Realism Still Doesn't Justify Including Sexual Assault | Hacker News Reader

Realism Still Doesn't Justify Including Sexual Assault

mythcreants.com

13 pointsBerislavLopac17 comments

The author is spot-on here, "realism" is a very flimsy justification for including sexual assault. One also does not need to even include sexual assault to evoke the same "gritty" or revolting feeling as rape, just look at the larval state of xenimorphs in the Alien franchise - they enter through your mouth and "birth" themselves violently through your chest.

This feels like a strawman. Realism is a flimsy argument.

If it doesn't make you feel something then it isn't art. Depicting sexual assault is clearly an artistic choice. Would it be better if your multi-billion dollar multi-national media company never depicted sexual assault? Did that scene make you cheer for the rapist? Perhaps the artist nailed their intent: inspiring disgust in the audience. Maybe the audience now remembers that sexual assault happens in the real world and just because they don't see it everyday that they should advocate for protection of victims and punishment of perpetrators.

Or maybe it was all pro-rape. Whatever.

I read the article, and I think it's unfair to say it's a strawman argument. The article is talking about realism / "honest" depiction of war because that was the justification given by Tony Gilroy (second quote in the article). The author talks about a number of other horrific things that happen to people in war that weren't included, and explains how including a rape scene doesn't fit the story well, and makes the argument that shows include rape scenes of extremely attractive actresses because it is an audience expectation, not because the plot demands it or because it makes for a realistic or honest depiction of the circumstances.

I too read the article. They take quotes, ignore the art, and then assign a narrative based on their projection of what they think others are seeing. It's all very unreasonable. I have to wonder if their motivation is actually social justice or divisive engagement.

The art isn't ignored, the article specifically focuses on how the scene fits into the story, with reasoning that you have not addressed. I think saying "it's an artistic choice" is a weak argument, like responding to criticism of poor anatomy or wonky perspective in a drawing by saying "that's just my style."

graphic, highly detailed depictions of anything at all are not needed, they absolutely pale compared to what you can evoke by cueing the imagination.

Maybe not needed but could also help to avoid that behavior in real life. Maybe people don't want to see it just to forget that shit happens, unless some bad behavior is glorified I don't see any negative effects on show it on a film, book, whatever.

Indeed. When was the last time one of those shows highlighted the full impact of dysentery in graphic detail?

This argument is a slippery slope for banning all sorts of unpleasantness (for all sorts of peoples's definition of unpleasant).

Wasn't there a whole storyline about rebels starving in that episode of Andor?

I guess for people who spend most of their time in fantasy lands, it seems jarring for a storyteller to tell a story about anything that could actually potentially happen in reality. Or even just actually shown the results of violence. Or even depict anything that's personally distasteful to them. If one wants a story in which nothing particularly bad happens to female characters or any characters at all, they should seek out children's literature. Maybe this is just my weird worldview given I grew up watching Law and Order SVU. But I would find stories quite boring if authors weren't allowed to depict anything that's at all distasteful to some particular subset of humans. I just find the point of view from this article immature and lacking in understanding of the full scope of possible storytelling.

That is certainly an unusual take, if your sense of enjoyment of stories came from the reaction of others. We've all grown up watching different things that have been depicted in a variety of ways, so we can't really assume the same baseline and derive insights from that. It's simpler to judge a work in its own merit (or lack of).

What?

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say?

How exactly does one "judge a work in its own merit?"

How do you determine whether a movie is good or not? In a vacuum? Measuring its traits against itself?

How can anything at all be judged "on its own merits" without considering the scope of other things related to it?

How does this person writing the article judge the story against itself when they make the claim that this story is bad because men are never sexually assaulted in stories. I can name 2 popular movies off the top of my head (Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption) that had graphic depictions of men being raped and sexually assaulted.

The writer measured the story they were reviewing against the broader world. Not against itself. Therefore, considering the broader world, there's nothing particularly miscreant about a story portraying violence against a human being (male or female).

The writer's incorrect belief that men are never sexually assaulted in film and TV shows is simply limited by their immaturity and lack of knowledge of the many stories that have been told in different mediums for decades.

Imagine scare quotes around "realism" in the title, and you will have a better understanding of what's written in the article.

I both read and understand the article.

Let's imagine for a moment that it was instead of Andor and sexual assault, an article about Harry Potter and violence against children. And instead of claiming that anyone who writes a story in which an attractive woman is sexually assaulted has a secret attraction to sexual assault against women, she claimed that J.K Rowling secretly wanted to murder children because one of her characters wanted to do that.

Would that be a good argument?

I'm simply disagreeing with the underlying premise of the article, which is that the things that happen in a storyteller's stories illustrate some internal desire of the storyteller.

Yes, I get where you're coming from now.

> I'm simply disagreeing with the underlying premise of the article, which is that the things that happen in a storyteller's stories illustrate some internal desire of the storyteller.

I see it differently. When the author includes something controversial that fits poorly in their story, and they say they did it because it's realistic, it's worth talking about why they would say that.

I don't think the conclusion is saying that Gilroy likes sexual assault against women, just that he would shoehorn "attractive woman gets assaulted" into his story because he believes that stereotype, to the detriment of viewers (who didn't want to see it), the story (which it doesn't fit), and society (which doesn't need this harmful idea reinforced / could have benefitted from a better look at the topic).

A few points:

The distinction between story telling and show business - sometimes content merely exists for shock value as a publicity stunt. For example, I had no idea Andor had another season.

Audience and brand - a jarring tonal shift undermines the story. If Game of Thrones ended with everyone singing kumbyah and holding hands, that would upset a lot of people (even more than the current ending, if that's possible). Meanwhile, it would be inappropriate to have Harry Potter end in genocide.

The increasing displays of violence in media and its effect on the psyche - there are real life examples of social media content moderators getting PTSD from exposure to harmful content. Just because something is fictional doesn't mean it can't cause harm, and just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it's valid art.

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