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Quite a long time ago I reached a point where I decided I wouldn’t watch any more films with sexual violence, I simply couldn’t stomach the gratuitous use of rape scenes and the film-makers’ indifference toward cruelty. There were a few exceptions along the way but they basically had to be absolute knock-out films for me to bother overlooking my no-rape-scenes policy. And then recently, I sat down to knowingly watch the very average 2011 re-make of Straw Dogs and I ended up spending quite a bit of time thinking about the rape scene and I even went and watched the 1971 version of Straw Dogs in order to make sense of that rape scene. Here are my thinky thoughts on the atrocious use of a rape scene in yet another film (Pauline Kael, I salute you) and how it’s being updated for a modern audience and also, how I manage to quite like one version of Straw Dogs.

Straw Dogs, a film by director Sam Peckinpah was supposed to be about the savage, ancient violence lurking beneath a modern, civilised society. In the 1970′s that was a concept that still had the power to shock people. The original film bases its tension around a culture clash – an American abroad, living in a tiny, dreary, English village with his English wife – the new version, by Rod Lurie, uses the same class warfare but places it all in the United States of America with a North versus South thing going on. Straw Dogs is essentially about a couple (David and Amy) seeking change from their stressful city life (or an escape from conscription into the Vietnam War as in the 1971 version), and so they move to Amy’s birthplace, where the guy can work in quiet solitude on something very intellectual and very important while his wife gets a little bored and lonely. The house they move to requires work, and ‘work’ is an important matter in this film because it’s the core of a man’s identity, but of course it is not ‘intellectual work’ the house requires, rather it’s ‘manly labouring type’ work. This means they need to hire some very manly labouring type men to fix their house. Enter manly Charlie and his manly crew. In both versions the class war in Straw Dogs is straight up. The sex war, not so much.

This is what you need to know about the 1971 version of David, he is played by Dustin Hoffman. He’s brilliant to watch.

This what you need to know about the 2011 version of David, played by James Marsden, he wears pink shirts (ie. metrosexual!), is obnoxious, snobbish, over-paid and apparently cultured (he uses chess pieces on his wife in foreplay: well, la di dah). He also has a lovely car, but significantly, doesn’t know how to change its tyres and is more interested in it as a status symbol than as a classic automobile (watch for the ‘hood ornament’ moment). In other words, this man is struggling to be a man. He is no Dustin Hoffman either.

In fact, everything about Straw Dogs is about masculinity and the fear of being emasculated, but more on that later.

This is what you need to know about Charlie. In the 1971 version he is played by Del Henney and he (second from the left) and his crew look like this.

Kind of a brutish sexuality there but still, more brute than out-right hot.

Here is Charlie  in 2011.

He is fucking gorgeous. Problematic. Alexander Skarsgård is too hot to be a rapist and Straw Dogs concerns manly brutish men being rapists, it’s part of their potent masculinity and it’s how they lead the turf war against those white-collar men who can’t figure out how to be real men. (Get all the high-paid jobs, take ‘em all, take everything, but do you look like this when you take your shirt off?) It is incredibly wrong thinking to suggest that rapists can’t be good-looking, as if rape was about unmet sexual needs rather than the cruel and deliberate exploitation of power, but then the 2011 version of Straw Dogs goes out of its way to make Charlie irresistible and in doing so the film tries its little heart out to make the rape really blurry. Actually, that’s the bit that made me seek out the older version of Straw Dogs for comparison, was it a rape, was it supposed to be blurry, was Charlie actually intended to be kinda sexy during that scene?

