On Rape Jokes and Normalizing Assault

[jimhines]

A few people have commented on this part of yesterday’s blog post about sexual assault and excuses:

And then you have the guys who say they’ve never heard such things. Really? Never? As common as sexual assault is in this country, you’ve never heard anyone boasting about a problematic encounter? Never heard anyone glorifying assault, talking about

Comments

[idancewithlife]

I'm a big fan of Aaron Sorkin's work, but re-watches of his shows the past few years since discussion of consent has grown on the internet demonstrated almost all of his TV shows show stalker behavior. One party will say to another: "Leave me alone--I'm not interested," or "I'm not interested anymore" and the other party refuses to stop approaching them, saying over and over again, "You'll change your mind." In the Sports Night there's both a woman refusing to do this with a man, and a man with a woman. In West Wing Charlie "respectfully" refuses to stop trying to be with Zoey. Toby constantly and seriously asks his former wife to marry him again, and tells her he thought she was playing hard to get when she said no. In Studio 60 it's Brad Whitfield chasing his producer despite her repeated "no's". In Newsroom (his most recent, I think) it's not quite as blatant, but as in other shows, characters encourage their co-workers to try to win someone away from their present (apparently) monogamous partner. And in all the instances I named,

[therck]

I was bothered by all of those interactions on The West Wing, too. I was also appalled by Toby's ex-wife deciding to get pregnant with Toby's children without asking him or even telling him in advance. It's not as if she accidentally stumbled into the fertility clinic and ended up pregnant. Nobody ever mentioned that as an issue, though.

[idancewithlife]

Actually there are a number of episodes where the show explores their ongoing discussion to have children and parent together even though they are no longer married. My understanding is that it was done fully with Toby's consent.

Edited to correct typo.

[funwithrage]

Cosigned. (See also: Sam and Laurie ending in any way other than her kicking him in the nads. Fuck you, Sam.) Sorkin is great with many things, but the beginning stages of romantic relationships are not any of them.

[therck]

Even Disney channel sitcoms aimed at tweens do this sort of thing. It's a layer deeper because the jokes are all about wanting to date someone unwilling with sex, even kissing, nowhere on the horizon.

And it's not any funnier when the harasser is a girl going after a guy. That happened in only one series that we watched. The rest were all guys going after girls. Generally, the targets were the main characters with the harassers supporting characters who appeared occasionally.

We don't have Disney XD, so I haven't seen much of any of their sitcoms aimed at boys. My impression is that the main characters in Mighty Med do some harassing, but, as I said, I haven't seen much of it.

[cereta]

GOD, I've noticed this. Like, A LOT. My kid loves those sitcoms, and I've had to place a moratorium on some shows, sometimes for their treatment of girls in general, and sometimes because no, harassment isn't any more funny when you're using to make a female character look pathetic (which is so often the case for girl-on-boy harassment), and it's really NOT funny when the message so often is, "keep at it. You can have that girl if just push her hard enough." It makes me long for Babrbie movies, which so seldom have romance as the main plot, or even at all.

[cereta]

Also, in Mighty Med, now Lab Rats Elite Force, it has moved from little-guy-trying-to-get-girl (who is totally out of his league) to actually playing the creep factor for laughs. The boy films the girl without her knowledge, and excuses it with, "I'm a weird guy; we've been over this." The one bright spot is when the girl crushes is phone and says, "I find you creepy; we've been over this." Alas, the predictable happens, and she starts to like him, too. Barf.

[socchan]

I've seen it in at least three Disney tweens sitcoms: Two in ANT Farm (both attracted to the guy who's interested in the main character); one in Austin & Ally (the girl who's interested in the guy is also fat and otherwise "unfeminine"); and at least one in Jessie, which itself is basically "Let's throw a bunch of negative stereotypes in a high-rise apartment in Manhattan and see what happens!" (The character in question is outright referred to as "Creepy Connie".) Conclusion: I watch trash

[deborahblakehps]

If Trump has done anything good at all (hard to imagine, I know) at least he has made this topic come front and center. That's something, I suppose.

[mt_yvr]

There is a modern working model for things that if some one talks about their experiences in something that appears tangental it's trying to appropriate or derail a conversation. Knowing how this'll look (gay white male speaking in a thread about women), I ask for patience. I normally attempt to connect with things I'm not directly affected by, by way of similar / paraphrasing events in my own life

[kaph]

I'm so sorry you had to deal with this. And also thank you, thank you, thank you for thinking about how it relates to violence against women.

Real life bleeding over

[ext_3854859]

My 14 year old son has a friend that has taken all these to heart, and is trying to get a classmate to "date him" and is objectifying her immensely. My guy is creeped out and trying to get him to knock it off, but is just flabbergasted and at a loss for what to say besides repeating over and over "not cool, no matter what you see on TV, you're creeping her out, stop it"

So in case someone is going to read this and say "not a big deal, it doesn't really affect people, is just tv," - it does.

(And I'm just proud to bursting about my 14 year old's behavior)

Re: Real life bleeding over

[baker_kitty]

Your son is awesome. :)