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Original poster

wondering if false allegations of rape in films and #metoo are connected

26 replies

letsmakeacake · 03/08/2018 22:41

Just watching Wild Things. It about a girl who has a crush on an older man and accuses him of rape when he rejects her.

It's started me wondering how often this actually happens and what the connection is with sexual harrasment in the film industry... What do you think?

OP posts:
Racecardriver · 03/08/2018 22:46

How often it happens in films? Or in real life? In films I can't actually remember any with this plot line. In real life I don't think I know anyone who did it (although I think I remember hearing my mother once threaten to say that my father had raped her so that she could get full custody blah blah blah but she never actually did it). I remember about three reported cases of this over the past few years but I don't read tabloids too often so maybe there has been more.

OrchidInTheSun · 03/08/2018 22:50

I think there is a fuck of a lot more sexual harassment than there ever is of false allegations. And I'm wondering why you've posted this in FWR.

What do you think?

twattymctwatterson · 03/08/2018 23:18

So you've seen a film about a false rape allegation and you're thinking that this means there must be a lot in the #metoo movement? Interesting. False rape allegations happen no more often than any other false allegation that a crime has taken place if that helps. So not often.

Original poster
letsmakeacake · 03/08/2018 23:18

I think it's interesting that there are films planting the idea of false allegations. I've never thought about it but I don't believe they are very common. It just made me wonder if there was a connection to powerful people who want women to be disbelieved.

I do think that it is easy for people to dismiss alllegations of sexual misconduct because they like the person who is accused and find it easier to believe the allegation is false than the alternative.

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Bespin · 03/08/2018 23:27

there are not many films out there that have this as a plot point the only one i can think of is atonement which is a difficult film to watch. As others have said the number of false allegations is vastly smaller than the levels of assaults. i think the reporting of allegations by news outlets had a far greater effect on woman not being believed than films have.

LassWiADelicateAir · 03/08/2018 23:58

There is the David Mamet play and film Oleanna. My recollection of it is it is pretty heavy- handed and the female student making the false allegation was insufferable.

Marilla27 · 04/08/2018 00:05

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LassWiADelicateAir · 04/08/2018 00:10

There's To Kill a Mockingbird but it's hardly an established genre.

thebewilderness · 04/08/2018 00:23

It is like the man bites dog stories that are news but dog bites man are not newsworthy because they are ordinary occurrences.

Fatal Attraction is just another stalker d00d until you flip the scrip an make the woman the bad guy. I noticed this on crime drama shows also.
It is no wonder men think false accusations are common. The story tellers tell them so. Same with the bizarre claim that women are perps as often as men but we get a pass. The stories media tells are full of women as perps.

trunfio · 04/08/2018 00:36

This is a very good article about the types of situations where false rape accusations usually occur: qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/

And if you don't want to read it in full:

  1. Teenage girls having sex get "caught" by their parents (it's usually the parents who insist on involving the authorities)
  2. Women who want to access some kind of medical intervention (f.ex. abortion where it's only legal under certain circumstances or psychiatric care)

These two are the most common types of false accusers and these cases very rarely result in pressing charges bc the women usually refuse to name "their rapist".

  1. Habitual fraudsters with a history of making false accusations about all sorts of things

THAT'S IT.

So if it's not any of those then the chance the accusation is actually false is very very slim.

A spurned woman crying rape to get a revenge on a man? THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN. To think it does you'd have to believe women are either supremely stupid (the'd have to be to believe this sort of ploy was likely to work) or masochistic attention whores.

MrsTerryPratchett · 04/08/2018 01:59

Veronica Mars, which I loved otherwise had at least three!

Gotta wonder about the script writers...

LassWiADelicateAir · 04/08/2018 02:11

Jenny Diski's absurd first novel Nothing Natural is about a couple in a concensual sado masochistic relationship which turns sour and ends with the woman setting up a series of fake situations to set the man up as a rapist.

I recall it being howlingly badly written. I don't think it's ever been filmed.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 04/08/2018 08:24

Atonement is another.
There's plenty in literature as well as film.

TransplantsArePlants · 04/08/2018 08:30

So you are saying that these films about false rape allegations are an ahead-of-time debunking of rape allegations in the film industry?

I think that's probably a fair point

Rape myths abound in society in general

LassWiADelicateAir · 04/08/2018 11:36

There are 4 films mentioned in a time period from 1962 to 2007 , so no I'm not sure what point is being made.

tearsdontcare · 04/08/2018 12:17

Doesn't Gone Girl have a false rape accusation?

And I remember a 70's film by feminist director Nelly Kaplan called Nea.

They're probably more common in film plots than real life, but to be fair you could say that about a lot of things.

tearsdontcare · 04/08/2018 12:19

It's perhaps more common than the plot of women getting revenge on sexual harassers - eg 9 to 5.

Aridane · 04/08/2018 13:01

Isn’t Wild Things a thriller about extorting money and an agreed false rape allegation is the mechanism to,do so? Not explaining very well -but it’s not about a false rape allegation, IIRC

WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice · 04/08/2018 13:14

I remember a great Australian drama called 'The Slap' was let down by this trope.

WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice · 04/08/2018 13:20

Red Road en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Road_ was also about a most unlikely scenario

Original poster
letsmakeacake · 04/08/2018 13:33

@Aridane - yes. It was in the end. It had only just started when I posted. although I have no idea what happened in the end because I fell asleep Smile but the conspirators had started killing each other by then. I'm guessing the falsely accused rapist ended up murdering both the girls - and maybe got caught in the end?

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Original poster
letsmakeacake · 04/08/2018 13:38

@TransplantsArePlants I wondered that and wanted to see if anyone else thought so (and to pretend someone cared what I thought)

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LassWiADelicateAir · 04/08/2018 15:18

I remember a great Australian drama called 'The Slap' was let down by this trope

Is that based on the novel of the same name? About someone slapping a child? If so the book was beyond tedious.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 04/08/2018 20:03

letsmakeacake

Thats not what happens in the end Grin

I like twisty turny plots

Aridane · 04/08/2018 20:32

cake - no, falsely accused guy gets killed by one of the girls who sails off into the sunset alone. She masterminded it all and is an evil genius.