Tag: Rape

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Bros Before Hoes, or How Kidnapping Makes for Great Dance Numbers: on ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’

This is a guest review by Jessica Freeman-Slade. 
When Bitch Flicks first put out the call for a review of the movie musical landscape, this was the first movie that came to mind. It has all the elements of a great movie musical: the hummable ditties of Kiss Me, Kate, the buoyant dance sequences of West Side Story, and the Technicolor treatment of the great Pioneer experience of Oklahoma! But when you add blatant misogyny, barn-raisings and male bravado, and taking women by force as the ultimate romantic gesture, you get Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The 1954 movie, directed by Stanley Donen (Singin’ in the Rain) with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, with choreography from the great Michael Kidd, is often overlooked when considering the movie musical genre. There are, admittedly, many musicals that enjoy examining the battle of the sexes, and most old-school romantic comedies start with a Dude™ and a Chick™ squabbling over their differences. But very few of those ever let the man be so backwards that he equates courtship and conquering, or has a woman responsible for civilizing and subduing men’s worst impulses. It’s like Lysistrata and The Hangover got together and held a barn dance–a big, beautiful Crayola-colored extravaganza.

In 1821, Oregon Territory, Adam Pontipee (the impossibly rugged Howard Keel) is looking to fetch himself a wife—not for the purposes of high-falutin’ romance, family, and lifelong happiness, no. “I’d like best a widow woman that ain’t afraid to work,” he says, at the general store, where he’d just as quickly pick up a mate as he would 25 pounds of chewing tobacco. “There’s seven of us men, me and my six brothers. Place is like a pigsty, and the food tastes worse….” Adam is out for marriage in the purest economical sense: in this new territory, there are ten men for every woman, and so Adam’s priority is availability, not compatibility.

 

“Bless Yo’ Beautiful Hide,” he booms, and it’s not until he sees Millie (Jane Powell, strong of axe and soft of heart) that he knows he can go out and buy with gusto. She makes great stew, so that’s half the battle, and she is used to tending men in a boarding house, so he considers her the perfect bride.

He offers marriage, she accepts (as she’s fallen for him on first sight), and off they go in his wagon back to his cabin in the mountains, where she meets his six red-bearded, bullish brothers. Millie bristles at caring for her brother-in-laws without some control, and so she withholds a hot breakfast and newly washed clothes until they promise to shave and settle down like gentleman. It seems that what this house has longed for is not an extra hand in the washroom, but a gentle and firm guide to proper etiquette.

What Millie discovers, as she gets to know these boys, is that they long to go out and snatch up girls of their own—which they do, in spectacular fashion, at the town’s barn raising. The brothers Pontipee, all in primary colors, demonstrate through dazzling choreography how dashing and desirable they can be, and sweep the girls off their feet. Just watch how leapfrogging, arm wrestling, log-rolling, and balletic machismo pays off. (This is the most spectacular sequence of the movie, and it’s impossible to watch without a slaphappy grin. Jacques d’Amboise and a very young Russ Tamblyn steal the show as Ephraim and Gideon, defying gravity with every move.)

But of course, the boys get into a fistfight with the girls’ other suitors, and soon they’re back on the farm, suffering through the early days of a long winter. It’s lovely to see these men pining, something so rarely explored outside of the musical theater realm, while maintaining their rugged outdoorsmen personas. (This is, of course, expressed through the delicate art of ax ballet.)
The enlivening force of Seven Brides is male longing, and it makes for great theater. The Pontipee brothers have lived hard, but falling in love is what softens and civilizes them. But all that civilization is for nothing when Adam, modern man that he is, devises a brilliant scheme, pulled straight out of Millie’s copy of Plutarch’s Lives. Why not do like the Romans did with the Sabine women?
And then comes the merriest song about rape ever.
The brothers are shaken out of their depression by the chance to reassert their manhood, and off they go to town, snatching up their girls from backyards and front porches and carrying them off, squealing and crying. An avalanche falls as they are passing through the mountains, preventing the angry families and boyfriends from reaching the Pontipees. Millie, horrified to discover what the boys have done, reasserts her right over the house (the one territory that has become completely hers to control) and sends the boys to the barn for the entire winter, taking the girls inside and keeping them under close watch.

This ends up being a bit of a tease, since the girls get their own dance (about marriage, natch), and Millie discovers she’s pregnant. And though the girls start warming up to the brothers (peeking through windows, running around in their skivvies), the snow that blocks the pass never melts.

Once it does, we get lovely sequences of the girls and boys frolicking together with baby farm animals (no, this movie is not subtle), and Adam stays holed up in his hunting cabin, resentful of Millie’s banishment. But once he learns he has a baby—and at that, a baby girl—Adam breaks down and returns home to be the man he’s supposed to be. Though their families come to retrieve them, and the brothers are ready to set them free, the girls refuse to leave, claiming the newborn as their own. For better or for worse, we get a group marriage of a finale, and a whole bunch of color-coordinated couples once more.
So what do we make of such a strangely backwards story of frontier courtship? For one, that men, without the guiding impulses of a good woman, will behave like savages. Whether they demonstrate that savagery at the breakfast table or at a barn-raising, it’s clear that the Pontipee brothers have impulse control issues, and they just can’t help themselves. Their needs—for food, for dominance, for love—trump almost everything reasonable and refined, and they have been taught, as pioneers of this new and uncharted territory, to take when they can. Though Adam is charming and sexy as hell—seriously, George Clooney and Howard Keel could have a smirk-off—he treats Millie like a servant at best, and property at worst. “It wouldn’t hurt you to learn some manners, too.” she remarks at the barn-raising. “What for?” he counters. “I already got me a wife.”

You can argue that Millie should’ve seen this unfair exchange coming when Adam first walked into her boarding house—and she had no real incentive to get married. Gainfully employed, resourceful, well-liked and respected by her community (especially by the women), Millie could’ve easily stayed on her own in this new country. But she, too, is softened by love, and so she is the one that understands the brothers’ plight, not Adam. You can fault the captured girls a little less than Millie, at least initially—but they too get their attic ballet-in-bloomers about the dream of summer weddings. We are expected, no matter if our house or barn needs tending, to wish for a pairing-off, and the frontier certainly looks less terrifying if you are facing it alone.

But ultimately this is a movie that asks where male compassion comes from—and the last few scenes seem to conclude that it’s when sexual politics are made personal. Holding his newborn baby girl in his arms for the first time, Adam says, “I got to thinking up at the cabin, about the baby. How I’d feel if someone came creeping in and carried her off. I’d string him up the nearest tree. I’d shoot him down as I would a thieving fox.” It’s when Adam has to think about another man out there, treating his daughter like she was property just waiting to be taken, to stir him to a nobler state of mind. Just imagine if a Seven Brides scenario applied to every zealot or backwards politician who questioned a woman’s right to her own body and state of security, if all their wives and girlfriends were subjected to sexual scrutiny. We’ve be living in a very different universe—and this ain’t even Oregon territory.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers can certainly leave you feeling ambivalent, and possibly wondering whether this lovely closing marriage sequence is a symptom of Stockholm syndrome. But what it mostly offers—spectacular dance sequences, memorable songs, and an interesting take on what it means to be “civilized” by love—makes for a rollicking good musical, and an underappreciated classic.
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Jessica Freeman-Slade is a writer who has written reviews for The Rumpus, The Millions, The TK Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Specter Magazine, among others. She works at Random House as a cookbook editor, and lives in Morningside Heights.
    

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:
Does Lena Dunham’s “Casual Racism” Matter? by Samhita Mukhopadhyay via Feministing
This Is Perfect and That Is Not Sarcasm by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville
Megan‘s Picks:
The Glamorous Lure of Hollywood Violence by Madeleine Gyory via Women’s Media Center
Remembering Phyllis Diller by Kelsey Wallace via Bitch Magazine Blog
Brenda Chapman on Writing Brave by Susan J. Morris via Women and Hollywood 
What have you been reading this week?? Tell us in the comments!

Women in Science Fiction Week: ‘Splice’: Womb Horror and the Mother Scientist
Guest post written by Mychael Blinde.
NSFW | Trigger warning for survivors of sexual assault
Warning: Spoilers abound!!
Splice explores gendered body horror at the locus of the womb, reveling in the horror of procreation. It touches on themes of bestiality, incest, and rape. It’s also a movie about being a mom.
Though it received somewhat lackluster reviews, I encourage anyone interested in feminism and film to give Vincenzo Natali’s sci-fi body horror film a try. Splice features female characters who are intelligent, emotionally complex, and incontrol. They’re not perfect, but they are three dimensional characters whose decisions drive the story. (One of them morphs into a male, but we’ll get to that.)
Splice asks a lot of questions about the terms and conditions of conception, gestation, birth,and motherhood, all without stabbing the viewer in the eye with reductive answers.
It also features some campy moments. Hipster scientists shout things like “It was the only way!” Academy Award winning actor Adrien Brody expresses his frustration by throwing down not just his jacket, but his scarf as well!
If you can stomach the juxtaposition of big thinky concepts and stilted clichéd dialogue, you will find Splice a thoroughly enjoyable mindfuck of a film.
Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) and Clive Nicoli (Brody), long-term partners in romance and biochemistry, have developed a method to splice the DNA from various animals together to create hybrid creatures.
Viewers are actually birthed into the film from the perspective of Fred, the couple’s latest scientific endeavor, a male companion to their first hybrid, Ginger.
Splice
Elsa and Clive aspire to splice human DNA to develop cures for genetic diseases, but the pharmaceutical company funding their research puts a halt on all splicing until the duo can synthesize the medicinal protein necessary to create a commercially viable lifestock drug.
Newstead Pharma’s financial interests are represented by Joan Chorot (Simona Maicanescu), who insists Elsa and Clive begin “Phase Two: The product stage.”
Joan Chorot (Simona Maicanescu) in Splice
Joan doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but her brief appearances are a pleasure to watch. She’s articulate and always in control. It’s awesome to see a woman kicking ass in the role of the money-grubbing corporation, and Joan is a stellar example of how to do it right.
After their splicing research is shut down, Clive suggests they quit, but Elsa convinces Clive to proceed with the human splicing and to generate an embryo.
Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) in Splice
In both the romantic and the professional relationship between Clive and Elsa (and this is a movie very much interested in the conflation of work and sex), Elsa is in charge.
Over and over, Elsa insists that they take the next step. She is the opposite of what I call the Male Protagonist’s Girlfriend — a  pretty lady bystander who supplements the male protagonist’s story arc.
Elsa and Clive also deviate from the typical representation of long-term monogamous heterosexual partners: it is he, not she, who desires to have a child:
Elsa: “You are talking about having a kid.”
Clive: “Is that so unreasonable?”
Elsa: “Yeah, because I’m the one who has to have it…”
Clive: “Come on. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Elsa: “How about after we crack male pregnancy?”

