Two Theories on the Representation of Rape (Inspired by Dragon Tattoo and Precious)

As I mentioned in my last post, I saw the first showing of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I could. In general, I liked it.  I didn't think it was amazing, but it certainly wasn't bad.  It was a good thriller, and I think Fincher made some general good choices about what to cut and what to keep.  I have a lot of little, minor questions, but one big one is bugging me.  Obviously from this post's title, it's about the representation of rape and sexual assault, so I understand many will not want to read it.  But I would love comments because this does bug me.  Also, I will be giving major spoilers of the book and the two film versions of it.  If you want to know nothing, stop reading now.

My question has to do with how the rape of women and the rape of men are treated and why those differences exist.  I'll start with the book since it all starts there.  It is about the sadistic torture of women.  We see that in multiple ways.  The entire mystery ends up being about a father and son who tortured women their entire lives, and that is a separate storyline from Lisbeth Salander's own rapes.  In the book, we get graphic descriptions of these rapes.  Personally, as I've noted before, I think the book does a pretty good job of balancing how much to say.  On one hand, Larsson does not shy away from the subject, which is good.  I think too many books, films, and TV shows say too little and allow audiences to continue denying the severity of rape (though this is changing and not true with all examples, of course).  At the same time, he does not say everything he could.  When Salander suffers her tortuous rape at the hands of Nils Burjman, we know it goes on for ninety minutes, but we don't get a full description of it, which would be too much, but we do recognize how horrible it is.

In the book, a few men rape a lot of women.  Each of the three men is punished, though not within a legal context.  The Swedish film and the American film include each of these men and what they do.  The final man who commits the most assaults over several decades is the one that Blomkvist and Salander end up searching for.  Blomkvist shows up at this man's house and ends up trapped in that man's torture chamber.  In the book, this man makes it obvious that he is about to rape Blomkvist as well: he cuts his clothes off with a knife and then grabs Blomkvist and gives him an aggressive kiss.

Neither film shows this kiss.  The American film does show Blomkvist strung up and partially stripped, and the man comments that he has never had a man in this torture chamber or been with a man since he himself was raped by his father.  The kiss is gone.  And I wonder why?  The films have no problem depicting the rape of women, and they have no problem showing Salander's rape of the man who raped her.  But they pull back when it comes to representing the rape of a man who is not a sadistic pig.  Why?

Theory One: It is always okay to depict the rape of any adult woman by any adult man, but it is rarely okay to show the rape of a man unless he clearly "deserves it."

This got me thinking of another film that centers on rape, Precious.  In that film, Precious is raped her entire life by her father.  But she is also raped continually by her mother.  In the film, that is only alluded to in one scene when her mother calls Precious into her bedroom.  I can't remember the exact words she said, but it was something general about coming in to help Momma, and her mother is in bed.  I know many intelligent people who did not read this scene as the rape of a daughter by her mother because they expressed shock when I mentioned it or when they read it in the book.  I've taught the book the film is based upon, Push, several times.  Students who have seen the movie before the book are often shocked when we get to the two scenes that mention the mother's sexual abuse of her daughter.

Theory Two: It is always okay to depict the rape of a child of any gender if that rapist is a man, but it is rarely okay to show it if the rapist is a woman.

Why does this matter?  We live in a culture that often does whatever it can to ignore the severity of rape and sexual assault.  We think we are a culture that faces it, but I do not see a lot of truth in that.  It is very, very true that a strong, strong majority of rapes are committed by men on women.  I want to repeat that to be clear: a strong, strong majority of rapes are committed by men on women.  But not all rapes happen that way.  When I talk in general about rape, I always try not to use gendered language because rape is not just something men do to women.

Many, many people who study the rape of men point out that a major reason men who are raped do not come forward is because they worry that they will not be believed, that they will be laughed at, or that they will be thought of as less than a man.  The continued invisibility of the rape of men and boys plays a major role in these feelings.  We are also hearing more and more stories of women playing roles in the rape of children either in engaging in rape themselves or in creating situations that allow men to abuse children.  Again, those who study these cases say that the survivors often do not report it because they think they will not be believed.  Yes, there are a few cases of women who rape men, but that is incredibly rare.  That does not mean it never happens or it should never be represented or discussed.  But I am most curious right now about the rape of men by men and the rape of children by women because 1) it seems like I am continually hearing more and more stories of such cases in "real life" and 2) I am rarely seeing the depiction of such cases in mass media.

