CW: sexual assault
I find this specific scenario happening to me more and more frequently lately: I’m watching a movie with my friends or boyfriend, there have been next to no women on screen for the entire movie, and then, out of the blue, a woman is being sexually assaulted. Cue me feeling like I’ve been slapped in the face, and thinking to myself, “what the fuck?”.
It’s not just a slightly miffed feeling, either. It’s always a deep, nauseous feeling in my stomach that I go to bed with even after the movie has ended. ‘Why?’ is the question that springs to mind. What leads writers and directors to make these decisions – to involve a woman for one single scene just so that she can be violated? The horrible truth is that I know the answer to that question; I know exactly the reasons why they do it.
The first reason I’ve noticed is to give one of the countless men in these movies a chance to save the damsel in distress. The woman he loves is being assaulted, and he bursts in to save the day. The women in these movies can be feisty, tough, and powerful, but at the end of the day, they’re still a woman; in the writer’s mind, they can be raped, so they will be. Let’s take a movie I saw recently as an example: The Gentleman. This for me was a typical ‘guy movie,’ packed with action, wit, and of course lots of clever men all the way through – and about one woman. Rosalind, played by Michelle Dockery, is a strong, sexy woman, who is fiercely loyal to her husband, Mickey. Every man’s dream! But I wonder, is it also every man’s dream to save their wife from a man who has attacked her, held her hostage, and then very very randomly decided he also is going to attempt to rape her in the last few seconds before she is saved? This scene made no sense to me. Dry Eye, our villain for this scene, already had her in a position where she needed to be saved by her husband, so why add in the sexual assault? Unfortunately, I think I can answer that as well.
For the men that seem to enjoy these scenes, there is an excitement in it for them. It’s almost like some kind of porn. At best, this means loving the fantasy of being the saviour who beats up the rapist and rescues the poor woman, who is simply a plot device to provide an opportunity for the man to shine. At worst, there are men who watch these movies, and get off on seeing themselves in the man who is committing the assault, who has so much power and control over a woman in this scene. A study, published in Violence and Gender, found that when asked whether they would force a woman to have sexual intercourse with them ‘if nobody would ever know and there wouldn’t be any consequences’, 31.7% of a group of college-aged men said yes. This percentage went down when the study changed the wording to include the term ‘rape’. Just as some men enjoy movies that involve ‘gore porn’, there are many that watch on with a sick, gruesome interest as these rape scenes occur, knowing that there are no real consequences in this for them, and they can argue that they’re not doing anything wrong.
So I guess the question is, should movies involve sexual assault at all? The fact is, some need to. Some movies are about the topic of sexual assault, and are made specifically to raise the issue, and continue the conversation of the importance of consent. However, even these movies have absolutely no reason to involve a scene that shows the viewers the sexual assault playing out. We really just don’t need to see that.
Since watching The Gentlemen, I’ve been more on edge about movies, taking precautions for myself such as Googling content warnings before watching anything that I suspect might have a sexual assault scene, and convincing my boyfriend that Disney movies are much more fun anyway. But it’s not always enough. Just last night I was watching a movie with friends, and decided that despite the obvious violence in the movie, no rape scenes were likely to happen, as there were no women in the movie. However, as always, one made an appearance just to be assaulted and then rescued. I’m tired of this, and I know other women are too. It is an insult to let women see themselves on scene as simply a plot device to enhance the character of the man. To put it simply, it’s gross, and very lazy writing. I’m feeling more than a little bit done with ‘guy movies.’
