrogated me over an email I'd sent. I told him that I felt like I was being interrogated. He responded that I should feel that way,
it was his role as my boss to interrogate me. That he got interrogated by his bosses. That's the relationship. When I come into his office and sit in the chair across from his desk, I am in the witness seat. I thought, oh god, I'm in a culture that encourages bullying, enables it. And it is a sign of insecurity. And fear. He got defensive when I challenged him on it. Then I told a co-worker, who has managed people/supervised and ran her own business and she told me our boss was clueless and needed a reality check. That no, you do not interrogate your employee. Yet he is not the worst.

I look at television and I can't count the number of tv shows that wallow in violence that depict it as entertainment, and excuse the depiction as being part of our lives. But it isn't. It is not part of our lives. It lurks in the corners of them. IS this constant unwavering focus on it - a good idea? I don't know. In the 50s and 60s - they did not allow this stuff on the air, yet it did not make things better, those days were just as violent.

[ann1962]

Have you ever read the book "Demolished Man" by Alfred Bester - in which a killer is captured and his memories, the part of him that made him a killer is removed?

No I haven't. Is it worth reading?

As much as I liked Clockwork Orange, I was traumatized by it. And seeing him punished afterward, didn't change that. I don't think Burgess meant for us to feel comforted by it. He wasn't better, his violence was just removed.

I'm glad you were able to tell your boss how you felt after that happened. He does sound overbearing. He's probably of the view, that because he has suffered in work, so should everyone else. Sad.

he number of tv shows that wallow in violence

I can't watch any of the CSIs, SVUs or procedurals for this reason. I guess for me, the outcomes don't relieve the ick of watching the suffering.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No I haven't. Is it worth reading?

It's been a very long time since I read it. I read it in my 20s. But it is far easier reading than Burgess. I found Burgess impossible to read. I watched the Kubrick version instead, and even that is painful to watch.

In some respects I like Demolished Man better. The protagonists are the people attempting to catch and reprogram the man doing the killing, but the questions are asked. And you are left haunted by them.

But again, it has been a long time since I read it and my memory of it may well be better than the book actually was. ;-)

I can't watch any of the CSIs, SVUs or procedurals for this reason. I guess for me, the outcomes don't relieve the ick of watching the suffering.

I'm somewhat the same way. While Supernatural and Vamp Diaries are admittedly violent - there is a cartoon sensibility to it. It is less...
I don't know, how to explain? But I was discussing this with someone else online recently. I'm finding it easier to watch shows that the violence is more comic book style than hyper-realism, gritty. I can't watch Breaking Bad or CSI or Criminal Minds...it feels too graphic, too unrelenting, and as if I'm wallowing in it.

I know not everyone has this view. Some prefer the "realism" because they find that less icky than cartoon violence. People stay dead. It has consequences. But for me? I prefer the cartoon...it feels less icky, less voyeuristic, less sadistic somehow. Like the difference between playing Cops and Robbers, and well...

[ann1962]

I read Clockwork Orange in college for a class. I haven't read it very often since, because every time I purchase a copy to read, someone wants to borrow it, because they haven't read it, and then I don't get it back. Must of happened 4 or 5 times.

::nods:: I do turn or click away sometimes when watching SPN. Pretty much any episode with Alister. Or a few of the later Meg episodes. Don't need to see that. Or want to see that. I watched a bit of The Walking Dead last night. Changed the channel when it got bad. Talk about unrelenting.

I wish there was a specific word for a cartoon sensibility that describes non-cartoons.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Interesting on Clockwork Orange - perhaps I should give you mine? Assuming I can find it. I have a tendency to collect books but never find time to read them, another pops up that I read instead. The GRR Martin anti-war novels are what I'm trudging through at the moment.
Oddly well written in places, pure poetry at times. And unexpected.

