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But, look, Milah is an example of his cockiness. He said to her, after hearing that she is married and has a child, that hes there often if anything changes. She said it won’t, but he knew it would. He EXPECTED her to flock to him no matter what her status. Did he rely on drink? Well, obviously, she was in a bar. I am not sure how cannon it is that he slipped drinks for the women, butit IS cannon that he is narcissistic and simply expects women to run to him. It’s disgusting, of course, and ugly, but that was his personality from the start. It isn’t A&E s fault that some horny little teens pushed ABC to turn this beautiful show about family love into another cheap typical aggressive boy romance garbage. Originally he was meant to be a pompous bigshot who feels entitled to get the girl. And Emma was supposed to be the one girl who resists him on account that she is a decent human being who loves humble men like Neal
[adrotate group="5"]No Hook doesn’t rely on drink with Milah but he does rely on aggression: he literally decks a guy, saving Milah from her situation. It’s supposed to be a stark contrast to Rumple moments before, who is scared of the dagger and can’t “be a man” and defend his family. It’s still a part of that rape culture we’re talking about. It’s part of Hook’s swagger which, yes, you are right about. That’s a big part of his character. No one is actually disagreeing with you. But rape culture isn’t just about getting someone drunk and taking advantage–that, to me, is just actual rape. Rape culture is about the power dynamics between men and women and our conditioned responses to them based on perpetuated stereotypes and beliefs on everything from power, gender performance and roles for each gender as they relate to one another.
Also, you cannot absolve A and E of all guilt and place on the shoulders of “some horny little teens” (which is some truly startling language. Not all CSers are teenagers; in fact a great many of the ones who were here, for example, were older than I am, married,and with children. Just like there are SFers who are younger than I am. So let’s not generalize, okay?) ABC is a business and their job is to sell their product. The product they wanted to sell was the one that was getting the most buzz which happened to be CS and that goes back to what men and women are conditioned to expect from media and gender dynamics in media. A and E did have say, they did decide to kill Neal instead of just putting CS together and letting Neal stay alive as a father and a son. A and E did choose to write the CS relationship as it is currently being portrayed (even if it’s getting side eye from me right now, it’s still being sold for the moment as an epic love story). This is to say nothing off all the other horrifying storylines that have rape/wonky consent/problematic elements that have NOTHING to do with Hook. They are perpetuating those same tropes and storylines from past movies and TV shows cause it’s simply “how you told a story” for the longest time. They didn’t invent the mold but they fell, face first, gleefully into it, when ABC likely told them to push CS over the original plans.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"No Hook doesn’t rely on drink with Milah but he does rely on aggression: he literally decks a guy, saving Milah from her situation.
Let’s not blame Hook for protecting who he felt was a woman about to be in a dangerous situation. The guy he decked may have tried to rape Milah for all we know. To say he relied on aggression there is so unfair. He helped her, and he didn’t even know her. And then he backed off when she said she was married. In my eyes, Hook did absolutely nothing wrong in this scene.
No Hook doesn’t rely on drink with Milah but he does rely on aggression: he literally decks a guy, saving Milah from her situation.
Let’s not blame Hook for protecting who he felt was a woman about to be in a dangerous situation. The guy he decked may have tried to rape Milah for all we know. To say he relied on aggression there is so unfair. He helped her, and he didn’t even know her. And then he backed off when she said she was married. In my eyes, Hook did absolutely nothing wrong in this scene.
No you’re right. I should have said this more carefully. He is shown to be a better man, in Milah’s eyes, through his (granted, warranted) aggressive acts which were designed to be a contrast to quivering, scared Rumple, unable to even look at the dagger to do “what had to be done” to save his family (which is a whole other basket of worms that I tried to discuss in the latest podcast…). Whereas Hook doesn’t really hesitate. I have issues with how I feel it changes formerly established canon of the motivations of characters but not necessarily his actions in their context.
But it does speak to something that OUAT has been harping on a bit lately; that proper manhood is defined through aggression, violence and fighting. Rumple had to become a true hero by learning to fight with Merida and then fighting a bear for Belle as an example.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"RG, btw I really enjoy your input on the podcast
Anyway, about the men being aggressive in order to be real men, is that what you call rape culture? Because in a way this is really terrible for gentle men like spinner Rumple who was more of a woman in Milah’s eyes and therefore unworthy. I would say it’s unfairly forcing “feminine” men to live outside of their comfort zone in order to be accepted into society. It is the most unfair culture, and more unfair to men than it is to women, I think.
Rape culture is about the power dynamics between men and women and our conditioned responses to them based on perpetuated stereotypes and beliefs on everything from power, gender performance and roles for each gender as they relate to one another.
This a 100%. But I also think @POM is onto an important distinction.
But if these women are willingly consuming alcohol and then drunkenly make the choice to go back to a guy’s place for sex but then regret it in the morning, where does that fall on the consent scale?