The real battleground for these two men – David and Charlie – is their masculinity. Both men are being sexually humiliated by David’s wife, Amy. David, because he won’t confront the manly men over their behaviour, which becomes increasingly threatening, allowing him to be seen as a coward by his wife, and Charlie, because he doesn’t have the money and status to pull a chick like Amy, and there she is, right in front of him, existing (ie. how provocative of her). This theme is played hard with Charlie and Amy also being ex-lovers from their youth. Charlie is mortified to be watching his manly crew ogling his ex-girlfriend, the one he let get away, the one he isn’t ‘big’ enough to have anymore. Both men cast as Charlie in Straw Dogs are physically imposing, that’s significant because the title of the film is derived from this very aspect. Physical stature was once important, back in highschool, but also back in time when life was more labour-intensive, it was valued enough to get them the girl, where as now with the new world order Charlie is in the subservient position of working for David; the power of being physically superior has diminished. Or has it?

 

In both versions of the film David is a patronising git to his intellectually inferior wife but at least in the 1970′s version the marital politics feels pretty truthful to the time, and Hoffman has a little something going on that makes him momentarily attractive to you, he and Susan George also manage some charming chemistry together that Marsden and Kate Bosworth never do. In the 2011 version Straw Dogs has Charlie  being quite chivalrous – intervening where bullying is happening, calling men ‘sir’ and dreamily admiring a pregnant friend’s belly – a bit of Southern Gentleman mixed in with his redneck. The kind of menacing charm that blends chivalry right into misogyny. Because, the rape scene.

Here’s all the super dangerous stuff in the Charlie-Amy rape scene.

Firstly, Amy is supposed to be seen as asking for it, she doesn’t, after all, always wear a bra, as noted by her blaming/shaming husband, and we all know rapists can’t resist jiggling. Plus, she gets a little pissy with the manly brutes for ogling her at one point and flashes her breasts at them in a little ‘fuck you’ gesture. Oh no, you know how rapists feel about feisty women. (As an aside, another key plot development in the film involves an underage girl ‘seducing’ an older man with diminished mental capacities, she’s asking for it too, of course).

Now, here comes the serious ‘rape mythology’ crap. Part-way through the rape scene Amy apparently starts to enjoy the experience. In fact, in the 1971 version, Charlie and Amy are quite tender together by the end of that ‘thing’. I hate this notion so much that I considered whether or not to even call this a rape scene. I mean, if you and your partner get off on it and it makes you feel so happy together then it’s rough consensual sex, not rape. But then, even by a misogynist’s definition, surely this scene constitutes rape – because  in both film versions Amy says no multiple times and in multiple ways and Charlie continues, and in both versions Charlie uses physical force and intimidation. In the 1971 version of Straw Dogs the rape is initially seriously violent, the 2011 version tones the violence down but accommodates for that by allowing Amy to look more distressed by the rape than 1971 Amy does. Problem is, though, both versions really eroticise the rape scene.

Next ‘rape mythology’ bit of crap. Is Charlie attractively assertive and bad at reading women’s emotions or is he predatory? Both versions of Straw Dogs film the scene in such a way as to suggest that the rape is almost an accidental moment of masculine brutality. Symbolically, the rape by Charlie happens simultaneously when David is out trying his hand at hunting, where through dumb luck he actually manages to shoot and kill an animal. In fact, in Straw Dogs 2011 Charlie appears hurt that Amy is behaving so much like someone whose just been raped, he’s misunderstood you see, he thought she wanted him, and in both versions David is kinda sad about killing the animal. Oops. These things happen when men are being manly, things can get hurt or killed or scarred for life. Accidentally, naturally.

And this brings me to the thing about Straw Dogs that really troubles me. It’s not Amy whose sexualised so much in the rape scene as it is Charlie. Skarsgård, particularly, is directed to play Charlie in a manner very close to something like ‘romantic lead’. Men and women, both, in the audience are left with no doubt that naked Charlie is supposed to be way hotter than naked David – the 1971 version rather bluntly flashes topless images of Charlie and David against one other. Straw Dogs features multiple close-ups of Charlie’s naked torso, and in the 2011 version, shot for shot they’re like something out of a passionate love story. I think this was a deliberate act to make female audience members complicit in the ‘rape mythology’ of the storyline. Of course Amy really wants Charlie, you do, too. You want a rapist.

