NaNo updates (plus a bonus rant)
Got 10,087 words today. Also on the duel with Dooku. Doing pretty well, I think, considering the circumstances. Pretty tired right now, but relatively satisfied.
Also, a bit of a ramble, based on one post that I read (thanks to a recommendation by fangirlblog). I don't know how qualified I am to really talk about this (and I doubt I can be as eloquent as some of the commenters were), but it was something that really struck me, and I kind of want to talk about it:
Basically, this post ( "Things I Will Not Do To My Characters. Ever.") by seanan_mcguire discusses one incident where someone asked when one of her characters was going to be raped. Almost as if it were par for the course in terms of female characters. When she said no, no one was going to be raped, the person said (and I quote): "I thought you had respect for your work. That's just unrealistic."
There are so many things wrong with what they just said that frankly, I don't even know where to begin. First off, there's the matter of, "Is there a strong female character in there? Then she has to be raped." Which is so many levels of sick that I can't frankly count them. It plays to the whole Rape as Backstory and Rape as Redemption (as well as other unfortunate rape tropes) in fiction. Want to give someone an edgier backstory? Include rape. And then there's the whole ickiness of Rape as Redemption that I severely wish would just die in a fire: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapePortrayedAsRedemption?from=Main.RapeAsRedemption. It's the sort of, "Oh, there's a bad girl/someone who actually enjoys sex/etc.? We can't have that; have her raped." Which plays to some of the really horrible instances of slut shaming in our culture -- if a girl is wearing revealing clothing, has an active sex life or anything else, she doesn't deserve respect. Which is absolutely ridiculous.
Not to mention some of the horrible myths about rape that exist in our culture -- things like if a girl is wearing tight clothes, she's inviting a man to rape her. Never mind that nobody deserves to be raped, and rapists don't discriminate. In addition, it portrays rape as sort of an "Oh ho, that man was just mindbogglingly horny; he couldn't help himself!" when in fact, it's not about that at all. There are many reasons for rape, but mostly, it's for the sake of power and control. Again, rapists don't discriminate. Not to mention, it's the twenty first century. You would think that we would have moved past this idea. Apparently, we haven't. And it's probably going to take a long time before we actually do.
Second off, it plays to the horrible stereotype that works that aren't nonstop Crapsack World-esque things aren't realistic. It's stuff like that which explains things like REVAN and the ending of MASS EFFECT 3, as well as others. Which -- no. It's not realistic in the slightest, and it's not good writing. It's okay to show bad things that happen in life in fiction, but at least, have some degree of hope at the end. Not to mention, look over things like this and ask, for example, in this case, "Is this rape scene necessary?" If it doesn't have any other purpose except for shock value, don't include it. Rape should never be used for shock value. In fact, a lot of things should not be used for shock value, but this, IMHO, is near the top of the list.
It's not the fact that rape should never be talked about or discussed or anything else. It's mostly the fact that it has to be done well. And unfortunately, a lot of instances of rape in fiction aren't done well. If anything, it's always done for some sort of cheap shock value or what-have-you. I actually remember Film Brain's review of "The Cavern" where the movie ends (and possible spoiler alert) with the monster killing one of the girls and beginning to rape the other. From what I can remember, he already hated "The Cavern" if only for its general incompetence in terms of being filmed, as well as the terrible characters and everything else, but it was the ending scene that really pushed him over the edge in terms of being angry. And honestly? I quite agree. To paraphrase him, you have to think about the weight of including a rape scene before you actually include it -- having it in there for shock value or to make things more "realistic" and "edgy"...it's deplorable, really. If it's done in a way that works for the story and is handled well, yes, it can work. But I'm thinking that it's not what the person in question had in mind. They were thinking that one can't write a good story unless one of the strong female characters gets raped, which is completely wrong. Unfortunately, it's in comics, it's in literature -- stuff like that is in media almost everywhere these days. For example, the matter oft Identity Crisis, what with Dr. Light raping Sue Dibny. Honestly, if one was to make Dr. Light a more threatening villain, you didn't have to include rape in there. There were other ways you could make him a more threatening villain without including rape. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the time, rape seems to be what the lazy writer resorts to when they want to create drama. Look at a lot of fanfiction out there -- want to cause some cheap drama? Have a character raped. In truth, it's not like that in real life -- rape is a horrible experience which no one should have to go through. Unfortunately, for every writer who seems to get it, there are writers that simply don't get it.
And honestly? That makes me angry more than anything else.
And those are my two cents on the matter. I hope I handled the subject well and everything, and made sense. What are your thoughts?