My two theories allow society in general to remain in denial about certain forms of rape and sexual abuse.  This is the worst thing to do to survivors of any age or gender.  This is why I speak up the way I do.  Rape is always wrong.  Murder can sometimes be okay such as in cases of self-defense and perhaps in certain wars.  Rape is never permissible, however, but I am not sure we have moved much further than where we were as a society once women started speaking out clearly and strongly about their own rapes by men.  That is still difficult, and we still live in a world with much blaming the victim and slut-shaming.  It's changing slowly as long as many of us refuse to shut up about rape and sexual abuse in all of its forms.  In general, though, these two theories seem to be coming truer and truer over time.

Do my two theories ring true to you?  Do I just need to accept that this will change over time and not focus on things like a kiss between a rapist and a journalist in Dragon Tattoo and focus instead on the bigger story?  Anyone prompted to have any other thoughts by what I've written?  Obviously, I care about these issues but know my perspective may be limited as all perspectives are.  While I may never "get it right," I certainly want to try to be, and I'll take whatever help any reader can offer.

More Obsessed with Dragon Tattoo Than Lisbeth Salander is with Nils Burjman's Whereabouts

A few years ago, the husband made a rather astute observation about me: I treat pretty much everything in my life in an all or nothing way.  I get obsessed easily.  This was a time when I was ignoring him because I was focused on something else, and he was starting to get upset until it hit him that this is just who I am, and that it was not personal to him.  He could point out times when I acted with the same laser focus toward a range of people, places, and things.  I had never thought about it before, but he is completely right.

I only mention it now because anyone who has seen anything I have been doing online knows I'm obsessed with The Girl with the Dragon Tatto right now.  And what is so bizarre is that I had not read any book or seen any movie until two weeks ago this past Friday.  When I was flying to Houston, I was at home looking at my books and thinking that I really did not want to read anything that I intended to take seriously or was going to use in my research.  Add that to the fact that a few people had asked me what I thought of the novel, if it crossed the line into rape porn or if it handled the depiction of violence well.  So I decided to buy a copy at the airport and read it on the trip.  As I noted on Twitter, I finished it on my flight out of Houston to Atlanta, so I bought the second one in Atlanta and finished it in NYC before I returned home a week ago yesterday.  One week ago tonight, I watched the Swedish version of the first film.  And I've been reading all news articles related to the upcoming film that I can find.

I'm planning to see the film at 7:00 on Tuesday when it premieres (I'll be at the AMC in Plainville if anyone local is also planning to see it then).  This morning, the husband asked me if I was going to spend the rest of the week complaining about all the changes Fincher made in his film version (Fincher has already said he changed the ending, which has raised my ire).  I told him I would respond the same way he did when he first saw the first of the Star Wars prequels and could not shut up about Jar Jar Binks and the future Darth Vadar yelling "Yippee!" in the pod race.

I also told him that I'm now reading The Hunger Games, so my obsession should be switching soon.

Oh, and I do not think the book crosses the line into rape porn.  A writer, artist, or filmmaker has to tred a very fine line between revealing too much or too little.  I actually get just as annoyed at too little because I think it helps people ignore the seriousness of sexual assault.  To me, the book was a perfect balance.  The movie?  We'll see, and I won't be able to stop thinking about it for days, I'm sure.

My Top Ten Films of 2009

I love lists. With this being the end of the year and of the decade, there are a lot of lists out there, and I love them all. I normally don't create any myself because I don't know enough about a field to make judgments, but I certainly have my own favorites, which is what lists are all about. I'm not interested in influencing other people's opinions of things, but I like thinking of things that have brought me pleasure, which is what got me to thinking about movies.

This past year, I've seen forty-eight movies in theaters. That might seem like a lot to some people, but I'm also aware of the number of movies I haven't seen in theaters, like The Hurt Locker. But I saw a lot, and I liked a lot of what I saw. Here are my top ten movies of 2009 (and it includes movies released in 2008, but I saw them in 2009, which is why they are on this list).