And supposedly, here lies the inner struggle for men – if you’re not manly women won’t be attracted to you, but if you are manly, women will want to hate you for it. In case you have any doubt that the rape scene is all about the men in this film and what it means for them and their journey, rather than anything about the victim’s point of view or journey, the scene culminates in Charlie punishing Amy in the worst possible way – the infamous ‘double rape’ scene – enter Charlie’s manly, rapist mate. Charlie punishes Amy for the revulsion he feels towards himself  for what he’s done, which depending on the film version is either expressed as a sense of horror and shame or as a sense of being too soft and vulnerable. Don’t worry, this is ‘rape mythology’ bullshit, so Charlie gets to redeem himself right at the end of the film by putting his life on the line to save Amy. Although, if you watch the film you’ll note that the whole moralising climactic bit of the story happens when men are trying to protect a home and another man from men – it’s really about property rights and due process. And David finally claims his masculinity and status as hero when he can be as violent and blood-thirsty as the brutish men.

In the end, Straw Dogs, like those other manly films of the 1970′s tells you little about women but quite a lot about men. I have to admit that I retain a bit of a soft spot for these 70s films, partly because they feature these amazing actors in their prime, like Dustin Hoffman (who said he wanted to do Straw Dogs because he was “interested in [the] repressed violence in liberals”), and partly, because they’re all so preoccupied with fears about masculinity (it was a time of serious social change, after all), and partly, because they didn’t bother to make any kind of gesture towards feminism so you get to see these horrid little thoughts in all their misogynist glory – they really wear their MRA spirit on their sleeves, there’s nothing that deceptive or manipulative about them.

Ok then, two sorta film reviews in one week, I promise never to do that again here.

P.S. This was a very long and tiring post to write (and probably also to read, congratulations you made it to the end). At times I thought why bother, is anyone even watching the Straw Dogs remake, but then, in researching my post I started reading what others said about it on the Internet and you should see the kind of bullshit that is still being written out there about this story, really, my god you should read it, and I just wanted to say I see the rape scene differently to you guys, very differently.

This is a great post

No, not this here of mine, this one, “Breastfeeding support: less is not more” over there at Spilt Milk’s. Really, go read it.

I’m really liking Tracy Moore’s parenting posts on Jezebel. (But good god, don’t expect any kind of enlightenment in the comment threads). She’s what I would describe as ‘an accidental attachment parent’, which is pretty much how I came to be attachment parenting, too. It just happened, it felt right to me, it seemed to kinda work, and it really suited my laziness.

Here are Tracey Moore’s parenting posts:

How I learned to stop worrying and love pooping during childbirth

Five: At least knowing this helps you figure out who you really want in the ol’ delivery room, eh? Let’s take that list, cut in half, and then burn whatever’s left. Hey – some people have honest-to-God orgasms when they give birth. Is that what you want your mother-in-law to see? I think you’re beginning to see that pooping is clearly the more family-friendly option here.

Isn’t a baby supposed to cramp your style?

Perhaps, at least initially, early parenthood should be a period of confinement, I wondered. A mental and physical test of one’s ability to focus, channel and redirect. A meditative retreat into a new self, a quieting down of all the usual clatter.

Sure, we went out into the world with our baby. But rather than try to force her into our existing excursions, we tried new ones that might force us to consider the city – and our lives – from a new angle. Rather than become frustrated at staying in evenings, we relished the ability to live a low-key existence and go to sleep early, which strengthened our relationship and made working the first year entirely possible in spite of lots of waking up in the middle of the night.

Where, exactly, is it ok to take your kid?

Here’s something you did one time that didn’t help. When you were driving to take your baby to a broken glass factory wine-tasting party, you didn’t immediately floor it when the light changed green while sitting in traffic because you were looking at your baby in the rear-view mirror instead. Um, the lady in the Jetta was trying to get to her friend’s yoga class that already started and she only has this one free pass for this one time?

Also did you know how slow you are? Everywhere you go? Can’t you go faster? Even a little? Do you ALWAYS have to strap the baby in the car seat? Some of us are trying to get to a movie?