Meaningfully, this discussion is cut short by an alert sent from the machine housing the hybrid fetus. When they arrive at the lab, the embryo is all grown up and preparing to evacuate the biochemically engineered womb.
Though Elsa doesn’t gestate and birth the baby from her own body, the birth experience is physically traumatizing for her. She becomes trapped in the birth canal and is injected with poisonous serum. In a rare moment of control, Clive saves Elsa. But after the birth, Elsa again takes charge: she refuses to allow Clive to kill the female hybrid and insists that they raise her in the lab.
Weirdly, the couple begins to function less like scientists and more like normal parents: frustrated because the baby won’t eat, stressed out because it won’t stop crying. However, unlike most parents, their baby has a stinging whip tail, and they are forced to relegate their progeny to the laboratory’s basement to keep her existence a secret.
Elsa (Sarah Polley) in Splice
Elsa becomes more and more emotionally attached to the creature, and eventually names her Dren. Clive is worried about their secret being revealed and disturbed by Elsa’s displays of maternal affection. Nevertheless, he resigns himself to raising her, and Dren grows to be a young adult in a matter of months.
One night, Clive and Elsa realize they haven’t boned down lately. Clive doesn’t have any condoms, but Elsa says, “What’s the worst that could happen?” – suggesting that she’s decided she wouldn’t mind gestating a child, maybe? – and they have at. This is the first of three sex scenes in Splice.
Cinematically, their lovemaking is depicted as underwhelming. Neither Elsa nor Clive take off any clothing. Creepily, Dren watches.
Meanwhile, pressure is building at the pharmaceutical company.
Their presentation at the shareholders’ meeting goes disastrously wrong. Unbeknownst to Clive and Elsa, their specimen Ginger has changed into a male, and Ginger and Fred tear each other apart and splash guts and blood all over the audience. Not good PR.
In deep shit with the company, Clive and Elsa are forced to relocate Dren to Elsa’s deceased mother’s farm.
Here we learn the backstory of Elsa’s childhood; themes of feminism, motherhood, and family history come into play.
We learn that Elsa’s mother forbade Barbies and makeup. Elsa explains that “She said makeup debased women.” The word “feminist” is never used in Splice, but Elsa’s mother’s Barbie-banning and makeup-denying seem emblematic of a certain type of feminist parenting.
We also learn that Elsa’s mother raised her in substandard living conditions, relegating her to a ramshackle, barely furnished bedroom.
Initially I viewed this as a problematic conflation of being a feminist with being a neglectful person and bad mother. But it’s far more complicated than that.
Elsa expresses her love for Dren by giving her the very things her mother denied her.
Dren (Delphine Chanéac) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) in Splice
But the Barbie and the makeover don’t make Dren happy; in fact, the Barbie explicitly makes Dren sad. Looking into a mirror, she holds the doll’s long blonde tresses against her bald head and becomes upset.
Over the course of the film, Elsa locks Dren up in a lab, then a basement, and eventually her mother’s barn, and Dren resents her for it. Elsa seems unable to break the cycle of her own mother’s physical and emotional neglect.
Perhaps the idea is that makeup is not a substitute for ideal living quarters and engaged parenting. What matters isn’t whether or not you give your daughter a Barbie, but whether or not you lock her in a barn.
And it turns out, Dren really is Elsa’s genetic daughter. To his chagrin, Clive discovers Elsa used her own DNA to create Dren: “Why the fuck did you want to make her in the first place? Huh? For the betterment of mankind? You never wanted a normal child because you were afraid of losing control. But an experiment…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but it seems clear that Elsa is using science as a way to disassociate herself from motherhood while still being able to create and raise a child. Presumably we’re to understand that Elsa’s desire for complete control stems from her tragic upbringing: “Look at your family history,” Clive exhorts.
Elsa tries to convey her genetic connection to Dren by explaining to her: “You’re a part of me, and I’m a part of you. I’m inside you.” She strives to smooth over their mother-daughter animosity, but the two wind up in a physical altercation that results in Elsa knocking Dren unconscious, tying her up, stripping her naked, and removing her tail and stinger. This scene has undertones of both castration and rape. Elsa has become a monstrous mother scientist.
Clive is horrified by Elsa’s actions, but she informs him that she is going to use Dren’s amputated stinger to finally synthesize the protein and heads to the lab, where she succeeds.
Elsa (Sarah Polley) in Splice
She tells off her obnoxious supervisor: “When some real scientists get here, come take a look.”
While Elsa’s away, Dren seduces Clive. If Elsa’s sin is her obsessive need to control, Clive’s sin is his inclination to relinquish control.
This is the film’s second sex scene. Cinematically it is sensual, queer in a fantasy-mythical-creature sort of way, strange but beautiful. Ominously, Dren grows back her tail stinger. Then Clive notices Elsa has come back and is watching them. She storms out and he chases her. Back at their apartment, Clive and Elsa decide that they finally have to kill Dren.
But when they return to the barn, it turns out Dren is already dying. After she dies, Clive’s brother (who also works in the lab) and their supervisor show up. He announces he knows their secret and demands to see the human-spliced creature. Elsa informs him that Dren is dead, throws a shovel at him and says, “See for yourself.”
Except Dren is no longer buried behind the barn. Like Ginger, she has morphed into a male, and in the film’s climax, he kills everybody but Elsa.
Dren as male in Splice
A note on the gender transition: I am uncomfortable with the representation of Dren’s metamorphosis from female to male. It is predicated on the idea that transitioning from a female body to a male body is horrific, and it exploits trans individuals by sensationalizing the transitioning body as evil and freakish. It’s not trans positive. I understand that Splice’s story necessitates this metamorphosis and that Dren isn’t exactly a human, but let’s call out problematic shit when we see it.
Chasing women through the woods at night is a staple of slasher flicks, but this movie isn’t about slashing – it’s about splicing. Dren chases Elsa through the woods, but instead of slaughtering Elsa, Dren rapes her.
This is Splice’s third sex scene. Cinematically it is gut-wrenchingly horrifying, as any rape depicted onscreen needs to be in order to convey the awfulness that is sexual violation. Dren’s rape of Elsa is as disgusting and awful as Dren’s sex with Clive is beautiful and sensual.
When Elsa screams “What do you want?” Dren replies: “Inside…of…you.”
Clive stabs Dren with a branch (wielding the metaphorical phallus) as Dren orgasms, but Dren is not killed, and attacks Clive. Elsa pulls her pants back on and bashes Dren in the head with a big rock. This critically injurs Dren, who takes a moment to survey the situation – then stabs Clive with his tail. Elsa bashes Dren in the head again, killing Dren once and for all.
Elsa is the character who cut off Dren’s stinger and the one who deals Dren the death blow. And yet in his final moments, Dren chooses to kill Clive. Why?
Because inside of Elsa is a womb, the growing space for a new creature. And sure enough, in the film’s resolution we discover that Elsa is pregnant. Of the three sexual encounters that take place in this movie, the reproductively viable encounter is the rape. Elsa lives to be the final girl not because she wields a chainsaw, but because she wields womb. (And a big rock.)
Unlike Veronica of The Fly (“I want an abortion!”) or, more recently, Elizabeth of Prometheus (“Get it out of me!”), Elsa decides to gestate her monster progeny to term.
I appreciate both The Fly and Prometheus because each asks its audience to empathize with a woman who desperately needs an abortion. I also appreciate Splice for asking its viewers to honor Elsa’s decision not to abort. Joan makes it clear that Elsa has a choice: “Nobody would blame you if you didn’t do this. You could just put an end to it and walk away.” (Would that this were the standard response to women experiencing unwanted pregnancies!)
But Elsa does not to put an end to it. Why does she decide to bring it to term?
Sure, the company’s giving her a shitload of money for gestating Dren’s offspring. But throughout the film, Elsa has insisted on moving forward with human splicing experiments. Perhaps she sees this as a necessary extension of that research.
Or maybe this is another chance for Elsa to use science to mediate motherhood. Is the pregnancy Elsa’s punishment, or her redemption? We’ll never know. All she says is, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The film closes with a shot of the two women, the film’s only surviving characters, looking out a window.
Mychael Blinde is not a scientist, but she is afraid to give birth. She is interested in representations of gender in popular culture and blogs at Vagina Dentwata.

Daniel Tosh and Rape Culture: The Roundup

Daniel Tosh

Serious Trigger Warning for discussions of rape, rape culture, and sexual assault. 

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Last Thursday, Megan wrote a piece about the recent Daniel Tosh clusterfuck–“Dear Daniel Tosh: You Know What’s Even Less Funny Than Rape Jokes? Rape Threats“–in which she discusses “his misogynistic douchebaggery as he verbally attacked a female audience member.”

She writes:

But just in case you haven’t [heard] or if you need a refresher, the woman called Tosh out amidst his performance at The Laugh Factory. Here’s what the woman told her friend who posted it on her blog which has now gone viral:
“So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didnt appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
“I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.
“After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…”
Wow. What. The. Fuck. Rape jokes are never funny. Ever. Making a rape joke is bad enough. But attacking an audience member who calls bullshit on said rape joke?? Calling for her to be gang raped?? Horrifying and disgusting.
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Pretty much! We’ve written about the perpetuation of rape culture in the past, specifically after the New York Times essentially blamed an eleven-year-old girl for her own gang rape:
And we’ve noticed a few things here and there: rape being played for laughs in Observe and Report; the sexual trafficking of women used as a plot device in Taken; the constant dismemberment of women in movie posters; the damaging caricatures of women as sex objects in Black Snake Moan and The Social Network; and we’ve often pointed to discussions of sexism and misogyny around the net, like the sexual violence in Antichrist and, most recently, the sexualized corpses of women in Kanye West’s Monster video. It barely grazes the surface. I mean, it barely grazes the fucking surface of what a viewer sees during the commercial breaks of a 30-minute sitcom.

