Something Important

 I got two movie tickets from my awesome employer for my work during the summer, and Kenny and I had been lightheartedly bickering over what to go see for several days. I wanted to indulge my feminine side and go see the romantic drama “The Words.” He wanted to check out the mobster-and -guns flick “Lawless.”

Now never let it be said that I don't enjoy a mobster movie. Period mobster movies, even more so. The tommy guns, the awesome suits. The slang. So, what the hell. More than likely “The Words” will bore me to tears anyway.

So after school today, he picked me up and we headed over to Del Monte to see our free movie, expecting no more than mostly brainless shoot 'em up entertainment in period costume.

As I am writing this, I can still feel my heart racing with anger. I've calmed down considerably since we left the theater. Then I felt like King Kong, wanting to climb the highest tower and scream wordless rage while batting agressors down like flies.

********

I've learned a lot about our culture recently. I've had to re-evaluate a lot of what I thought I knew, and what I thought was 'normal', and 'culturally acceptable.' Had to evaluate whether either of those things actually meant 'healthy', or even 'sane.'

I had to allow myself to think, and eventually even say out loud, words like 'rape culture.'

You don't believe rape culture exists?

You don't think both men and women are enculturated to believe our perverse relationship with gender and sex is normal?

You're not looking close enough. As the saying goes, “if you're not angry, you're not paying attention.”

I wasn't paying attention. I worked goddamn hard to not pay attention. Phrases like “rape culture” used to embarrass me, that these otherwise intelligent folks were focusing So Hard on something nonexistent. There are wars being fought! Crooked presidents to vote out of office! Economies to fix! Focus your liberal, open-minded, forward-thinking intellect on something IMPORTANT, dammit!

I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to aknowledge that so much of the media we consume, the conversations we have, our perceptions of ourselves and those around us, can be colored-tainted-by this warped lense we're looking through.

I thought that my relationship with fear and anger, and my inexplicable feelings of powerlessness were unique to my own messed up head. I thought I was the only one who immediately sized up strangers approaching me on the street. The only one watching all the alleys and doorways when I walked alone. The only one secretly and silently rage-filled that such anxiety was necessary, even praised. I thought I was the only one who seethed at the double standard around me.

I'm not the only one.

I'm not alone here.

And somehow that realization was worse. Because if it's not just my paranoia, if there's no talk therapy or psychotropic drug to make the anger and the powerlessness go away, if the culture-our culture-itself is sick, then everybody's swimming in this mess.

A lot more women than me are living with constant, low-grade anxiety. An awareness of vulnerability.

I find ways to decline dates without ever saying “No. I don't want to.” because it feels dangerous. Let him save face. Be polite. Be vague. Make excuses. Don't assert yourself.

I don't assert differing opinions, I don't argue or push a point when I know I'm right, unless I know the man well. Unless I feel safe.

This is the culture we're swimming in. It's exhausting.

So tonight, I took Kenny out to see a fun movie.

I suppose I should give some kind of spoiler alert, in case anyone is interested in seeing this piece of shit, so there you go. Spoilers.

During the course of the film, two women are raped. Both off screen.

Implied sexual violence, you could call it.

Up until the point of the first rape, the lead actress had been nothing more than window dressing.

She returned to being window dressing as soon as the plot lumbered forward. Forward to more important things, like the lead man getting revenge for almost being killed. The only sop we're given after the scene is a startling, momentary image: the female lead wiping away tears and putting herself together in the mirror at the hospital. Bruises in the shape of a hand cover her shoulder.

But she's not in the hospital for her own injuries. She's there because the leading man is there, recovering from a slit throat.

Leading lady continues to have absolutely no impact on the plot, to the point where she actually has no lines beyond emotionally calling co-leading man's name as he storms out to get revenge for someone's murder.

Get it? The rape, the anonymous-and-never-dealt-with rapists, the woman herself were completely inconsequential to the plot.

The second rape is again, implied. The antagonist has been clearly portrayed as creepy. We get it. The slicked back, neatly trimmed hair, the leather gloves, the fastidious nature, we get it. Creepy with an undercurrent of undisclosed horrific sexual perversity. Well acted. Well portrayed.

I didn't need to see the young black woman sitting naked on the edge of his bed. Sitting on spread newspapers, crying, while he neatly donned his kid gloves and quoted the Bible.

And, in case you were wondering, she never apears again. She didn't have a name. Her only lines were sobs.

Somehow this was important to the story.

There is a term in cinema and television, “kicking the puppy;” which is derived from the idea that if you need to quickly show just how evil the bad guy is, you have him kick a puppy.

Apparently this doesn't cut it anymore. Now the trope is “raping the woman.”

Sexual violence against women is shown as shorthand for how heinously evil the bad guy is. It's used as a plot device for the male lead to seek revenge against the rapist. It's an excuse, it's a diversion, it's an easy way to up the ante. You don't even have to go all out and rape someone. Imply the threat of sexual violence. Make sure your audience knows what's on the table. What the stakes are, if the (usually male) lead should fail.

Here's my rule: If you're not the one who was raped, It's Not Your Story.

You want to tell another story, one without gratuitous sexual violence? Great! I can't wait to watch.

But the instant you use sexual violence to further the plot of a male-centered story, or somehow even more disgustingly, use it to pointlessly fill running time, I'm done.

I don't give a shit about the asshole brothers who run moonshine and tangle with the law. They are No Longer Important to me.

I care about the woman with the hand shaped bruises on her shoulder. I care about the anonymous woman sobbing on the newspapers. You can't tell me “oh, this happened too, but now we're going back to the Important Stuff like dipshits shooting each other.”

Because when you do that, you're telling me; me and everyone one else in that goddamn theater that women being raped is not Important Stuff.

It's just the subplot. It's just...filler.

They adjusted their makeup and fixed their hair and went on with their lives, because the Important Stuff was happening somewhere else. Men were killing each other over alcohol, and the alcohol was a far more precious commodity at the time. The women were worthless.

They didn't mean anything.

The rapes didn't mean anything.

It was all just filler until something important came along.