1. Where the Wild Things Are: It was actually seeing this on a lot of top ten lists that got me thinking about making my own. I loved this movie, just absolutely adored it. As many of these lists say about the movie, it's not for kids. Instead, it's a movie that captures all the simplicity and intensity of childhood at once. A lot of us have complex relationships with our childhoods. Mine wasn't bad, but spent the first fourteen years of it alone, pretty much. I did a lot of watching (of television and other people) and thinking. I was in my own head most of the time, and this movie has come the closest to capturing that experience. I guess I'm not the only one who lived that way as a kid.

2. Slumdog Millionaire: I'm a sucker for movies about destiny, fate, and love. I got sucked into it right away and was afraid to blink until it was over. I knew how it would end, of course. Things were destined, after all! But I had no idea how they'd get there, and that's what made it so compelling.

3. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire: I have loved the book since I first read it in the last century. I've taught it several times. All that made me fear the film because I wasn't sure how an adaptation could align with a book I so loved, but the adaptation does fit the novel while still doing what films do. Amazing acting for a gripping story, too.

4. Milk: I've been waiting for years to see the story of Harvey Milk on screen, and this did not disappoint. It's a finely-crafted story made amazing by its actors, which did not just include Sean Penn. Whoever would have thought Josh Brolin would be considered a great actor? But he is, as are so many in this movie.

5. Gran Torino: This was just a great, simple story with amazing acting. This is probably the film on this list for which I had the smallest emotional response, but it's an amazing piece of storytelling.

6. Away: Kind of like Where The Wild Things Are does with childhood, this is a movie that paints a pretty realistic portrait of what actual relationships are like. These are two people who come from flawed but not bad families, and their friends are in flawed but not bad relationships. Well, some are bad. But what they realize is that they just have to figure out what they want for themselves and their child, and they'll be fine. The rules of other couples do not necessarily apply to them, and once they figure that out, they realize how good they have it overall. And that was a real joy to watch.

7. Revolutionary Road: Yeah, this is the anti-Away, but that's also what makes it good. This is a relationship that is being ripped apart from the inside. Kate Winslet deserved the Oscar for The Reader, but she made this movie, too.

8. Zombieland: Yep, we love our zombie movies in this house. We watch them all, and this is a pretty amazing addition to the genre. It was funny without losing the elements of horror that a zombie movie needs before it becomes a parody of itself.

9. Brüno: I know this is going to be on a lost of worst lists, but I just had a blast at this movie, as I wrote about already. I just laughed and laughed. We had fun with this one.

10. Paranormal Activity: It's no Blair Witch, which I loved, but it's good. It starts out slow, but once the horror starts, it starts. It's another movie that I was afraid to miss a second of. And, yes, I did think of it over the next few nights after I turned out the lights and walked through a dark house to get to bed. Once in bed, I was afraid to open my eyes, too. It takes a pretty good movie to make that happen!

As for the worst film of the year, you know I have to give it to Inglourious Basterds. I said before that I clearly do not understand this movie. I do not understand why it's getting so much acclaim. I watched it. I thought about it. I tried to appreciate it, but I can't. I just don't get it.

The Book and Film Versions of My Sister's Keeper (major spoilers ahead)

Tonight, I led the last of three discussions at the Farmington Library on Jodi Picoult's novels. We ended with My Sister's Keeper, which is probably her best known novel since it was made it a major Hollywood film released last summer. I have some thoughts about the relationship between the book and the movie, but providing them means giving major spoilers about what happens in both of them. If you don't want to know what happens in either the book or the movie, stop reading now. Got it? Stop!

Wow, could an adaptation of a book into a movie ever be more different? Sure, I've seen lots of adaptations that leave out things in the book. Rarely can a film cover it all. But this has a completely different ending! I mean, different people live and die in each book, and that's pretty ridiculous.

The book does a pretty good job of delving into a pretty big gray area. Anna was conceived so that blood from her umbilicial cord could be used to combat her sister Katie's leukemia. But the procedures do not stop there. There are bone marrow transplants and all kinds of things taken from Anna for Katie. In the book, Anna is thirteen and is suing for the right to refuse to have one of her kidneys transplanted into Katie. The book follows the course of the trial. And the book does cover a variety of angles. Anna does not take this decision lightly, and everyone involved is conflicted. In the end, Anna wins her case. And as she and her lawyer drive to the hospital after the judge hands down his decision, they are in a car accident. Anna dies, and Katie gets Anna's kidney. The book ends with Katie in her 20s describing how they all have handled the years after Anna's death.

