Extreme images of violence against women. "Moral and edgy" or vile misogynist cliche?

[Eleison]

"The assumption is now ? and it seems to be correct ? that audiences are happy to watch their heroines being beaten and gagged, and to stare at explicitly rendered photographs of women cut and splayed and killed."

Great article by Natasha Walton in the Guardian today about the intense and lingering depiction of violence against women in films and TV programmes that habitually excuse their horrific images by presenting them in stories that are 'moral' because they narrate the investigation, condemnation, and punishment of the crime.

When Stephen Griffiths describes himself in court by the 'crossbow cannibal' tag that a newspaper gave him, don't we have to see that the conventional excited and graphic presentation of the murder of women in the media in news reports and in drama feeds back into reality, nourishing the fantasies and encouraging the actions not just of serial killers but of common-or-garden misogynists?

Wish you'd been around when I was being engulfed by wankers Good point about individual freedoms, not corporate freedoms.

ISNT - those acts certainly look a bit shit. Wonder whether many people complained? I think lots of us don't complain in these situations because of the reasons outlined below re. being perceived as joyless, and also because we think it won't achieve anything. What this movement really needs is a tangible success of some sort I think - something mainstream that people will happily associate themselves with.

My middle para is crap. What I am trying to say is that given that the market is a social artifact, a complex piece of infrastructure by which we collectively aim at social goods, the individual rights of the people who set up entities operating as collective actors in the market don't simply carry across as entitlements of a market entity to act uncurtailed by regulation. There is a huge and very restrictive filter on the translation of indiv freedoms into market-actors' entitlements. I'm sure libertarians of various sorts would deny this, but they are quite arguably wrong),

So, we CAN regulate market activity in pursuit of our values without curtailing rights. So defending rights doesn't mean undermining the other values that the market frequently erodes.

sorry x-post. When were you engulfed by wankers? On mn or in some libertarian pornophiles' masturbation den?

Actualyy have to go now.

ROFL @ "those acts certainly look a bit shit"

Understatement of the year, I imagine!

I am carefully trying to understand your posts eleison and think I have the gist of it.

The thing is, that looking at something like the media, and something we all like to get exercised about ie FHM/star at child's eye height.

Clearly there never were laws to say that pics of scantily clad women in sexually provocative poses should only be displayed on teh top shelf. And there was never any law against publishing these types of image on teh cover of "mainstream" ie not explicitely pornographic magazines.

There was a convention that only porn mags carried this type of image on teh cover, and they were displayed on teh top shelf. Cearly that convention no longer holds, so if publishers and retailers are not held to reasonable behaviour by convention, then maybe there is a case for forcing them to do so.

It's teh same as my CSI problem. I used to really like the show, sometimes the stories are still quite interesting. But there is just so much gratuitous female flesh, and so many of the crimes are sex crimes against nubile young women, that it becomes formulaic and dull. And, to me anyone, nasty//upsetting depending on what happens to the young woman that week.

It's the formulaicness of it that perterbs me, it's all just so casual. Like it doesn't matter, that depicting a violent rape is as common or garden as showing someone having a cup of tea.

spooky x-posts re the star and children eye level

great minds and all that

The thing is, it's no skin off the newsagents noses where the bloody things are displayed

So why put it where children can see, and in fact me, I don't want it in my face either. Why not just put it on teh top shelf? Why is this even an issue?

Eleison, it was the latter (libertarian pornophile masturbators' den, otherwise known as the comments under my blog post on LibCon). I might well copy and paste your extremely clear thinking the next time around...

ISNT, I think there are actually laws about 'top shelf' pornography - certain titles are designated as 18+ only and have to go on the top shelf by law. Don't know how the law is phrased or why things like Zoo/Nuts/Sport don't qualify - would be interesting to look into that. Obscene Publications Act presumably.

Can't remember whether it was this thread or a different one on which someone said they'd found themselves thinking 'Mary Whitehouse was right' [obviously 'right' only in a few rather specific circumstances].

You can, quite lawfully, go into newsagents and cover up the mags with paper bags, or turn them around. You just have to leave if when the manager asks you to. Object do 'feminist Friday' actions in which a bunch of them all go into a shop and do this. WHSmith is a particular target because it's always been so resistant to self-regulation of any kind.

I know I am channeling mary whitehouse, and I never thought I'd say that.