Yet, this constant, unchecked barrage of endless and obvious woman-hating undoubtedly contributes to the rape of women and girls.

The sudden idealization of Charlie Sheen as some bad boy to be envied, even though he has a violent history of beating up women, contributes to the rape of women and girls. Bills like H. R. 3 that seek to redefine rape and further the attack on women’s reproductive rights contributes to the rape of women and girls. Supposed liberal media personalities like Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann showing their support for Julian Assange by denigrating Assange’s alleged rape victims contributes to the rape of women and girls. The sexist commercials that advertisers pay millions of dollars to air on Super Bowl Sunday contribute to the rape of women and girls. And blaming Lara Logan for her gang rape by suggesting her attractiveness caused it, or the job was too dangerous for her, or she shouldn’t have been there in the first place, contributes to the rape of women and girls.  

It contributes to rape because it normalizes violence against women. Men rape to control, to overpower, to humiliate, to reinforce the patriarchal structure. And the media, which is vastly controlled by men, participates in reproducing already existing prejudices and inequalities, rather than seeking to transform them.
And it pisses me off.

Allow me to add the Daniel Tosh Rape Threat Controversy to the list. 

Below you’ll find a slew of excerpted articles written by feminists who oppose Tosh’s “joke” … and the controversy doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. Stay tuned for updates, and please leave any links I’ve missed — or links to any pieces you’ve written — in the comments.

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Daniel Tosh Is a Rape Culture Enforcer by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville

There isn’t much I can say about this, at least nothing I haven’t already said literally hundreds of times before in every conceivable way I can imagine: Rape jokes are not funny. They potentially trigger survivors, and they uphold the rape culture. They tacitly convey approval of rape to rapists, who do not appreciate “rape irony.” There is no neutral in rape culture, and jokes that diminish or normalize rape empower rapists. Rape jokes are pro-rape.
Shakesville has written extensively about this. You can find more of McEwan’s commentary under the tag Toshgate.

 
Male Comics: Stop Enabling Rape Culture by Molly Jane Knefel via Salon

Indeed, like one of those terrifying millipedes, this controversy gave birth to a thousand little baby controversies once it was opened up. It has led to conversations about if and how rape jokes can ever be funny; it has illuminated Tosh’s history of laughing at violence against women; it has called attention to the horrifying statistic that one in four women has experienced sexual assault, and that those women are in the audiences of comedy shows. It’s made some question whether it is ever right — or only right — for women like Sarah Silverman to make these jokes. It has also prompted comics to defend satire, to defend setups, to explain why interrupting a comic mid-joke is disrespectful and to remember all the terrible things they have said to hecklers to shut them down. But there is one really important controversy that we cannot let get away from the comedians: Why are there so many rape jokes in the first place?
This is about whether comedy, and the world at large really, will allow women to push back against rape culture. This woman felt uncomfortable with Tosh’s rape comments because we live in a world where rape is expected, and she doesn’t find that funny. Tosh’s response, and the responses of his colleagues, aren’t about defending rape jokes—we live in a society where, unfortunately, they don’t need defending—they’re about shutting this woman up. They’re about maintaining the status quo—the one where men are allowed to rape women who talk back, who dress like sluts, who “ask for it”—at all costs, even if it means threatening someone with gang rape. If she tries to fight back then she just doesn’t get it. And if others call out this behavior, then they don’t get it either.
When Rape Jokes Are Never Funny by Meghan O’Keefe via Huffington Post
If this is what Tosh wanted to do artistically, then, well, he has every right as a comedian to do so. The fact that he backpedaled on the joke on twitter however suggests that he doesn’t want to be seen as that kind of comic. Again, Tosh wants to be liked. He wants to be popular, and so we circle back to the fact that the problem isn’t Daniel Tosh. The problem is that our society is still a rape culture where a large percentage of people think that rape’s OK and that a girl in a short skirt is asking for it and that it’s funny to assault someone. Not for the sake of satire, but for one person’s amusement over another person’s real life victimization.
Do You Laugh at Rape Jokes? by Soraya Chemaly via Fem2.0
Culture is why Tosh is just a symptom. He’s simply doing what works to generate a small fortune, capture six million Twitter followers and be a number one rated comedian. That’s why this isn’t a First Amendment problem but one of market demand. The First Amendment gives people the right to make rape jokes and this right is critical and non-negotiable. But, it doesn’t obligate comedians to tell these jokes, nor does it obligate others to pay to hear them because they find them entertaining. That’s a matter of our culture and what is considered the current norm for human decency and empathy. Tosh in this way is no different from Facebook – which chose to keep rape joke pages up (in violation of its own guidelines prohibiting hate speech, if they apply to women) but removed a picture of an asexualized woman walking down the street topless in NY for being obscene. I’m not letting him off the hook, though. He has no (meaningless) corporate guidelines to follow, but he has an ethical choice about the jokes he makes and how he makes them.  Rape jokes aren’t simply R-rated antics.

Yes, many comedians take life’s tragedies and make fun of them; they use humor as a way of coping with the awful things that happen to people. It’s actually similar to my own defense that bringing the funny into feminism and social justice makes it all the more accessible and fun, and can be a way for us to collectively laugh at the injustice that we have to deal with on a daily basis.
What Tosh did was not that.

But would it be funny if this girl got gang raped right this moment, like right now right now? That’s not a joke. It’s an invitation. It’s a celebration of a violent crime, which is itself another violation. It’s not a way to cope. It’s a “this is something we can do and then laugh about it, no big deal.” When you reiterate these half-truths (there are girls in the world getting raped by like five guys right now), they authenticate themselves, as if by magic. To promote the insidious—“rape is hilarious”—is to join the crime at its own filthy level.
Anatomy of a Successful Rape Joke by Jessica Valenti via The Nation
Those supporting Tosh are outraged that anyone would dare tell a comedian how to be funny. (There’s also been a lot of “if you can’t take the heat” sentiment aimed at this woman, given that she heckled Tosh.) Many of his defenders insist that his joke—and other jokes about rape—are simply edgy and controversial, which is what a comedian is supposed to be.
But here’s the thing: threatening women with rape, making light of rape, and suggesting that women who speak up be raped is not edgy or controversial. It’s the norm. This is what women deal with every day. Maintaining the status quo around violence against women isn’t exactly revolutionary.
How to Make a Rape Joke by Lindy West via Jezebel
That said, a comedy club is not some sacred space. It’s a guy with a microphone standing on a stage that’s only one foot above the ground. And the flip-side of that awesome microphone power you have—wow, you can seriously say whatever you want!—is that audiences get to react to your words however we want. The defensive refrains currently echoing around the internet are, “You just don’t get it—comedians need freedom. That’s how comedy gets made. If you don’t want to be offended, then stay out of comedy clubs.” (Search for “comedians,” “freedom,” “offended,” and “comedy clubs” on Twitter if you don’t believe me.) You’re exactly right. That is how comedy gets made. So CONSIDER THIS YOUR FUCKING FEEDBACK. Ninety percent of your rape material is not working, and you can tell it’s not working because your audience is telling you that they hate those jokes. This is the feedback you asked for.

And I know that when it comes to subjects as complex as rape, using exceptions can seem like slippery logic. That if we let one slip, then another, we might end up right back where we started. That “good” jokes and “bad” jokes seem too subjective, too flimsy a compass in which to measure.
But we also forget that anger is not the only response to social injustice. That we are also allowed to–and desperately need–a space of our own to talk back to it, make fun of it, not let it get to us.
I think the point of Lindy West’s article, in the end, is that when it comes to comedy, context is everything. With it, we have the most dangerous and clever kind of power. And without it, we have, well–Tosh.
Many online observers were quick to criticize Tosh’s comments but comedians were just as quick to back him up.
Alex Edelman, a professional stand-up comedian based in New York, told the Guardian: “I find rape to be a really serious topic, but on the other hand I think a comedian should be allowed to say almost whatever he wants and that the audience should be able to manifest their dislike in the form of not laughing at something if they find it offensive.”

Daniel Tosh Jokes About Seeing a Heckler Get Gang Raped by Alyssa Rosenberg via Think Progress
A good comedian is an alchemist who can turn heckling into a transformative extended riff. Here it sounds like Tosh just doubled down on the same points he was making rather than actually responding, or providing an example of a rape joke that his heckler might find funny, undermining her objection. As I’ve written before, I think there is a case to be made that rape jokes that make fun of perpetrators can be very funny. Tosh didn’t go there, though. He just took the quickest route to run his heckler out of the club, and in using an image of her getting raped to mock and intimidate her, kind of made her point instead of his own. If rape was just hilarious and uproarious and trivial, it wouldn’t be a very effective rhetorical or literal weapon. Tosh isn’t just failing at civility here. He’s being a bad comedian.

We’ve had a lot of conversation on this blog about the way Daniel Tosh handled a woman who told him rape jokes weren’t funny at a recent show. There are a lot of threads to parse here—how people handle heckling (and how clubs should handle them)*, whether rape jokes can be funny under any circumstances, why comedians close ranks around their own. But I want to separate those issues out and talk very specifically about another strain of argument. One thread of conversation here has suggested that the woman who related her story was wrong, or oversensitive to feel threatened when Tosh suggested it would be funny if she were gang raped. The idea behind those objections is that no one would ever act based on Tosh’s words, and that because there isn’t a real prospect of her being actually assaulted, there is no impact to his words. This is wrong on two levels.