::nods:: I do turn or click away sometimes when watching SPN. Pretty much any episode with Alister. Or a few of the later Meg episodes. Don't need to see that. Or want to see that. I watched a bit of The Walking Dead last night. Changed the channel when it got bad. Talk about unrelenting.

I'm struggling in a similar fashion. I find Walking Dead hard to watch at times and have been known to fast-forward. It is unrelentingly violent and its take on women feels at times like a juvenile ten year old boy's. I like survival series or post-apocalyptic...obviously, but I'm struggling with the violence.
Same thing with Supernatural and Nikita...the violence is starting to bug me. And the gore. Been struggling with Fringe too - love the characters and the parallel universe stuff, but the violence..
Is it just me or are tv shows more violent now or are there more violent tv shows now than before?

[annegables.livejournal.com]

I think it is fascinating that you ended a friendship, in part, because of this issue. I would have had to do the same. I have found that I have had to end friendships due to such massive idealogical differences. Is this odd when I am quite laid back? I think it says that these persons are just too far gone in their belief systems for me to be able to support them with time out of my life.

As to the rape trope...I say this with personal experience. I wish people would talk about it more. There is no one who wants to hear about this from anyone and so it is talked about through language which allows everyone to pretend it is not that which it is. Comforting language to everyone else - not to a victim. It is the language of deceit. The deceitful practice of pretending these things do not happen. That women ask for it, that it gives them revengeful power, that it is taken care of through courts...all lies, really. And when you realize that no one really wishes to speak or ever face up to this happening - it turns into the "if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it, did it make a noise?" idea. Perhaps nothing really did happen, you think sometimes. Or perhaps I do not exist in my present form? Only in the form that people wish to see and hear from - the one where you pretend it didn't happen.

The tropes you speak of allow people to pretend. Sure we deal with rape in public - it's all over tv and movies. But it's not really dealt with. The fifteen minute scene in the movie you mentioned is real. But it makes people upset and sick so the movie is described as disgusting. And it certainly is. But it's a real portrayal. And it does not bring pleasure to normal human beings. The video game is meant to make it into a game that brings pleasure. You are right. Where is the line?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think it is fascinating that you ended a friendship, in part, because of this issue.

Well..uh, how and why our friendship ended was a whole lot more complicated than that. That conversation was...how to explain? One more symptom or reason of the multitude of reasons why the friendship couldn't continue. (We'd been close friends for a very long time.) Still painful to talk about.

The tropes you speak of allow people to pretend. Sure we deal with rape in public - it's all over tv and movies. But it's not really dealt with.

But that's understandable isn't it? Getting back to that first bit I spoke of about the woman who told me she sought counseling to discuss her rape, and my comment that I did not want to focus on the robbery (or the fact that I'd lucked out and no one had tried to rape me - considering I was in my bed asleep at the time and living in a one bedroom apartment on the top floor).

Some people want/need to talk about it. Analyze every small detail.
Figure it out. Others want to push it aside. And others cope by turning it into something else entirely. I remember reading Nancy Friday's book Forbidden Flowers - there's a rape fantasy in it, submitted by a patient of Friday's who had been gang-raped. To handle the brutality of the crime, she turned it into a fantasy piece in her mind where she had the sexual power. An odd thing to do, but it made sense - it was how she coped with it. She took away their power in her mind. That is different of course from a guy writing a tv episode where the girl enjoys it.

My difficulty with a lot of the media discussion on rape, films, tv shows - is too often they take Joss Whedon, Stieg Larsson and Tim Minear's view - what it means for the guy or male who either did it, is the spouse or lover of the person it happened to, or friend of the person it happened to. In Larsson's case -he had been a guilty observer who knew about it, saw it, and did nothing to stop it. We see how they process it and cope with it. They can't wrap their brains around what it would be like to be raped only what it would be like to be the rapist. Not that men can't be raped too - off course they can, and have, but it is less common. What is more likely is that they are in the role of the rapist. And their struggle to deal with that possibility.