Thing is I dont' object to a lot of this stuff per se, it's an appropriateness thing, a time and a place thing.

Don't know if I am in the mood for googling obscene publications. I do know you're not allowed to show an erect penis and my question has always been why the fuck not? If you can see all these women with their legs spread? Pah.

Re Britains Got Talent, I'was really shocked at the number of 'scantily clad' so-called sexy acts put on by women. The vomitously smarmy and sordid response by the panel was always that the men on it were mock-flustered and aroused -- the claim was that if the act got through it was becasue of their arousal. Utter shame on the acts themselves and on the panel, including the woman on it, who laughed along with the whole pantomime of the men being manipulated by arousal.

I saw an episode of BBC's Luther where a taxi driver was killing prostitutes.

It obviously fancies itself as edgy and features idris Elba from The Wire.

It's interesting comparing the two series. IMO the long- drawn-out grisly scene where he breaks down a door with his toolkit- knife, axe, drill - while the 'prostitute' screams in terror next to a plastic wrapped corpse was unspeakably horrific. It played into the whole 'woman as prey' narrative which pervades cop dramas.

THe Wire featured many strong/flawed female characters- who were allowed to be characters and not just ciphers- but I never once saw it lapse into that Luther shit.

I agree - it's not that it's there as a one off, it's that it normalises violence against women.

I don't watch much TV drama but am shocked by the level of violence when I do. If you are a woman, you are either a victim, a lipstick lesbian or a fat funny one it seems.

Great thread.

I googled Charles Arthur and the I-Pad porn-free thing Policy mentioned and got this.
Apologies for deviating from the subject of this thread, but I thought this was interesting: 'It is not clear where this thread of Puritanism comes from within Apple....The only clue is in another email sent to Tate, who threw down the challenge: "I don't want 'freedom from porn'. Porn is just fine! And I think my wife would agree."

Even though it was past 1.30am, Jobs shot back within minutes: "You might care more about porn when you have kids . . ."'

However Arthur considers that, 'it seems unlikely he would manipulate the entire content strategy of a $240bn corporation simply to ease his home life'

In other words, it doesn't seem to occur to Arthur that maybe Jobs doesn't want porn on the I-Pad because he is actually anti-porn! Even though that is what Jobs is basically saying.

Seth - yes, that was the article that I read. Stupid man (Arthur) and props to Jobs. As you say, Arthur apparently cannot comprehend that Jobs might be doing this because he actually understands people's concerns about the proliferation of porn. It's almost enough to get me to buy an iPhone (if one of you lot is prepared to give me the money)

Now if I'd known that I wouldn't have become a crackberry adict.

Evening all. I would say I've enjoyed reading this thread but that would be wrong. I feel less of a screaming harpy certainly and will be carefully paraphrasing your cleverness in my next ahem Letter of Complaint. I am currently in correspondence with Sainsburys re their shelving heights and M&S re their soft porn advertising strategy so one more won't hurt now who to choose who to choose?

I'msonot you are so right. I, too, have started channelling Mary Whitehouse. As has Joan Bakewell.

Links

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100041836/as-joan-bakewell-now-admits-mary-whitehouse-was-right-ab out-a-lot-of-things/

and here

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7791737/Dame-Joan-Bakewell-admits-Mary-Whitehouse-was-right-to-fear- sexual-liberation.html

I can't watch TV dramas these days. Like you say, the woman (or girl) is abused/murdered but it turns out OK as the flawed but ultimately ok DC catches him in the end.

No, that doesn't make it OK.

Re the Ipad thing- surely it has the Internet though, which provides an infinite amout of porn.

If Apple don't want to sell porn apps then fair enough -but how far does it go? Because it seems rather puritanical to me. Are they going down the Facebook route of no nudity? Does that include art? Breastfeeding? Someone's bum?

What tends to boggle me about this sort of thing is how much time some people spend insisting that violent porn looked at by perverts is to blame for all the horrors in society (by which the worst bucketheads usually mean very stagey, ritualised BDSM stuff or manga ie cartoons) and completely ignoring how much violent misogyny features in prime time entertainment. Someone who is sexually aroused by the thought of women being chopped up or whatever doesn't need to join a secret cult society of rich snuff movie producers in snuff-movie peddling rings to get his kicks when he can pick up a box set of CSI or the Hostel films in the pound shop.