Much has been said about the
notable proliferation of beatings and rapes committed against female characters
across a diverse range of shows from Downton Abbey to Game of Thrones from the
intentions of the show’s creators to criticism of the use of rape and gender
violence as a plot device but the best observation made about the use of rape
came from German director Michael Hanecke’s reaction who wasn’t even talking
about rape or gender violence. In reaction to a question posed by The Hollywood
Reporter about the dangers of humanizing monsters such as Adolf Hitler, Hanecke
replied:
“I have to say that I argued with Downfall writer-producer Bernd
Eichinger about the film. I found it both repulsive and dumb. When you're
dealing with a figure of such a deep historical context, what are you doing
with him? You're creating melodrama. You're trying to move your spectators, but
what emotions are you calling on? Your responsibility entails enabling your
audience to remain independent and free of manipulation. The question is, how
seriously do I take my viewer and to what extent do I provide him with the
opportunity of creating his own opinion? Am I trying to force my opinion on the
spectator?”[1]
For me, Hanecke wrapped up the
TV violence against women in the quote above as it is hard to imagine that if
the writers and directors of the growing number of shows who have indulged in
using rape or violence against women in their stories had exercised as much
forethought as Hanecke before contemplating writing and shooting a rape scene, we
wouldn’t be talking about the proliferation of rapes and beatings against women
a growing number of shows.
If writers and directors of
these shows had considered Hanecke’s
question of “but what emotions are calling you on”, the use of rape would
instantly be obsolete as there is only one emotion you can call on when
portraying a rape or beating of a female character, disgust.
Another question posed by
Hanecke writers and directors of the shows should ponder is when dealing with
such a heinous and trauma inducing crime, what do you plan to do with it? The
answer we have gotten from a number of top shows has either been cynical
character development and even more cynical plotlines.
Game of Thrones has had its
critics for it persistent use of violence, rape and objectification of women in
past and this season has been no different especially after the infamous rape
scene between Cersei and Jamie Lannister (played by Lena Headley and Nikolaj
Coster-Waldau). As a regular viewer and fan of the show, the rape scene made no
sense and was out of the Jamie’s (the perpetrator of the rape) character given
the fact that he had lost a hand saving a female character from a brutal gang
rape in season 3.
Game of Thrones is littered
with acts of violence against women and violence full stop which is to be
expected given that it is a rather accurate portrayal of what happens in war
then, and notably, now. However the scene between Jamie and Cersei was
different as it took place at their dead son’s wake, not in the numerous city
sackings seen on the show.
The scene was bad enough but
what made it worse was the episode’s director Alex Graves defence of the scene
which revealed that Hanecke’s questions when portraying murderous dictators or
the wholesale murder of a people has never crossed his mind exemplified by his
reaction to the controversy below:
“Well, it (the rape scene)
becomes consensual by the end, because anything for them ultimately results in
a turn-on, especially a power struggle. Nobody really wanted to talk about what
was going on between the two characters, so we had a rehearsal that was a
blocking rehearsal. …Nikolaj (Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime) came in and we
just went through one physical progression and digression of what they went
through, but also how to do it with only one hand, because it was Nikolaj. By
the time you do that and you walk through it, the actors feel comfortable going
home to think about it. The only other thing I did was that ordinarily, you
rehearse the night before, and I wanted to rehearse that scene four days
before, so that we could think about everything. And it worked out really well.
That’s one of my favorite scenes I’ve ever done.”[2]
Graves is an excellent director
but is no rhetorician as no rhetorician worth the title would describe a rape
scene as one of the most favourite scene they’ve ever done. The matter of fact
manner with which he described the process shows that there isn’t much though
process behind portraying an act loaded with explosive themes which in this
scene, manage to evade every one due to its abrupt and badly directed nature.
In fact, as Wired’s Laura
Hudson rightly pointed out, the awfully directed scene allowed for an
interpretation of rape that actually worse than a straightforward rape scene
bereft of any room for interpretation as “Whether or not the creators intended
this to be a rape scene is irrelevant; they made one anyway. And worse, they
made one that encourages the most dangerous thinking about rape imaginable: that
when a woman is held down on the ground, screaming for the man to stop, that
deep down inside her she might still really want it”[3].
A simple consideration of
Hanecke’s approach to dealing with difficult and explosive subjects such as
rape would have illuminated to the show’s creators that a rape scene, whether
or not it made sense or had any “ambiguity”, is always a bad idea.
In sum, writers and creators of
should be more aware of their artistic choices when dealing with rape and
whether they should deal with rape altogether as the tendency of the medium is
to make a plot device of an issue that isn’t, or at least shouldn’t, be
amenable to the mechanics of visual storytelling
[1]
The Hollywood Reporter, 2013, THR’S Writer Roundtable: Osama Bin Laden, why
‘Schindler’s list’ Is Irresponsible and When Judd Apatow Was a Dishwasher, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/judd-apatow-john-krasinski-4-389956
[2]
L.Hudson, 2014, That Game of Thrones Scene wasn’t a “Turn on”, It Was
Rape, http://www.wired.com/2014/04/game-of-thrones-rape/
[3]
Ibid
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