Comedian Daniel Tosh and the Culture of Rape in America by Beth via Veracity Stew

So, while comedians like Tosh shrug this off and say, It was just a joke, I will say, this isn’t a laughing matter anymore — not that it ever was — especially in a climate where women are being vilified and degraded for standing up for their most basic of rights, and to defend Daniel Tosh and his comments based solely on the fact that he’s a comedian, is unacceptable and inexcusable.
  • 44% of rape victims are under the age of 18
  • 80% are under the age of 30
  • Every two minutes, a person is raped in the U.S.
  • Each year, 207,754 victims are raped
  • 54% of sexual assaults are not reported to police
  • 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail
These victims are mothers and daughters, sisters and wives, best friends and colleagues…in short, someone you may know and love. And you can rest assured that they probably will not see the “humor” in their plight.
When that woman stood up and said, “No, rape is not funny,” she did not consent to participating in a culture that encourages lax attitudes toward sexual violence and the concerns of women. Rape humor is what encourages a man to feel comfortable tweeting to Daniel Tosh, “the only ppl who are mad at you are the feminist bitches who never get laid and hope they get raped so they can get laid,” which is one of the idiotic, Pavlovian responses a certain kind of person has when women have the nerve to suggest that they don’t find sexual violence amusing. In that man’s universe, women who get properly laid are totally fine with rape humor. A satisfied vagina is a balm in Gilead.
Three Points About Rape Jokes and Rape Culture by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre via Feministing
These “little” things add up—maybe it’s a rape joke at the comedy club, plus a newspaper op-ed blaming the victim, plus a music video turning women into objects, plus a fellow student saying “that test raped me,” plus movies or TV shows that glamorize the “tough anti-hero taking what he wants without apology,” plus a family culture of silence and shame around sex, plus a police force who just goes through the motions when it comes to investigating or working to prevent sexual assault, plus a million other things—it’s a tsunami of shit. And you can add to it, or you can fight against it.
The “Context” of Daniel Tosh’s Rape Joke by Imran Siddiquee via MissRepresentation
Imagine you’re in a country where people are still consistently assaulted for having dark skin. In this context you suggest that the lighter skinned people in the room whip a brown man into submission after he complains that jokes about darker people being persecuted aren’t funny. Might this make us uncomfortable? Probably, because when the brown man steps out into the real night outside the comedy club, there is a good chance he could actually get beaten and murdered. There’s also a history of this kind of violence actually happening around the world.
Does the “right” to joke about anything trump the realities of the place in which those jokes are being made?
Or imagine you are a heterosexual comedian in present-day Senegal (where being homosexual is illegal and gay men are often killed for being gay), speaking in front of an audience that includes people of various sexual preferences, and you make a joke about how killing gay people is always funny. And then a person in the audience shouts back “I’m gay and I don’t think it’s always funny.” And you proceed to say, hey, what if we beat up that gay guy right now? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?

I Know Funny and Rape Jokes Are NOT. by Cristy Cardinal via UpRoot
As we would expect, his defensiveness is couched in “It’s just a joke” and the “I make fun of everyone” and “You’re too sensitive” rhetoric that is the stock in trade of hurtful comedians who want license to tell tired jokes that weren’t funny the first time they were told 100 years ago, but make people slightly uncomfortable so they must be saying something important.  Comedians like Tosh compare themselves to guys like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, who said “offensive” things all the time.  The difference, however, is that Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor were exposing the truth of our culture as wrong and in need of redirection, and comedians like Tosh merely reflect back the worst of us in a bald-faced and uncritical way.  The way Tosh tells a racist joke venerates the racism, the way Pryor talked about racism made us aware that racism hurt people (while making us laugh).  There’s an ocean of difference in that.
Still Here by Cristy Cardinal via UpRoot
Daniel Tosh tried to make joke out of rape, and when someone protested, he shut her down with a threat of rape, which was not a joke but actual violence.  When I, as well as other feminist bloggers, spoke up in support of this woman, we were threatened with rape to shut us down.  It is ironic (and not in the cute hipster irony, but in the real deal kind), that the complaint many of Tosh’s supporters are making is that we are trampling on his creative process or freedom of expression by expecting him to be a decent human being.  And they are using violent and cruel rape rhetoric to try to get us to shut up.  We can’t use our freedom of speech to say, “What Daniel Tosh said crossed the line, and here’s why” but he, and his supporters, can use their freedom of speech to annihilate our humanity.  IRONY!
For Daniel Tosh, Actually Assaulting Women Is Comedy by Angus Johnston via Student Activism
What this confirms is that the whole Tosh thing isn’t about jokes. Tosh isn’t just a guy who tells stories on stage. He’s a guy whose comedy includes actually physically assaulting women, and directing his fans to do the same. And this is the guy who, after a woman challenged his rape jokes, mused aloud about how funny it would be if she “got raped by like, five” of those same fans, right then and there.
“Right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her?”
Damn.
Tosh uses some classic tricks to apologize, without really apologizing.

Trick One: I was misquoted. Tosh seeks to relieve himself of any responsibility, since, hey, he didn’t even say it.

Trick Two: I was the victim. Tosh seeks to undermins his apology by defending the point that started the entire interaction. He did nothing wrong but defend himself of a heinous violation–heckling! This is a weak apology at best and a passive aggressive dig at worst.

Does he really think people will not see the trickery he is employing to NOT apologize but say he is? Well, if he does, he’s right, because the media has reported his non-apology as the real thing.

Dear Comedians, and People Like Me Who Think They’re Comedians: Please Stop by Jonnie Marbles via Anarch*ish*

What made me stop telling rape jokes? I wish it had been what my sister told me, I wish I’d stopped that day instead of spending around a year loftily telling women why words couldn’t hurt them, that they should lighten up and that they didn’t get it. At first I felt I had to keep telling the jokes – had to! – simply because someone didn’t want me to. Otherwise I wasn’t being true to my art. It would be self-censorship. Comedians had to be free to say anything. Most importantly, how could I stay friends with the godawful, cowardly dickheads who told these jokes on a nightly basis if I turned around and said I wouldn’t? Sooner or later, though, I just couldn’t. Perhaps it was the jaw locking, knuckle clenching effect these jokes were having on the friends I brought along to shows. I’d sit next to them in the audience, see their discomfort, their disgust and realise I was doing the exact same thing up there, whether I knew it or not. Perhaps it was realising just how rarely rape is reported, and how making fun of it makes that less likely still.
Calculating by scatx [Note: this post contains discussions of rape culture via Twitter]
What it’s like to be a woman living in rape culture. OR why I tweeted about the Tosh situation for 24 hours.
You can’t watch TV without being subjected to a rape joke. You can’t listen to the radio. You can’t browse Twitter trending topics. You can’t walk down the street without some jackass asking you, “Do I look like a rapist?” through his t-shirt. (And the answer is yes, yes you do.)
People use “rape” to describe how they were ripped off, or talk about “raping” the replay button on YouTube.
And you can’t discuss any of these cultural artifacts without people painting the purveyors of this brand of comedy in a golden, harmless light, while erasing the experiences of millions upon millions of sexual assault survivors—most of whom never report their assaults for fear of not being taken seriously. Hmm, now how can that be?

What Tosh and people supporting him don’t seem to get is that it’s not about freedom of speech or censorship or what’s funny and what’s not. Although I still contend rape jokes aren’t funny. But what’s really at the core of this situation is how we trivialize and disregard people’s pain, trauma and wounds. 1 in 4 women are raped. As I said before, Tosh crossed the line the moment he disregarded that woman’s concerns, asserted his male privilege and tried to humiliate her with a rape threat.
So why am I posting all these negative tweets? Is it just to call people out? Yes. But what’s more important is when we look at them as a collective. Then you begin to see just how prevalent and insidious rape culture truly is.
Tosh, you are currently at an amazing and terrible moment in your career. It’s terrible for (hopefully by now) obvious reasons. It could be amazing because at this moment, you have the opportunity to apologize (in a version that’s longer than 140 characters) and also to make an example of your situation and stop being offensive in your humor. You can show the world and comedians that there are more complex, interesting, and (ultimately) better ways to make someone laugh than by being offensive. And you can do it while people are watching and waiting to hear from you in the fallout of this event.

Good Comedy and Bad Comedy by Lauren Kay Gilmore via The Eternal Sunshine of the Scholastic Mind
Molly Ivins once said “Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful… when satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar.”

I stand behind that 100%. Humor in the hands of a bully is just much less appealing than humor used to point out how ridiculous the bully is being. It may technically still be humor, and it may still be the Constitutional right of that bully to make those jokes, but thinking that a bully’s jokes aren’t funny doesn’t make me a stick in the mud, it makes me a decent person.

Rape culture is when self-appointed guardians of “traditional values” like Rick Santorum tell rape victims that, yes, rape is horrible, but if your rapist impregnates you, it’s “nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.” Aw, rape victims no doubt think to themselves, an unwanted pregnancy conceived in rape? For me? From God? Awesome! After all, despite the ugliness of rape, says Rick, “We have to make the best out of a bad situation.” As even the most causal readers of this series know, according to Mr. High and Mighty, making the best out of bad situation means passing laws to force women who’ve been raped to carry their rape-babies to term. And a “Gee, thanks, God!” wouldn’t hurt, you ungrateful, selfish bitches. Just because you’ve been raped is no excuse to be thinking about yourself. There are more important considerations than the trauma of your violent assault—like how male politicians feel about your violent assault and how they feel that you should feel about it. That’s rape culture.
15 Rape Jokes That Work by Kate Harding
Not everyone’s going to agree, and some people are going to think I’m a bad feminist, which, what else is new. But I want to be able to link to this post in the future, when this happens again–because it always does–and hordes of young men start screaming–because they always do–that feminists are trying to take all the funny out of comedy AGAIN.

I am a feminist. I have been raped. And I think the following 15 rape jokes are hilarious. So please fuck all the way the fuck off with your “You just don’t understand comedy” bullshit. (Here’s an alternative proposal: Maybe you just don’t understand being a decent human being.)

Here’s what YOU need to understand:

1) Rape is way, WAY more prevalent than you seem to think it is. Are there more than five women in your audience? You do the math, and then you run the little fantasy scenario that I just put together in your head, and you tell me how it feels.

2) I ain’t buying any of that “If I can make jokes about genocide, why can’t I make jokes about rape?” Horseshit, unless you made those genocide jokes during a gig at the Srebrenica Funny Bone. You got away with making a joke about genocide because your odds of having a holocaust survivor’s kid in the audience were pretty fucking low.

And if you did happen to have one in the audience, and he heckled you, walked out, and wrote something nasty on the internet… would you be more likely to be a human being and say “Wow. I can understand why that person’s authentic response to what I was doing was so emotional and negative. Maybe my genocide material just isn’t good enough to justify the pain that it inflicts. Maybe I need more skill in order to pull this off.” Or are you gonna be a lousy piece of shit and say, “Yeah, I apologize, I guess, IF YOU WERE OFFENDED.”

