RG, slurpeez and DSB: PREACH!!! I really don’t even get how there’s so much of a debate about the topic, it seems pretty clear cut IMO. onceanfuturekiki on tumblr often responds to people with the best, most straight forward and in depth posts on the OUAT rape culture topic.
Right. And the fact that it’s hotly debated or that people blatantly dismiss it goes back to something @Textbookone pointed me towards and something I mentioned in one of our critical thread: emotional truths. People don’t want to face the music that their favorite character or their favorite pairing is promoting something as vile as “rape” because rape is bad–full stop, end of conversation. Like DSB said Rape Culture = / = rape but putting that word anywhere near a “thing” makes it bad automatically. And if your character/ship is promoting said bad thing, then you, by extension, are promoting a bad thing. And that makes you bad (it doesn’t, it just means you’ve fallen into the same media traps that media WANTS you to fall into). And because human tendency is to distance ourselves from “bad” then we automatically reject the evidence that a thing is bad.
And really what is underlying this is our media culture and our consumption of it. This isn’t even a criticism of A and E. This isn’t even a criticism of ONCE; it’s of television. I’ve fallen victim to it, though I try to be more conscience of it now.
But it’s the romanticization of the pursuit: “look how much he loves her! Look at how much he cares! She clearly feels something but just won’t let herself feel, so he should keep up the chase because he is right and she is wrong and she’ll be better once she realizes how right he is!”
It’s NOT just Hook and CS–it’s television 101. It’s Harlequin and bodice ripping and supposed to be “sexy” but the problem is that suddenly critics of media and culture (which includes both TV and literature) are pointing out that when you put this in a “real” situation (which is what TV is supposed to be, escapism or not) it’s APPALLING and quite frankly ALARMING that we are holding these relationships and the pursuits of the man’s desires up as romantic.
And like I said, I’ve fallen victim to it too. I really like Olitz on Scandal but Fitz is a warped individual who uses sexual pleasure on Olivia to get what he wants. I don’t know how many times he has kissed her out of the blue (or done something equally scandalous), talked her into kissing him (god, that sounds familiar, right?) or challenged Olivia’s belief system about their relationship–which, side note, is why I almost stood up and cheered when Olivia told Jake that she isn’t choosing Fitz or him, she’s choosing Olivia. God…beautiful. Remember when Emma did that? And then what–more pursuit followed by her giving in and it being upheld as a good thing.
But like I said, this isn’t just ONCE or A and E. It’s media–in all its complexities. Put the shoes on the other foot. Make it so that the woman is going after the guy like crazy, hounding him at his place of work, watching him through a scope while he eats with friends and family, telling him how they should be together, ect. We’d say she was a “tramp” a “ho” and a stalker. But when the GUY does it…well, that’s romantic. (relevant side note: but did you know that ratings are, yes, first and foremost divided into the 18-49 category but within that rage the most important demographic is the 18-35 yr old WOMEN–I bring it up because TV is designed to attract a female audience and females have been told that this kind of activity is romantic and makes them special. It’s the same reason that instead of teaching men “hey! don’t rape!” we teach women “hey, don’t get raped by doing XYZ!” It’s always victim blaming instead of the fault of the offender…and THAT is rape culture)
By writing Hook and CS the way they have A and E are playing into an overused type of media. That doesn’t make then evil or vile…but doesn’t make it good writing either.
Anyway. That’s all I got right now.