Advice to would-be parents: learn how to make the elephant sound now, before it’s too late

The ability to lie completely still for three hours, transcending all your biological needs.
This one’s not about externalizing, but internalizing. It’s great for people who are already interested in meditation. Lying next to a baby who is just almost asleep for two hours while you desperately need to pee/eat/ scratch an itch/cough brings up strange, existential questions, like, Is it possible to reabsorb all this pee and somehow be “beyond peeing?” Can you cough into yourself? Inquiring minds.

Who needs the family bed when you have the family toilet?

Recently I was sitting on the toilet peeing while my nearly 2-year old daughter was sitting in my lap playing with her stuffed koala bear, and I thought to myself, how did we get here? It could be worse, I suppose — we could be doing this as a performance art piece at a pop-up gallery in downtown L.A.

I guess I forgot to wean my baby

Not like you didn’t already have enough weird, judgy parenting shit to deal with, but yay, now it’s not just whether you nurse and whether you like it but how long you do it for — and don’t forget to feel bad about where, you human gargoyle.

Even ol’ Prudie McJudgy over at Dear Prudence, who fancies herself the most reasonable and permissive person on the planet (about porn for men), joined in on the haranguing when she had about two hemorrhages in November answering a letter about a woman who nursed her 5-year-old in, gasp, plain view of other humans.

My worst parenting mistakes (so far)

We fought in front of the baby and didn’t always show her the makeup part.

Just ask any of my (theoretical) ex-boyfriends, I’m a BIG fan of talking about conflict right out in the open. I also think it’s OK to let kids see their parents argue, and what’s more important is showing them you can have a disagreement but that everything can be resolved. But like shaving your legs, this is still far easier said than done. Before you know it you find yourself stomping around hairy-legged one time too many over the same old row, till you notice you’ve raised your voice defending the second scratch you put on the side of the new car because there’s a weird pole next to your parking space and YES, you can try not to hit it 99% of the time but what about the 1% and what the crap can you really do if you’re in a hurry, and there is your sweet little baby hanging on your every utterance like she’s studying for the bar exam.
2012 is the year of only discussing what the baby can verbally help us resolve.

The hugely popular Mamapalooza: Artists Celebrating Motherhood is coming to Australia – Sydney, at Tap Gallery in Darlinghurst for the week of 7-13 May 2012, and right now they’re looking for performers who are mothers - singers/poets/dancers/songwriters/actors/performance artists/stand-up etc, as well as artists who are mothers to contribute art/film works for the exhibition.

Is that you?

Contact Catherine Walsh for more details – nooshylion at gmail dot com.

Please spread the word.

“Just because she isn’t saying no doesn’t mean she is saying yes. Sex without consent = sexual assault. Don’t Be That Guy.”

More on the Canadian ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ campaign here. (Thanks to Janette).

Hug a Christian

Awww, this makes me teary. Nice to see someone getting the difference between ‘tolerance’ and ‘reconciliation’ too. (Via tigtog).

UPDATE: And this made me chuckle.

Oops, regarding the Marin.. maybe not for real?

One of Bill’s brothers has been living with us on and off lately. He is a bit punk so I kindly labeled him the kids’ Punk Rock Uncle

Punk Rock Uncle: Yeah, poor Lauca, these moods are pretty bad for her.

Me: Hmm and you know, Bill and I aren’t highly strung, we’re not particularly moody people so it’s been difficult for us for a long time to understand her melt-downs.

Punk Rock Uncle: Weeeeell, you were always pretty flighty.

A bottle of rosewater.

A morning sitting on my friend’s bed with her looking through her headscarf collection.

More of Lauca’s giftwrapping wonders, this time for her father’s birthday.

Lauca’s newest doll (thrifted) meets her older dolls for a swim.

The cat on my bed.

Our nut tree.

Cormac’s painting.

Flowers for our bees.

One of the punk rock uncle‘s tattoos.

A school of fish.