Offended hasn’t got anything to do with it, moron.

I’m not a comedian, and am only occasionally (mostly not on purpose) funny. I’m not here to comment on humor or what passes as a joke these days. However, an unintended conversation on Twitter yesterday, coupled with a story from a friend got me thinking.
Last night I found myself engaged with a comedian who didn’t quite understand why everyone was so up in arms over Tosh’s “joke.” Relax. Take a chill pill. You’re overreacting. You have no sense of humor, etc… I did my best to not engage, but when he verbally attacked a friend of mine, I stepped in. I was rational. I was calm. I made some logical points. And yet…
(I’ve chosen not to share screen caps of our conversation because I don’t need to give this guy any more attention. The bolding/color highlighting are my doing).

Can Rape Jokes Ever Be Funny? by Sarah Seltzer via AlterNet [includes video]
The answer to this bogus claim, of course, is that humor is at its best when it subverts the norm. In a rape culture such as ours, the norm is to pile scorn and disbelief upon victims and excuse perpetrators. So rape jokes that further humiliate victims aren’t edgy, they’re just bullying. But jokes that call attention to rape culture can be funny and even receive the feminist seal of approval.
A number of awesome feminist friends of AlterNet from the Women’s Media Center, PopCulturePirate, Women In Media & News, and Fem2pt0 teamed up this week to create a “supercut” of a variety of rape jokes, including several from Daniel Tosh which in my mind show exactly on which side of the line his particularsense of humor lies. The video, however, makes no overt judgments, but asks audience members to decide for themselves where that line is, what makes them laugh, and what makes them uncomfortable.

It seems that the heart of this incident is the question of whether or not it is appropriate for comedians to joke about rape. It could be argued that in this case, people defending Tosh are arguing it is appropriate to threaten someone with rape in a comedy club (since, if we use their logic, supposedly in the context of a comedy club, this is not meant to be taken seriously since it is just “a joke” that you might not “get”).
But the real heart of this, and the reason it has struck a chord with so many people, is that it is a simple sad illustration of rape culture at work.

Daniel has made jokes about black men, Latino men, and other non-white men raping women because they’re all animals who can’t control their dicks.

When his rape jokes were rooted in racism, no one gave a fuck.

I wonder if this spurt of rape jokes/threats/insults is not as out of the blue as we would all like to think. I see it as starting with prison-rape jokes. No one seemed to bat an eyelash when we used jokes like “don’t drop the soap” or “you’ll end up with a cellmate named Bubba” or even “they have a way of taking care of people who fight dogs/pedophiles/wife-abusers in jail.”
Then along came movies and television shows in which male rape was funny. I was appalled by a scene in Get Him To The Greek in which a male star is anally raped by a woman wielding a large dildo. Then came True Blood in which Jason Stackhouse was gang raped by women. His trauma was minimized and the rape(s) were written as a humorous comeuppance for a serial womanizer.
Daniel Tosh, Rape Jokes and Hecklers by Margaret Lyons via Vulture
First, let’s get a few quick things out of the way: (1) This is totally in keeping with Daniel Tosh’s humor and style. He’s a lousy Reddit thread come to life, which is why he is so popular! (Just ask Jeff Dunham.) (2) Don’t heckle comedians, no matter how offensive and crappy you think their material is. (3) There’s no such thing as off-limits in comedy, and comedians are always — always — entitled to make jokes about whatever they want. But “entitled to” and “obligated to” are not the same thing, and comedy is not immune to criticism.
That’s 30 rape jokes in one segment. One segment in a half-hour show on Comedy Central. That averages one rape joke per minute. I’d love to know the demographics of his viewing audience, but I don’t even have to look to feel confident they skew heavily in the 18-34 range. Which is terrifying to me.
Sure, one can find humor in anything, but I’d like to think that humor is most often found by those who have experienced something. Humor in healing, humor in dealing. Not aggressive, unnecessary and belittling humor that essentially robs the victims (in general as well as those specified) of the fact that they. were. victimized.
When Rape Jokes Aren’t Funny by Julie Burton and Michelle Kinsey Bruns via CNN
Nonetheless, the significant overlap between the gender divide and the rape-joke empathy gap is real, and it seems inevitable when media coverage of rape so often focuses on what a victim should have done differently to try harder not to get raped. Such shoddy framing creates a fictional image that there’s a certain type of woman who gets raped. Women know that’s a lie, because they live the truth, but men may never have occasion to question that image, and so when they laugh at rape jokes, they’re laughing at an abstraction that’s all too real for many women.
Tosh and all those with the privilege to hold a microphone have a responsibility to shine a light on the reality behind the abstraction — not to perpetuate it, and certainly not to silence those who bear its burden.

Nope by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville
UPDATE: I also want to quickly address the argument I’m seeing a lot that Louis CK should be given “credit,” or some variation thereof, for either “evolving” on rape culture and/or speaking about rape culture on a national platform, despite the rest of his objectionable shtick.

First of all, contemplating rape culture for the first time as a 44-year-old man with two daughters, and patting oneself on the back for it instead of framing it as the profoundly regrettable evidence of privilege that is is, isn’t something that ought to be praised—and praising it breathes life into the terrible idea that rape culture is difficult for “men” to understand. That is not accurate. It’s not difficult for lots of male survivors; it’s not difficult for lots of trans* men; it’s not difficult for lots of gay men; it’s not difficult for lots of men who have been incarcerated; it’s not difficult for lots of men who are vulnerable by virtue of physical disability; it’s not difficult for lots of highly privileged men who simply have the willingness to listen to women.

Let us not confuse “difficult to understand” for “easy to ignore by virtue of privilege.”

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:

Daniel Tosh Is a Rape Culture Enforcer by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville

Sheila Heti, Lena Dunham, and the Challenges of Telling “Girly” Stories in Film and Television by Alyssa Rosenberg via Slate

Let’s Talk About Sexism in Movie Reviews, You Guys! by Tyler Coates via Black Book

Megan‘s Picks:

When Rape Jokes Are Never Funny by Meghan O’Keefe via The Huffington Post

NBC’s New Head Drama Exec is a Black Woman by Dodai Stewart via Jezebel

Anita Sarkeesian Responds to Beat-Up Game, Online Harassment and Stephanie Guthrie’s Death Threats by Anita Sarkeesian via Toronto Standard

Teens Protest ‘Teen Vogue’ Photoshop Use; Editors “Rude” in Response by Amy Odell via Buzzfeed

Nicki Minaj on Sexism in the Music Industry by Samhita Mukhopadhyay via Feministing

Do You Laugh at Rape Jokes? by Soraya Chemaly via Fem2pt0

Cross-Post: In Mainstream Films, Dead Moms Don’t Count by Scott Mendelson via Women and Hollywood 

J Lo Bringing Lesbian Moms to ABC Family by Alex Cranz via FemPop

‘Brave’ Still Teaching Girls the Wrong Lessons by Abigail Collazo via Fem2pt0

Dear, Daniel Tosh: You Know What’s Even Less Funny than Rape Jokes? Rape Threats

English: Daniel Tosh at Boston University

By now I’m sure you’ve heard about Daniel Tosh and his misoynistic douchebaggery as he verbally attacked a female audience member.

But just in case you haven’t or if you need a refresher, the woman called Tosh out amidst his performance at The Laugh Factory. Here’s what the woman told her friend who posted it on her blog which has now gone viral:
“So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didnt appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
“I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.
“After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…”
Wow. What. The. Fuck. Rape jokes are never funny. Ever. Making a rape joke is bad enough. But attacking an audience member who calls bullshit on said rape joke?? Calling for her to be gang raped?? Horrifying and disgusting.
Tosh gave a half-ass apology on Twitter:

all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize j.mp/PJ8bNs
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012

the point i was making before i was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them. #deadbabies
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012

But honestly, I don’t give a shit that Tosh apologized. He shouldn’t have said it to the woman in the first place.

Of course, Tosh is the same person who incorporates physical assault against women into his comedy, encouraging viewers to videotape sneaking up behind women and touching them non-consensually. Tosh obviously has no problem encouraging people to act out his comedy. Or of course calling for a woman to be gang raped in public.

This whole situation has raised the issue of rape jokes and if they can be funny and if so, how to make them funny. As I’ve said before, rape jokes aren’t edgy. They’re lazy, misogynistic, insensitive and violent. While humor can be a great way to confront tough issues, rape jokes trivialize survivor’s painful plight.
Fem2pt0’s Soraya Chemaly discusses the problem with rape jokes:
“That’s why the problem isn’t the jokes or who’s telling them. It’s that so many, many people think that stories about degrading and violating women, the more violently the better, is laugh-out-loud entertaining.”
Melissa McEwan, Shakesville Editor and Founder, asserts rape jokes aren’t ever funny (agreed) and rightfully labels Tosh “an enforcer of rape culture”:
“Rape jokes are not funny. They potentially trigger survivors, and they uphold the rape culture. They tacitly convey approval of rape to rapists, who do not appreciate “rape irony.” There is no neutral in rape culture, and jokes that diminish or normalize rape empower rapists. Rape jokes are pro-rape.
“If you incite rape, you are an enforcer of rape culture. If you argue that inciting rape is harmless, you are an enforcer of rape culture.”
While I have a massive problem with rape jokes, I have a much bigger problem with the way Tosh handled the situation. What might have started as a joke Tosh was telling as part of his act quickly spiraled into endangerment and verbal assault.

As I’ve written before, I’m a staunch supporter of freedom of speech. I vehemently disagree with people wanting to censor music, gory films or violent videogames. Many writers have pointed out that no topics should be taboo for comedians. And that humor is used to tackle painful topics and “to call bullshit” on idiocy and injustice. But that’s not what Tosh was doing. Tosh crossed the line from merely expressing his thoughts as part of his comedy routine to inciting violence.

Vanessa Valenti, Feministing Editor and Co-Founder, points out why what Tosh did wasn’t humor and how he should be held accountable:

“Tosh threatened an audience member with rape. This should not be a conversation about where to draw the line (as much of the media is asking around this). There is a very, very clear line here…This conversation should be about holding public figures accountable for the impact they have on larger culture.”