Now, a lot of us tonight felt that the ending was contrived. I admit that I didn't like it. I brought up the idea of deus ex machina and the ending feeling like a trick from God or something. Many of us were not fans of the ending. But seeing the movie changed all that for me and others.

In the movie? We never learn of the judge's decision because Katie dies in the hospital and Anna lives. The movie solely exists to make viewers cry. Small but sad scenes in the book take several minutes in the movie, and any sense of nuance is gone. Anna does not seem conflicted with her decision. Campbell, her lawyer, is just a smarmy stereotype in the movie when it's clear in the book that he has some dimensionality to him. I'm sure the book would annoy some doctors and lawyers who know more about some cases, but the movie lacks any complexity at all.

I'm curious what Jodi Picoult thinks of the film's drastic revision of her book. Maybe she just cashed the check and move on. Maybe she was upset but realized that she had no rights to the story once she released it to them. I've just never seen such a drastic revision. I enjoy a good cry at a movie, and this movie would have done it if I hadn't known the book's version. But I did know it, and the movie just pissed me off.

If you want to see a strong adaptation of a good novel, then see Precious. Push is an amazing book, and Precious is an amazing adaptation of it.

Some Questions about Inglorious Basterds (Spoilers Ahead)

We saw Inglourious Basterds last week, and I've been meaning to write this entry since then because I have some questions. See, I thought the movie was horrible, yet I keep reading what a great movie it is. I just don't get it. I didn't like Pulp Fiction when I first saw it, but I didn't think it was horrible. Reservoir Dogs was fine; I didn't have much of an opinion about it. I really, really liked Death Proof, and I think the Kill Bill movies are some of the best I've ever seen. I don't have a set opinion of Tarantino, obviously, but I clearly give him a chance.

I get how Basterds is a revenge fantasy depicting a world where Hitler and the rest were killed in one fell swoop. And how get how the Basterds themselves are supposed to be funny. But I just don't get how we're supposed to fell that those goals were completed. This is my primary problem (and a major spoiler): Shoshanna dies just like her family did while Col. Landa, the man who ordered the death of her family, lives. This is a revenge fantasy where the only-surviving symbol of loss is killed and the man who created her loss lives? And I didn't get the humor. There were some goofy accents and odd behaviors, but they were not that funny. And they were few and far between, which means that those who did find those things funny would not really have a lot to laugh at.

In a lot of ways, the serious part of the film was like the second Kill Bill, where Beatrice is fighting to get to her daughter. And the humorous parts of the film were like the first Kill Bill, with its over-stylized staging and words on the screen and all that. But neither got the depth it needed, and the merger wasn't smooth. In fact, it felt like whiplash at times.

What am I missing? Was I just letting my mood lately overshadow my feelings? I just thought it was probably the worst movie I've seen this year, and we saw G. I. Joe.

Some Thoughts on Brüno (Spoilers Ahead)

As my status updates on Twitter/Facebook have shown, we saw Brüno last week, and I loved it. I'm not saying it didn't have problems and that thinking about it hasn't shown me some problems, but at the time of watching it, I laughed a lot and was eagerly awaiting each new scene to see what would happen next. And I have to be upfront about why I think I enjoyed sitting in the theater and watching this movie: I think the entire point of Brüno is to make straight men uncomfortable, and that's fun to watch.

There are other things going on in parts of this film, of course, including a focus on the middle east and on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but the bulk of the film takes the extreme, ridiculous stereotypes that the straight world has of gay men and shoves them in the face of those men, literally. There's scene after scene of Brüno engaging in extreme activities. And what is so fascinating is that the men take it so seriously. Anyone who has ever seen a hidden-camera show knows that there is often a moment where the person not in on the joke stops, smiles, and says, "Is this real? Is this a joke? Is there a hidden camera somewhere?" But you never see anyone in this film do that. Now, it's possible that someone did it but it didn't show up in the film. But I really believe that a majority of the people on whom Baron Cohen plays his jokes fully believed that they were seeing men engaged in real and true acts.

My point? The film argues that straight men will easily believe the worst about gay men, and Larry Charles and Sascha Baron Cohen fill the film with scene after scene to support their claim. Now, I am aware that the film only proves that the men in the film believe the worst and not that all straight men believe it. And, yes, some of my best friends are straight men, and I know that many straight men don't believe the worst. But I think this film argues that many straight men do easily believe it.

