natashavc:

WHAT MAKES A GOOD RAPE SCENE?

If we are to believe that a rape scene is used in a movie to demonstrate a ferocious moral transgression against a character then a good rape scene, and there are only a few, should repulse you. If we believe that rape is true act of violence and cruelty, then a scene depicting rape should feel ugly and leave us cringing, disgusted, perhaps even a little violated ourselves for having witnessed such a thing .

A bad rape scene, which many are, will contain too much eroticism. The exposed breast is perfectly powered and lit and lingers on camera before it get pumps up and down. The panty tear happens in slow motion, adding to the greater intensity. If the camera only showed the woman’s face you’d only be able to guess that at worst, she was having rough sex, and best, GREAT SEX.  

The rape scene in Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was so lovingly done, it was downright arousing.  Rooney Mara’s bare ass and almost exposed crotch — the eye is immediately drawn to the shadowed crevasse between her thighs. It’s impossible not to stare, out of arousal or prurience, or both— as she violently jerks her waif body on a mattresses with mouth duct taped shut. Perhaps Fincher meant to shock us by showing us all angles of a naked, writhing Rooney, bucking and screaming with all the lights on, but rather than shocking, it was somewhat arousing and it was absolutely the most thrilling scene of a very dull, joyless movie. The rape was done with glee, that verve on screen was impossible to ignore, so instead of looking away while an emotionally disturbed, malnourished woman is being forcibly sodomized, my animal parts started wriggling, instead of cringing, I leered. At no point does Rooney drop her boot camp tested toughness, she robust and aggressive during her attempts to throw her rapist off of her as well during the actual rape. The toughness we love in her before is again on full display now, had she broken, started beg or wilt, perhaps it would have been too pitiful, not good cinema. 

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Natasha Vargas-Cooper does a good job here providing some of the reasons why I find Girl With The Dragon Tattoo so disgusting and dangerous, and why I have such a hard time taking seriously people who call the series “feminist.”

L. Lin Wood, the lawyer hired by the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to fend off sexual harassment accusations, has warned that any other women who might be considering coming forward with similar allegations “should think twice.”

Everything this morning is making me sick. 

I posted earlier about Herman Cain’s calling Rep. Pelosi “Princess Nancy” and how fucking disgusting that is, especially given his record of treatment of women. But the other thing that happened in that debate that I didn’t talk about was the fact that the crowd literally booed the moderator for ASKING Cain about the sexual harassment allegations. Like it wasn’t even an acceptable thing to bring up. Like it doesn’t matter if our potential PRESIDENT has a record of misogyny. Like that’s a “personal” matter, because it’s just about women.

And now this? Threats to keep quiet? What the FUCK?

Also last night, a bunch of kids took to the streets in protest of the fact that their “beloved” football coach was fired for his complicity in allowing child rape to take place on Penn State’s campus. What is wrong with them? What’s wrong with everybody?

Goodbye. I’ll be spending the rest of the day under my bed reading feminist nonfiction to myself in whispers.