While I disagree that rape jokes can be funny, I absolutely 100% agree with The Nation’s Jessica Valenti (and Feministing Co-Founder) that there’s a huge difference between “pointing out the absurdity” of rape and sexism — like George Carlin, Sarah Silverman and Wanda Sykes — and actually threatening someone with assault, which Tosh did:

“But here’s the thing: threatening women with rape, making light of rape, and suggesting that women who speak up be raped is not edgy or controversial. It’s the norm. This is what women deal with every day. Maintaining the status quo around violence against women isn’t exactly revolutionary…
“If you are this attached to jokes about raping women – if they mean this much to you – it’s time to look inward and think about why that is.
“Because at the end of the day, the misogynist fervor behind the defense of Tosh doesn’t isn’t an impassioned debate over free speech or the nature of humor. It’s men who feel entitled to say whatever they want – no matter how violent – to women, and who are angry to have that long standing privilege challenged.”
If you read through the tweets defending Tosh (and I definitely don’t recommend you do unless you want to gouge your eyes out from sheer anger and disgust), you’ll see a lot of inane comments about how people can’t take a joke or need to lighten up. Or of course there are the gems about how women need to shut the fuck up, that the woman attending the show deserves to get raped, or that Tosh should’ve shaken his dick in the woman’s face. I shit you not, there’s some doozies from some real Mensa candidates here.

Defenders of Tosh are using smoke and mirrors to defend his abhorrent words saying she was a heckler. That she asked for it. Hmmmm….where have I heard that before? Oh that’s right…in victim blaming when we talk about rape. Yes, she interrupted him. But she didn’t attack him. Does that mean she deserves for him to humiliate and violate her? No.

Jezebel’s Lindy West debunks the most common arguments supporting Tosh, including those who say Tosh’s humor is okay because he offends everyone:

“…Being an “equal opportunity offender”—as in, “It’s okay, because Daniel Tosh makes fun of ALL people: women, men, AIDS victims, dead babies, gay guys, blah blah blah”—falls apart when you remember (as so many of us are forced to all the time) that all people are not in equal positions of power…
“It’s really easy to believe that “nothing is sacred” when the sanctity of your body and your freedom are never legitimately threatened.”
Yes, freedom of speech allows you to say whatever you want. BUT! There are consequences. Just like you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theatre. That’s not an infringement on freedom of speech, it’s public endangerment. So is what Tosh did.

Tosh verbally assaulted this woman. Due to white privilege and male privilege in our patriarchal rape culture, Tosh possesses societal power. He exerted his power and dominance to belittle, intimidate and humiliate this woman. To shut her up and put her in her place.

Comedian and Hello Giggles and Huffington Post writer Megan O’Keefe, in her must-read post, points out that most people who laugh at rape jokes don’t truly appreciate the wordplay, satire or critique. They find humor in “hurting and sexually dominating a woman against her will.” She also shares how the problem transcends Tosh and rape culture is to blame:

“Rape is disturbing and horrible. It’s one of the horrors that we should keep at bay with humor, not encourage. Right now, the woman who posted the complaint about Tosh is receiving legitimate death and rape threats from his fans. So, his “joke” didn’t diffuse pain or horror — it sparked it.


“…The problem isn’t Daniel Tosh. The problem is that our society is still a rape culture where a large percentage of people think that rape’s OK and that a girl in a short skirt is asking for it and that it’s funny to assault someone. Not for the sake of satire, but for one person’s amusement over another person’s real life victimization.”

We live amongst a rape culture that normalizes violence and misogyny against women and objectifies women’s bodies. Society teaches people how to avoid rape rather than to not rape, putting the blame on the victim/survivor. The media berates women and brushes off rape survivors’ claims, putting the blame not on the rapist or abuser but with the survivor who comes forward.

All of this coalesces to foster and fuel sexism in the media and misogynistic “humor.” Time and time again, our society condones rape and violence. So when a white male makes a misogynistic comment or threat, there’s more happening than just what’s on the surface. It trivializes rape and misogyny. And it reinforces — both covertly and overtly — that violence against women is okay.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m sick and tired of rape jokes. But whether you think rape jokes are funny or not, it stopped being a “joke” the moment Tosh harassed and threatened a woman with violence.

And there’s nothing fucking funny about that.

Motherhood in Film & Television: ‘Rosemary’s Baby’

This is a guest post from Erin Fenner.
Rosemary’s Baby, the Roman Polanski 1968 adaptation of the novel with the same name, uses minimal effects. While it is a horror story about the mother of Satan’s child, we only briefly glimpse the arm and eyes of the feature’s supposed monster. And, while the plot against Rosemary is conceived by a coven of witches, we don’t see bubbling potions. That is because Rosemary’s Baby is not a horror story about Satan or witchcraft.
Rosemary’s Baby is a horror story about being a woman.
Watch the trailer:
Rosemary, played by the waifish Mia Farrow, is a young woman excited for her role as wife and soon-to-be mother. But, even in her acceptance and celebration of traditional gender roles she is exploited, robbed of autonomy, discounted as hysterical and ultimately must give up all control of herself and her body.
Sound familiar? That’s because her terrors are real ones with just a dash of supernatural motivations.
We meet Rosemary when she and her husband, Guy, played by John Cassavetes, decide to move into a new apartment house. She is the picture of a cheerful stay-at-home wife – taking pleasure in decorating the house, filled with bubbling optimism and one who enjoys pleasing her husband. All she wants beyond her currently cozy situation is to become a mother.
She gets her wish when Guy, an ambitious actor, declares he’s ready to be a dad. The audience learns quickly that his motivations aren’t rooted in a comparable desire for fatherhood, but because he’s made a pact with peculiar neighbors we later discover are witches. He gets a shot at success if he delivers them a baby.
While the viewer can deduce this easily, we never see the world from anyone’s perspective but Rosemary’s. We spend most of the film cooped up with her, claustrophobic and powerless, in the apartment house.
The conception of Rosemary’s baby happens in a particularly brutal way – through rape. Guy drugs his wife and takes her to a ritual to be impregnated by Satan. Rosemary is semi-conscious and cries out, “This is no dream – this is really happening!” And, when she wakes up the next morning, Guy casually mentions that he had sex with her while she was sleeping. So, even though upon waking she concludes the rape was a dream, she still considers the conception of her baby as one derived through non-consensual sex. Her first step toward motherhood is one where she is deprived the right to control her own body.
Her journey into motherhood is further hijacked by Guy and her witch-neighbors who insist on her going to a different doctor – one we learn is part of the Satanist coven. Her new doctor, Dr. Sapirstein, played by Ralph Bellamy, demands she ignores the advice of her friends and books, and only listen to his instructions. Whenever she expresses concern about her pregnancy, he shoots her perspective down and shames her for self-education.
Rosemary (Mia Farrow)
We see the already thin Rosemary develop pronounced dark shadows under her eyes and become emaciated. She says she’s in a constant state of pain. It’s only when, during a party with her peers, that she is validated by other women. One of her friends even pushes Guy out of the room so that they can express their support and concern. It’s from this very brief exchange with her friends, where they insist her pain is abnormal, that Rosemary is empowered and encouraged to change doctors and take charge of her own health.
This empowerment is short-lived, because she gives up after a fight with Guy and her pain eases up. She relinquishes to her husband and her body.
Her small rebellions against others’ attempts to control her body – like not drinking the drink her witch-neighbors prepare for her – cease. She falls easily into passivity until she reads a book left to her by an old friend who we can presume was murdered by the coven next door.
The book details the history of the coven that had lived in her apartment house generations before, and helps her conclude that her pregnancy is central to a plot devised by her neighbors, husband and doctor.
With this new realization Rosemary rushes to her old obstetrician, Dr. Hill, played by Charles Grodin, to seek help. After pleading with him for assistance, Dr. Hill brings her into a room for rest, but then returns with Guy and Dr. Sapirstein to sedate her and take her away. She is dismissed as being a hysterical woman: pre-partum.
The next scenes are delirious. Rosemary is sedated, and when awake she attempts to make demands, but is denied. And, when she gives birth, she is not allowed to see her baby and is deceived about its condition.
Rosemary’s only motivation now is centered on her motherhood. It’s the only power she can claim. So, after recovering from giving birth, she sneaks around her apartment house, and finds a hidden passage to the witch-neighbors. There she finds the coven surrounding a satanic crib.
The scene is almost anti-climactic. There is no struggle and no high drama speeches. Rosemary discovers her baby is a monster – the son of Satan. She learns the truth – her husband and neighbors were plotting against her. And then, she resigns herself. She has already lost control of her body long ago and has nothing left but her role as a mother.
Rosemary lives up perfectly to the norm of womanhood. Unlike the women who we begrudgingly expect to be punished in films because they are promiscuous, independent, “bitchy” or uninterested in family life – we would expect Rosemary’s story to pan out positively because she adheres to gendered expectations.
But, Rosemary’s Baby is not a film meant to encourage a fearful narrative about the value of following prescribed roles – instead it is about a woman who is victimized by the very gender roles she had enthusiastically accepted. Rosemary accepts her societal role as a woman. Still, she is punished and suffers. And, because it is so close to reality, it is horrifying. 

Erin Fenner is a legislative intern and blogger for Trust Women: advocating for the reproductive rights of women in conservative Midwestern states. She also writes for the Trust Women blog and manages their social media networks. She graduated from the University of Idaho with a B.S. in Journalism.

