Sexual violence on film and tv is so prolific it puts me off the tele.

[Crazykefir]

Family watching a film after dinner again I've had to excuse myself.
Is it just me but violence especially sexual violence is so common in modern drama that I often find myself with nothing to watch.
It's all centered around the violent act. And to be honest I find it generally pervy,voyeuristic and from a male gaze.
Once in a blue moon a drama deals with sexual violence from the perspective of the victim.
Is it just me that doesn't find depections of rape entertaining.
Knowing what we know now about the powerful people in Hollywood I find it even more sinister.is it just me?

Which film? Some are terrible. Most are "ok" (as in watching a portrayal of rape is never entertaining).

I have stopped watching most shows now because of it.

It is very rarely a close up on the face of the man commiting the crime.

There is never the rape of a man, or it is exceedingly rare. And if there is, it is suggestion.

I firmly believe that it nutures the idea of rape as a fact of life.

Yes it normalises male violence. There's no close up of the man because it's shot from his perspective.

I've started looking at the Parents' Guide on IMDB before I watch a show/film now.

Yes, looks like I can only watch tele for under 12s

Also so many dramas around centred around the death of women. It's so depressing.

It’s definitely normalised. I stopped reading fantasy books because so f’ing many of them have rape. There is even a spreadsheet someone made to list books that don’t have rape, because there are that few. We can’t even live in a made-up world without being sexually assaulted.

It's not just you. I watch mostly classic films from the 30s and 40s partly for that reason. Disgusting shows like Game of Thrones seemed to be written for the purpose of normalizing rape. Vampire movies/shows are all about sexualized murder.
Most horror movies feature VAW and sexualize the victimization of women.
You get some stupid sexist comments in classic films but you don't have to see rape and violent "kinky" sex being portrayed as normal and even beneficial.

There are lots of historical dramas I won't watch because of the depiction of rape - it's sort of like a lazy shorthand 'hey it was a really brutal time and so you know that here's yet another rape of a beautiful woman'. Apart from anything else .. how is that actually different from today??

I've never watched Game of Thrones for this reason.

I wouldn't watch this kind of content even if other people in the family wanted to - it's one thing to take turns choosing something to watch and it's maybe not always to your taste and another to watch stuff that offends you.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Id love to see that spreadsheet. I thought I'd really like game of thrones as a tolkin fan. How wrong was i. can't believe it was so popular I watch mostly classic comedy now.
I feel like growing up in the 80's depections of sex were quite naff and cheesy. Silhouettes of steamy figures eith perms getting it on to a saxophone solo. However it was always consensual and ended in female orgasim.

I feel like growing up in the 80's depections of sex were quite naff and cheesy.

I feel like you're misremembering here.
I rewatch quite a few old 70s and 80s films and rape or threat of rape is extremely common especially in horror or action films.
Two off the top of my head - The Hills Have Eyes and Mad Max (first film features female and male rape, though it's not actually shown, more the aftermath).

I'm so glad you've posted about this - and that I'm not alone!
I've been saying this for years but no one seems to agree with me, and I've been made to feel that I'm a some kind of rabid Millie Tant figure, looking for offense where there is none.
And this from people I thought were feminists.

I should say I don't enjoy watching any forms of violence, but don't feel like that hugely limits what TV I can watch, there's plenty of choice.

Agreed! Was watching a lighthearted series recently and then several episodes in there’s a horrible rape scene. Makes me feel physically sick. I always check the parents guides now as it’s so commonplace.

I'm off to look up Millie Tant. I do think it's a feminist issue. More so a freeking man issue.

Doon Mackichan made a radio documentary on male violence against women as entertainment. It's eight years old but still very relevant.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wtggz

Yes. It means I’ve tuned out of vast amounts of popular culture because I’m not interested in watching women being routinely raped and murdered as a pretext for entertainment. I made it to the third episode of Game of Thrones and the end of the first episode of The Fall. I am not going to even consider something like Kill Bill. I find it absolutely infuriating when people, especially other women, trivialise it by saying ‘GoT is a bit rapey ’.

Totally agree. In fact I don't watch anything rated over 15 and even then sometimes have to turn off.

The creator of The Fall (male obviously) makes a very poor defence of it in Mackichan's documentary.

I would add war documentaries to the list. It seems every 5 mins they find a new atrocity to trawl through with the eye witness accounts. TV producers want to surround us with violence and misery

I no longer have any tolerance for watching the abuse of women and children for 'entertainment'. Also struggling with Radio 4 with constant war and football.

I couldnt agree more and often it adds zero to the storyline so what's the point? It is so bad in books too - the whole rape story line in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was disgusting, pointless and put me off reading the rest of the (shit) book.

Once you see the misogyny you can't unsee it. I watch very few mainstream films these days.
Women as protagonists are getting less rare at least.
The bechdel test is depressing but interesting
bechdeltest.com/

i decided to avoid these films and TV shows a long time ago. It has been good.

I don’t buy the ‘defence’

Very occasionally after reading about a popular show online (MN telly addicts is great!) will watch something and skip violent bits (eg final season of Happy Valley)

Yes, that’s a classic example of a deeply lazy, misogynistic trope about it somehow being fine to depict a graphic rape as an inciting incident for a woman on a vengeful quest.

Whereas a good and very rare example of a police procedural show dealing intelligently, sympathetically and ethically with the rape of a central character was the way Shetland dealt with Tosh’s rape. We are shown nothing. The team find her shoes. She shows up, apparently unharmed but barefoot, gets onto a car with her colleague and says she wants to go to the sexual violence unit. We stay outside the curtains with Perez, and subsequently we see her firmly fend off her male colleagues’ well-meaning attempts to comfort her, and her professionalism and its cost. She never gives any details about what happened. The writers trusted the viewers. They didn’t need to ‘buy’ our sympathy or investment in the team finding the perps by gratuitous violence.