Quincy: I started writing a response but it became pretty long so I hid it in a spoiler tag to save others the pain of having to scroll through it.
[spoiler]I think a conversation about violence and its function in pop culture is well worth having on its ownâand there's plenty to say about The CW in generalâbut when it comes to sexual violence, particularly the way it's portrayed on Game of Thrones, some form of higher standard has to be expected if you're going to delve into the subject. It's the same thing with race. You can't write ignorantly about it from a position of privilege, and if you do you're an asshole. The way HBO, and similar networks who have built their brands around being edgy and appealing specifically to pop culture sensitive men, have historically treated it means that these things usually come across as some fucked up fantasy rather than a serious conversation about rape and the effect it has on an actual person.
Contrast it to a show like Veronica Mars for instance where, halfway through the first episode, we're being told in a voiceover that Veronica was drugged and date raped at a party: âWant to know how I lost my virginity? So do I.â The fact that it happened isn't allowed to define her as a person, nor is it something that gets passed into the background after a few episodes before it becomes irrelevant. She has nightmares about it from time to time. There's a storyline further down the road about how she discovers she picked up an STD from the rape. A lot of the show is about the context and the culture in which these things happen, about the police station where no one took her seriously afterwards because she'd been drinking, and above all how it's usually not a mad villain who's the perpetrator: it's a friend, a classmate, someone in your family. People you're surrounded with in everyday life suddenly deciding to violate your most private boundaries.
Ramsay raping Sansa on Game of Thrones, by contrast, is just a cheap story device to move the plot forward. Even the rape itself is set up to portray Theon's reaction to it rather than Sansa's, and afterwards it's treated as a defining moment for his character development. It's how he finally decides to reclaim his independence. The rape wasn't present in the books, where Sansa is still at the Vale, and the writers on the show confessed to using it as a way to bridge the story. "We couldn't really think of anything for this character to do so we had her raped" has to be one of the worst ideas of all time. It's also an incredibly talentless way to portray character development. Men tend to find their motivation in these stories after being physically tested while women find theirs after getting sexually abused. There's a name for this. It's called rape culture.
I certainly think stories about rape and abuse have their place on television; in many ways they're vital to tell. But appearances matter. Representation matters. Giving people who aren't heard a voiceâinstead of making one up to fit your own needsâmatter.
Along the same line, I think there's a general difference between how HBO in particular have built a reputation upon fetichizing violence and the way in which violence, murder and mayhem have become common tropes in films and tv in general. We talked about the pitfalls earlier when it comes to criticising works of exploitation by creating works of exploitation. At which point does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy where we create works of extreme violence mainly for the sake of the violence? At which point does the line blur between criticism and glorification?
It's kinda ironic that HBO built their modern success and violent reputation on Oz, which is a show that in many ways contextualizes its extreme violence better than any modern attempts they've made. It also had plenty to say about taboo subjects like male rape... less so because of its shock value and more because it was genuinely interested in discussing a pretty dark and problematic aspect that tied into the way the US penal system acts like little more than an instrument to finely tune the vices of sociopaths and psychopaths.
It's not that violence can't be entertaining, or that it always have to come with a caveat about how damaging it is in real life. Certain types of violence, however, are highly loaded/politicised by their nature and come with a lot of social baggage. Failure to understand that tend to lead to pretty hollow experiences ridden with poor writing and the expression of ideas which, in themselves, are pretty politicised.
While we're on the subject, Variety just published what I thought was a pretty good article about just how prevalent rape as an easy access plot device has become: http://variety.com/2016/tv/features/rape-tv-television-sweet-vicious-jessica-jones-game-of-thrones-1201934910/[/spoiler]