‘The Invisible War’ Takes on Sexual Assault in the Military

This is a guest post from Soraya Chemaly.
How many movies have you watched in which rape is a notable, if not integral, part of the plot? Not sure? Well, I started thinking about it and poked around. The short list I compiled is at the end of this article.
Amazing, right? I personally have spent probably hundreds of dollars and entire weeks of my life paying for and watching these movies. Given the list below, it is clear that we do not shy away from movies in which jarring and often graphic rape scenes are featured. The most recent and extraordinarily explicit example, of course, is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. War movies, in particular, often feature or allude to rape. Indeed, militarism and sexual violence seem to go hand in hand — but we don’t usually think of the rape being intra-military. In addition, these films are almost always fictional, edifying tales of retribution that leave audiences entertained and emotionally satisfied. But what about real rape — especially rape in the military?
You don’t see any blockbusters on the list about that. So, in return for the hours of entertainment pleasure that you may have derived from some of these films, take just two minutes and watch this:
The Invisible War, which premiered at The Sundance Film Festival on January 20th, is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of our country’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our military. Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of several young women, the film reveals the systemic failure of the military to confront these crimes and follows their struggles to fight for justice.
In 2009, 16,150 service members were assaulted (addition details for service academies can be found here at Stop Military Rape.) Although both men and women are subject to assault, women in the military are now more likely to be raped by fellow soldiers than they are to be killed in combat. In a 2005 study of 540 female veterans, 30 percent reported assaulted by a male colleague and/or supervisor. Of these, 14 percent reported having been gang-raped and 20 percent reported having been raped more than once.
Estimates indicate that anywhere from 8 percent to as high as 37 percent of the victims of sexual assault and trauma cases reported last year were men. The Pentagon believes that fully 80-90 percent of assaults (of men and women) are not reported. Only 1 in 15 men report assault, versus 1 in 5 women. It is harder for service men (and civilians), who face the real risk and consequences of being stigmatized as weak and “not masculine” to report assault. In this way, the military is a sluggish, tradition-bound, concentrated distillation of prevailing cultural norms. The portrayal of rape in the media and our culture at large (everything from victim-blaming to exaggerated claims of false accusations) contributes to the difficulty of getting accurate information about men being victimized. Sexism, misogyny and hetero-normative standards result in rape being largely understood as forcible vaginal penetration of a woman by a man. Trigger warning for this link: “Rape [for a man] is a very emasculating thing,” says Rick Tringale, who was the target of a military gang rape and came forward with his story.
This is compounded in the military, which values and demands uber-masculinity and for which “male” aggression is vital to survival. Don’t forget, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was in place until one year ago. Until we have a broader cultural acceptance (not just in the military) of the link between homophobia and misogyny, male abuse will continue to be under-reported, ignored and misunderstood. Ironically, it is the addition of more women into military service that has allowed men to come forward in greater numbers every year.
Military survivors of assault report several additional factors in explaining their reluctance to come forward.
Sexual assault is is deeply traumatizing and stigmatizing for any victim, but for military survivors of assault the effects can be significantly worse. In the first place, they cannot quit their jobs but instead have to continue working with their rapists, sleeping with their rapists, eating with their rapists, being “led” by their rapists and, in many cases, protect their rapists from harm and expect them to do the same. Given the power dynamics, sometimes the closest analogy is parental rape of a child.
Military Sexual Trauma is the Department of Veterans Affairs’ term for the effect of intra-service sexual assault or repeated, threatening sexual harassment on a veteran. Survivors suffer higher rates of PTSD, anxiety, depression, increased risk of homelessness and alcohol and substance abuse. Female military personnel report getting pregnant (some are raped while pregnant), having to find difficult to access abortifacients and often starting birth control to prevent the possibility of pregnancy in the face of the high likelihood that they will raped again. This is an environment where female service members sleep with knives to protect themselves from their fellow soldiers.
Yet another intensifier is the military’s handling of rape claims. Here is a particularly troubling description of a rape and how it was handled:

Beth, a major in the U. S. Army Reserve, was sexually assaulted by a noncommissioned officer during a scud missile attack during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She followed reporting procedures, including undergoing the collection of evidence during another scud missile attack. Emergency contraception (EC) was “simply handed to me as a lot of pills to take. I went on birth control pills in the event that this happened to me again.”

Even recent changes in The Defense Department’s military rape policies have been criticized by both Protect Our Defenders and the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) as insufficient.
What happens when people report this crime?
Only 8 percent of rape complaints get prosecuted, only 2 percent result in conviction. This isn’t a slap on the wrist — it’s a slap in the face to victims: 80 percent of perpetrators and the accused are discharged with honor, while 90 percent of victims are eventually “involuntarily” discharged. (In the general population conviction rates are 40 percent for prosecuted and 6 percent for all cases reported.)
The military chain of command has a vested interest in not escalating complaints. Unit commanders’ depend on obedience, harmony and cohesion — all of which are threatened by soldiers’ accusing other soldiers of assault and the fallout of those accusations. There is no incentive to resolve complaints legally and systematically in ways that will enter the official record. It means paperwork, investigations, dishonor, admission of responsibility, a loss of reputation and possibly rank.
In November, 2011 California Congresswoman Jackie Speier introduced the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention Act–the STOP Act, H.R. 3435, which would take the reporting, oversight and investigation of these cases away from the military’s normal chain of command and into the jurisdiction of the the newly created, autonomous (civilian and military expert) Sexual Assault Oversight and Response Office.
In February of 2011 a landmark lawsuit was filed on behalf of 17 active duty service members and veterans, 2 men and 15 women. It accused the Department of Defense of cultivating a culture that fails to prevent and prosecute rape and sexual assault, violating plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. The case named Robert M. Gates and Donald Rumsfeld as heads of institutions that trivialized, denied, openly mocked the claims of rape victims and failed to take preventive measures to stop further assaults. This landmark case was dismissed last December.
Lawyer Susan Burke filed an appeal for the case in early January (2012). The plaintiffs in this case are 28 current or former members of the military who allege that they were raped by coworkers and, similarly to the above cited case, that the defense secretary’s failure to act on the issue of sexual assault in the military amounts to a violation of their constitutional rights.
Some people feel that talking about these rapes, prosecuting them and seeking legal recourse weakens our military. It is the exact opposite. The persistent drumbeat of denial and blithe dismissal is dangerous and harmful. Not revealing, admitting and fixing the problem of rape in the military, and our culture at large, is what undermines cohesion and hurts soldiers.
“We will continue the legal battles until the military begins to punish and dishonorably discharge the sexual predators, rather than retaliate against those who report the crime,” explains Burke.
As far as I’m concerned, one rape is too much. I know, pie in the sky for some people — but a matter of life and death for others. From my perspective, it’s a shame we can’t sue our entire culture since, in actuality, the military’s rape statistics aren’t that radically different from the nation’s.
You can follow the release of the movie at @Invisible_War or check out the Take Action list on The Invisible War website.
Movies That Include Rape and Sexual Assault
This is a short list of movies in which rape occurs. I couldn’t even begin to compile a list in which rape is implied or threatened. Multiple iterations of IMBD searches consistently resulted in anywhere between 2,000-4,500 titles, depending on whether or not you included TV. Interestingly enough, however, some of the movies that involve the assault of boys and men did not appear on the first pass list of movies including rape.
9 ½ weeks
The Accused
American Psycho
The Astronaut’s Wife
Bastard Out of Carolina
Blue Velvet
Cape Fear
Cider House Rules
Clan of the Cave Bear
Clockwork Orange
The Color Purple
Dead Man Walking
Death and the Maiden
Deathwish I, II and II
Deliverance
Devil’s Advocate
Eve’s Bayou
Eye’s Wide Shut
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Forrest Gump
The General’s Daughter
Gia
G. I. Jane
Gladiator
God and Monsters
The Good Girl
The Green Mile
Last Tango in Paris
Lawrence of Arabia
Lolita
Moulin Rouge
Once We Were Warriors
Platoon
Precious
Pulp Fiction
Rob Roy
Robin Hood
Saturday Night Fever
Schindler’s List
Shame
The Shipping News
Thelma and Louise
Traffic

Soraya Chemaly writes feminist satire. She is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project and The Huffington Post (where this piece originally appeared). She is also the creator of the retired blogs: Poog, a Goop Spoof and The Guide to Manic Moms.

In ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Remake, Rooney Mara’s Captivating Portrayal Proves Lisbeth Salander Still a Feminist Icon

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
Cross-posted from The Opinioness of the World.

Lisbeth Salander consumes my thoughts. I’ve spent the last year and a half reading, writing, analyzing, debating and discussing the punk hacker. As a huge fan of the books and the original Swedish films, I was NOT excited to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Hollywood remake.

Plagued by sexist marketing that seemed to focus solely on Mikael and depict Lisbeth as a sexpot damsel in distress, I feared Hollywood would wreck one of the most unique female protagonists in pop culture. With trepidation, I watched David Fincher’s take on Stieg Larsson’s epic. While some gender problems arose, I’ve got to admit I was pleasantly surprised. And it all hinges on Rooney Mara’s performance.

For those who don’t know, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first part in the global phenomenon of The Millennium Trilogy, features disgraced crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and brilliant researcher Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) who unite to solve the mystery of a woman who disappeared 40 years ago. The gritty, tense plot fuses with social commentary on violence against women, sexuality and gender roles.

Do we really need an American remake? Fincher, a notoriously obsessive and detailed filmmaker, creates a gorgeous film evoking a macabre ambiance. Trent Reznor’s eerie and haunting score punctuates each slickly stylized scene perfectly. Phenomenal actors fill the screen: Craig, Robin Wright (who I will watch in absolutely anything), Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgaard, Vanessa Redgrave. While everyone does their best, the remake isn’t quite as compelling as the original. I never really felt invested in any of the characters. Except for Lisbeth. The sole reason to see the film is Mara’s stellar portrayal.

Lisbeth Salander is a role of a lifetime. Both Noomi Rapace (in the original film) and Mara underwent grueling auditions and year-long transformations including haircuts, body piercings (ears, eyebrow, lip, nose, nipple), nudity, kickboxing workouts, and learning skateboarding and motorcycle riding. A sullen introvert, Lisbeth is strong, fiercely independent and self-sufficient. She possesses a razor-sharp intellect and relentless survivor instincts. She’s endured horrific trauma and betrayal yet refuses to be a victim.

Fincher obstinately fought for Mara as Sony Studios didn’t want her for the part. After watching the film, I can see why Fincher refused to concede. It’s hard to dissect Mara’s Golden Globe-nominated performance and pinpoint precisely what she does that makes her so compelling. And that’s because as Melissa Silverstein writes, she “disappears into the role.” When Lisbeth greets the people she cares about, her guardian Holger Palmgren and Mikael, she frenetically says, “Hey, hey,” a small detail adding depth and nuance to the character. It’s in the clipped cadence of her voice, her slumped shoulders, her wounded eyes. Mara doesn’t merely play Lisbeth. She becomes her.