When Brüno flirts with a straight man, you don't see laughter or hear a comment like "Is this a joke?" You don't even hear a polite, "Sorry, that's not for me." Why don't they catch on that it's a joke? After decades of shows like Candid Camera and Punk'd, why does doubt never get expressed? And more than that, if they do believe it, why do they react so extremely? You see anger. You see fear.

There is one scene that I found interesting because of the lack of a reaction. Brüno goes to see a psychic, and he ends up miming an incredibly graphic sex scene complete with oral sex, analingus, and ejaculation. It goes on and on. And the psychic? He just sits there quietly and politely while Brüno goes through the extended sequence of acts. It's the least poignant scene in the film, I think. That is the only quiet man in the bunch. And maybe he's not straight. Maybe he thinks it's a joke. Maybe he doesn't care. But it's interesting that he's the only person I can think of who does not freak.

Now, the martial arts teacher is polite, yes. But he never challenges the idea that gay men would attack differently than a straight man. He either believes that gay men would attack "normal people" differently or is eager to play along with the idea.

Of course, the entire film builds to the big scene of Straight Dave's Man Slammin' Max Out, where a room filled with men and women cheer in a celebration of heterosexuality. At Brüno's (or Straight Dave's) encouragement, they chant, "My asshole's just for shitting!" They even show a guy wearing a t-shirt that says it. Da Man and I wondered if he was given that shirt by producers or if they were for sale outside the arena and the guy bought one. We think the latter but are certainly willing to be proven wrong. No matter what, he wore it willingly and openly, as did the other guys in other shirts. And when Brüno and his partner start kissing, the audience is shocked and angry. And everyone shown on screen conveys an expression that shows they believe in the authenticity of the event. Yes, maybe there were people who thought, "Oh, this must be joke" and started laughing or smiling or whatever. But there were plenty of men (and women) eager to scream and cry. And throw things. They did not just want their money back or to leave quietly. Many of them seemed to want revenge.

I think this is the discussion the film wants to encourage. Yes, I think he wants to shock us and make money and all that he's been criticized of doing. But he could do that in lots of ways. And I think he chose to focus on Brüno knowing that we'd have a helluva time talking about what's going on.

Michael brought up some great points about race and regionalism. Knowing I'm from the South, some people have already asked me if I was offended by the scenes in Alabama and Arkansas, but I wasn't. And I'm usually pretty reticent to laugh at characterizations of the ignorant South. I think he goes to the ex-gay ministry in Alabama because he found someone there willing to speak publicly more easily. I know of one ex-gay ministry in Ohio and one in Indiana that go under vague names and do not advertise publicly, but I've seen signs advertising ex-gay ministries in Mississippi and Alabama. I don't think he intended to stereotype the South a certain way, or it wasn't a major intention (not that he should be forgiven if it happens while unintended). I read that the military scenes were with the Alabama National Guard, but that's never said in the movie. And the Straight Dave scene happens in Arkansas, but that is only mentioned quickly by the announcer. There's no text or image that sets up the place for us. I think producers are often vague about place because they don't want us to focus on where it happened over what happens.

I think anyone who thinks these things would just happen in the South are mistaken. The scenes in Arkansas and Alabama happened there because producers could easily find people willing to express negative opinions about gay men so openly, and I think those people can be found across the United States. I would be willing to bet that they exist from sea to shining sea. And the crowd at Straight Dave's? I've heard people say that they could see it happening near their homes in central Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. I wonder if one reason why people are so eager to criticize the film for portraying the South in a certain way do so because of a fear, conscious or unconscious, that the same things could happen in their own state. And if they don't happen in urban centers, it's not because people are more enlightened. It's because there are also a sizable number of people who will confront such ignorance. In rural places? Those people are not more ignorant than others. There just might be fewer people willing to confront public displays of ignorance. Having experienced the worst homophobia of my life in Massachusetts and experienced some of the greatest kindness in Texas, I fell confident that bigoted thinking exists everywhere. It's the public display of it (or the public confrontation) that might be different in different places.

I'm going to be very curious to see what comes of this film. I think many people will be afraid to talk about it, and I think many will just be ready to dismiss it outright. But I think a rich discussion will evolve in some circles, too.