One of the problems with rape culture and some of the aspects of the backlash against it — and really, OUAT actually helps exemplify this — is that as much as the woman is conceived as not being able to say no, she is also denied the agency to say yes.
That’s not about gender per se, but about what seems to be a long puritan history of prohibition/taboos on sexuality, especially in the US. Considering that second wave feminism emerged out of the sexual revolution half a century ago, it is deeply problematic that it is so difficult to think about a woman having a casual, alcohol-fueled random sexual encounter with someone as objectionable and shallow (but arguably pretty) as Hook, and not thinking that she has somehow been wronged. Or giving her the room to feel conflicted, but not victimized. There’s a subtle patriarchal logic that works itself into the argument that suggests that it’s still on the woman’s shoulders to “consent” because sex is potentially polluting or devaluing to her. I think as we think about this, we need to make room for different expressions of agency, without automatically placing women in a position of disempowerment as a result of their sexual choices.
RG, btw I really enjoy your input on the podcast
Thanks 🙂
Anyway, about the men being aggressive in order to be real men, is that what you call rape culture? Because in a way this is really terrible for gentle men like spinner Rumple who was more of a woman in Milah’s eyes and therefore unworthy. I would say it’s unfairly forcing “feminine” men to live outside of their comfort zone in order to be accepted into society. It is the most unfair culture, and more unfair to men than it is to women, I think.
It’s not just being aggressive. I mean…I’m a relatively young woman. Confident men can be a turn on, no doubt (same with confident women). The issue that I have, and that is part of the rape culture conversation going on all over the world, is when the aggressive behavior of the man becomes akin to stalking, spying, harassment–buying her presents, showing up at her door, following her around work trying to convince him to go out with her. It’s when the guy won’t let up even though the woman has said “no” to him for dates, sex, love, whatever. And in the end, the guy gets the girl (without having to modify his behavior) because the woman didn’t know what she really wanted, she was denying her true feeling all along, ect. These are the things we see in media all the time, and even in real life, because we are trained from a young age to believe that men being aggressive in their pursuits is okay and that women should simply accept it as a form of love. Think about this way: on the playground, we see a young boy harassing a young girl–snapping her bra, chasing her, teasing her, making fun of her, ect. What do we tell the young girl? That it means he likes her. Not that she has every right to defend her personal space, that his kind of action isn’t okay….but that it means the young boy likes her and she should go with it.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"But it does speak to something that OUAT has been harping on a bit lately; that proper manhood is defined through aggression, violence and fighting. Rumple had to become a true hero by learning to fight with Merida and then fighting a bear for Belle as an example.
Well the Rumple and Merida story line and turning him into a hero was a train wreck. No doubt. You know, funny enough, I sort of think we can compare Rumple and Hook here a bit. I think they both, on the surface, and without thinking, on the spot, do the right things. This is just the latest case with Hook stepping in and without thinking, protecting some stranger. We have seen Rumple and Hook do horrible things, to each other, their friends, and to the people they love. But we have also seen both of them act honorably, attempting to even sacrifice themselves. But they always seem to revert back to their “nasty habits.” Or in Hook’s case, “bad form.” I know a lot of people are not Hook fans on here, but I find myself seeing many similarities between Rumple and Hook. And similarly to Belle with Rumple, Emma seems to forgive Hook quite a lot, for past and present actions. Hook and Rumple hate each other, but they really are much more alike than they know.
We know what turned Rumple into the semi-monster, albeit with human motivations, he is today (becoming the DO), but it would be nice to see what changed Hook, and I don’t think having a corrupt ruler who wanted to use nightshade as a weapon is enough of a motivation to become a total butt face. And the revenge stuff for killing Milah is also getting old. I think it would help humanize Hook a bit and help understand his character a little more if we understood more about why he became the man with bad form. Or maybe I just don’t like the reasons the writers have already gave. Honestly, I used to really like Hook, so I’m struggling to figure out why I don’t like him as much anymore.
OK, where I live, if a boy snaps a girl’s bra on the playground, that boy would be expelled. It’s totally unacceptable, and it’s sexual harassment. Maybe this is why we don’t see eye to eye on this.
OK, where I live, if a boy snaps a girl’s bra on the playground, that boy would be expelled. It’s totally unacceptable, and it’s sexual harassment. Maybe this is why we don’t see eye to eye on this.
A corollary of this “he pulls your pigtails, so he must like you” logic is that it also does a disservice to boys. There is an assumption that comes with this that boys are doing this because they are emotional idiots, or somehow are socially stinted — but nothing needs to be done about this, because “boys will be boys”. In fact, being a ‘sensitive’ boy is socially penalized. So much of this rape culture business is also about the ways in which only a very narrow, rather toxic form of masculinity is cultivated (or allowed to develop), at the expense of other forms of gendered expression.
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