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) and Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig)
People have asked my thoughts on Hollywood’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, wondering if I loved or hated it. More importantly, they want to know if I prefer Noomi Rapace’s subtle yet fiercely badass warrior (which is how I envisioned Lisbeth) or Rooney Mara’s vulnerable yet quietly powerful portrayal. I was prepared to hate Mara. How could anyone surpass or even equal Rapace’s critically acclaimed performance?

But I loved them both. For me, neither one is better. Both bring something unique conveying different facets of Lisbeth’s personality. They belong to two sides of the same coin. Mara, who had ginormous shoes to fill with Rapace’s ferocious portrayal in the original, gave a captivating performance. I’m glad the shitty marketing didn’t keep me away or I would have missed one of the best performances of the year.

People have simultaneously praised and condemned The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo for its graphic depiction of rape. The American version doesn’t shy away from the brutal scene. We live in a rape culture often glorifying or dismissing rape and violence against women. Author Larsson tried to show the epidemic of misogyny. The book (originally entitled Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, which translates to “Men Who Hate Women”), original Swedish film and Hollywood remake confront the stigma of sexual assault. Yet it never feels exploitative. Lisbeth refuses to be victimized. She follows her own moral compass exacting vigilante justice. She doesn’t possess traditional power. So she works within the confines of patriarchy to assert herself and take control of her life.

A huge part of the book (and the entire trilogy) is Lisbeth and Mikael’s friendship. Despite his social nature and her private behavior, they both stubbornly follow their own moral code. He’s continually surprised and amused by her unconventional comments and reactions. Mikael’s openness, humor and honesty allow Lisbeth to trust him, something she does so rarely. The movie doesn’t shirk their sexual relationship yet never captures their emotional bond. Lisbeth and Mikael also exhibit overt sexualities. Lisbeth possesses a sexual fluidity, sleeping with both women and men. Yet society views Mikael’s philandering as socially acceptable and perceives Lisbeth as an outcast. It’s a crucial gender commentary absent from the film.

But my biggest problem with Hollywood’s The Girl With Dragon Tattoo lies in one sentence. One teeny tiny sentence that threatens to unravel all of the painstaking work Mara put into her performance. SPOILER!! -> In the scene where Mikael has been cut from the noose, Lisbeth intends to run after his murderous perpetrator. She asks him, “May I kill him?”

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara)
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Fincher shared what he found so compelling about Lisbeth. Oh, but it’s not her feminist persona as he insists this is NOT a feminist story:

“I think that she is many things to many different people…I was fascinated by the fact that 60-year-old men, you know 58-year-old women, 17-year-old girls were all finding something about her that was you know freeing or empowering in some kind of way. And it had been kind of sold to me as this you know misogynist avenger. But what I felt about it was ultimately that there wasn’t any kind of real feminist tract to it all.

“To me, it was very human. It’s a story of being oppressed, a story of being marginalized, a story of being made to feel less than, it’s a character that’s been made to feel less than who she thinks she is…”

I don’t think Fincher has any clue what a feminist actually is. Newsflash, a feminist story is a “human” story. Neither Fincher nor Mara perceives Lisbeth as a badass feminist (even though she is) because she doesn’t do “anything in the name of any group or cause or belief.” But they’re fucking wrong.

Lisbeth combats misogyny and sexism. She abhors violence against women and avenges injustice. She refuses to be taken advantage of, always asserting her control. She surrenders to no one. She strives for empowerment, living life on her own terms. I agree Lisbeth wouldn’t call herself a feminist, just as she doesn’t identify as bisexual, since she doesn’t want labels confining her identity. Neither her gender, her appearance, nor her sexuality define her. Lisbeth defines herself. Every single one of these components reinforce a feminist message.

Despite Fincher and Mara’s insistent refusal, both The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its heroine are feminist. Saying otherwise completely misses the point of what makes Lisbeth Salander such an exhilarating icon.

Women, War & Peace: The Roundup

Women, War & Peace
Over the course of the past two months, Megan Kearns of The Opinioness of the World reviewed all five parts of the PBS series Women, War & Peace. We’ve rounded them up here, with excerpts from each review. Be sure to check them out if you missed any! (You can also watch the full episodes online here.)

While rape had been charged as a crime before, it usually falls under the umbrella of hate crimes. With this groundbreaking tribunal, for the first time rape was charged as “a crime against humanity.” The case wouldn’t prevent all rapes. But Kuo said that even though they couldn’t prosecute every rape, it was a significant statement to acknowledge what happens to women during war. The case “transformed the definition of wartime slavery,” laying the “foundation of trials involving violence against women in international courts.”

War leaves devastation in its wake. Yet historically, when we talk about war, we talk about it in terms of soldiers and casualties; too often from a male perspective, forgetting that it equally destroys women’s lives.

In the 2nd installment of the Women, War & Peace series, director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail E. Disney, and WWP series executive producers and co-creators, create a Tribeca Film Festival-winning documentary. Pray the Devil Back to Hell tells the powerful and uplifting story of the Liberian women, including activist and social worker Leymah Gbowee, who joined together and peacefully protested, helping end the civil war ravaging their country.

For almost 15 years, beginning on Christmas Eve in 1989, two civil wars plagued Liberia. Warlord and former president Charles Taylor resided at the center of both. He overthrew the regime during the first civil war and committed war crimes and human rights atrocities while president during the second civil war. Taylor recruited soldiers as young as 9-15 years old. With his private army, the dictator controlled the finances and terrorized the country.

Hasina Safi, one of the 3,000 members of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), a non-partisan NGO working to empower women, visits villages to monitor the programs she coordinates for illiterate women. Classes for women could not be held openly with the Taliban in power. Almost 90% of Afghan women cannot read or write. Through classes, many women are just learning Islam encourages women’s education.

But working women like Safi risk their lives. They receive death threats via horrific letters in the night, telling them they must stop working or else their children will be killed and their homes burned.

Over the course of the last two decades, at least 16 million acres of land have been violently taken from Colombians. In the last 8 years, over 2 million have been displaced. Colombia has the second largest number of internally displaced people in the world after Sudan. With no jobs and contaminated water, displacement traumatizes civilians and rips families apart. Under international law, internally displaced citizens don’t receive the same protections that refugees do. Their government is supposed to address their rights. But in this case, how are Colombians supposed to obtain justice when their own government condemns them?

Afro-Colombians make up one quarter of Colombia’s population. In May 2010, coinciding with Afro-Colombian Day, which commemorates the end of slavery in Colombia, Sarria’s eviction was set to commence. People took to the streets, barricading the road to halt the eviction.

‘War Redefined’ Challenges War as a Male Domain and Examines How Violent Conflict Impacts Women:

When we think of war, we often think of soldiers, tanks, weapons and battlefields. But most wars breach boundaries, affecting civilians, mostly women and children. Soldiers, guerillas and paramilitaries use tactics such as rape, fear, murder and pushing people off their land. We need to shift our paradigm of war and look at how it affects women’s lives.

War Redefined, the 5th and final installment in Women, War & Peace (WWP), is the capstone of the groundbreaking series featuring politicians, military personnel, scholars and activists discussing how women play a vital role in war and peace-keeping. Narrated by actor Geena Davis, a phenomenal women’s media activist, written and produced by Peter Bull, co-produced by Nina Chaudry, this powerful film threads stories told in the other parts of the series: Bosnian women surviving rape camps, Liberian women protesting for peace, Afghan women demanding their rights in negotiations and Afro-Colombian women contending with internal displacement. War Redefined, and the entire WWP series, challenges the assumption that war and peace belong to men’s domain.

 

Top 10 in 2011: Why Should Men Care? An Interview with Matt Damon

Readers, you really really love Matt Damon. That’s the only reason we can figure for this little post, featuring a video of Damon explaining his involvement in the PBS Women, War and Peace series, being #2 in 2011. Perhaps, though, it’s not just Damon’s presence, but how succinctly he explains the importance of men’s involvement in so-called women’s issues. (But we really really like him, too.)
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Matt Damon narrating Women, War, and Peace

At Bitch Flicks, we’re featuring reviews of the five-part PBS documentary Women, War & Peace—all by the fabulous Megan Kearns—the first of which we published on October 19th. (Megan’s review of Part Two will appear later today.) Matt Damon narrates the series, and he was interviewed about his participation, explaining why he wanted to be a part of the event and why men should care about how war impacts women, especially when rape is used as a weapon of war. I’m posting the video of the 4-minute interview, but it’s also linked to above (just in case).

Top 10 of 2011: On Rape, the Media, and the New York Times Clusterfuck

Coming in at #5 of 2011 is Stephanie Rogers’ reaction to media coverage of two heinous rape cases, and the similar way both outlets further victimized the victim. Media, whether in the form of a newspaper or a movie, contributes to the pervasive rape culture in which we live. Her piece was quoted in the Huffington Post and cross-posted by other bloggers.
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On Tuesday, March 8, the New York Times published an article by James C. McKinley Jr. titled, “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town.” Eighteen men held down an 11-year-old girl and repeatedly raped her in an abandoned trailer while recording the rape with cell phones. Much has been written about McKinley’s—and the New York Times’—irresponsible, victim-blaming, rape culture-enforcing report of the rape. Or should I saylack of report of the rape. While the entire article is a catastrophic joke, this paragraph warrants specific mention:

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands—known as the Quarters—said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

Shakesville breaks down the story, and it’s a must-read piece. The writer points out, “Nowhere in this story is the following made clear: … that our compassion and care should be directed first and foremost toward the victim rather than the boys, the school, the community, or anyone else.” The NYT piece is such an obvious case of victim-blaming, and terrifyingly unapologetic, that it wasn’t surprising to see an immediate petition go up at change.org, “Tell the New York Times to Apologize for Blaming a Child for Her Gang Rape.” 
The creator of the petition, Shelby Knox, writes, “1 in 4 American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. A culture that blames victims for being raped—for what they were wearing, where they were, and who they were with—rather than blaming the rapist, is a culture that tacitly condones rape.” As of now 43,820 people have signed the petition, and Arthur S. Brisbane of the New York Times has issued an apology—not without its flaws—regarding the lack of balance in the piece.

See also: #10 in 2011, #9 in 2011, #8 in 2011, #7 in 2011, and #6 in 2011.