Let’s all assume that there will be SPOILERS galore in both this post and the possible comment thread and go from there.

Image credit.

Apparently a lot has happened for me in the last (almost) seven years of being a mother. When I read Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin back all that time ago, the book causing a big stir and me, with my first baby in my arms, I was though broadly sympathetic towards her, also genuinely troubled at times by the mother character narrating the story. Last week I finally saw the film adaptation and I have to admit to finding the character Eva entirely sympathetic. Not so controversial anymore. What’s changed? This could be partly about the way Tilda Swinton played her. She’s completely fantastic in it. There’s little dialogue in the film and certainly no internal monologue, but Swinton’s expressions are so good that you can pretty much pick out the exact text from the book  that she is playing in any particular shot.

The novel is written in the first person through a series of letters written by Eva, who is coming to term with her ambivalence around motherhood and the incredible difficulties she experienced in mothering her son, Kevin, he who eventually goes on to carry out a schoolyard massacre. In the book you know exactly what Eva’s thinking, if not exactly whether her perspective is all together reliable; in the film you have to fill that in for yourself but Lynne Ramsey’s directing is incredibly skillful. (I loved the feel and look of this film but then I also loved Ramsey’s Morvern Callar).

There are so many good ‘motherhood’ scenes in this film – Eva beaten down and exhausted, driven to soothing herself by standing next to a jack hammer on a crowded street in order to drown our her colicky baby’s incessant cries; Eva, equal parts bored and defeated, desperately trying to conjure better mothering from herself for a defiant pre-schooler; and then also, Eva, increasingly isolated from her husband for failing to exhibit the maternal proficiencies he expects.

I just wanted to bundle Eva up and take her along to my feminist mothers’ group.

Only one element of the film is problematic for me and that is the casting choice for the teenage son, Kevin. All the Kevins are gloriously sullen through the various ages but Ezra Miller is a seriously handsome young man and he plays the teenage part very well but his casting tends to sexualise the older ‘Kevin’ character.Perhaps, given how charismatic Swinton is you really need to have someone equally as striking to watch on the screen with her? If I’d been in charge of casting I would also have reconsidered John C. Reilly for the husband/father, too. Reilly is a marvellous character actor but is he a believable pairing for someone as chic as Swinton? Granted he’s supposed to be a very different person to her, the all-American ‘everyman’ but I still didn’t find it worked for me. Anyway, whose asking me?

Did you see the film, did you like it? (Rachel Hills can be excused seeing as we’ve already discussed her dislike of the film).

Re-post: Asking is sexy

The other day I got caught up in this discussion with a man about rape and responsibility and it was very much like this and this so I won’t go into the specifics of our tedious conversation but I will say something about where we left off, which was around the time when he asked me what was my great feminist solution to the apparent greyness of some rapes. The rape that happens after hours and hours of flirting and innuendo; the rape that happens after foreplay; the rape that happens between committed sexual partners; the rape that happens half-way through sex; the rape that happens when the guy supposedly thought she was into it. You know, I replied, you can ask for consent first. But asking for consent, he said, is just such a mood-killer.

Apart from the fact that doing anything without consent is both illegal and immoral and this man surely doesn’t want to be doing either – and how can you argue against a tiny bit of clarification when it has the potential to stop a world of pain – consent is actually the sexy part. Without consent it isn’t even sex; it is a flat-out violation. This man assures me that he isn’t trying to rape anyone, what he is saying is that he just wants to be having hot sex and he wants to be a hot partner so he doesn’t want to kill the excitement by stopping and asking her to sign a consent form.

I don’t know why the idea has persisted that asking for consent is necessarily a clinical business – what is stilted about – more? do you want to? do you like? Because “mood-killer”? Are you kidding me? That moment when they close the space between you both and ask you to put your cards on the table – is this on or not, can I do this with you – is one of the most heart-flippingly exciting moments in all of existence. Eat those moments up because they are the episodes of your life that you will daydream about when you’re ninety years old. That anticipation – that moment when your asking is simultaneously both aggressive and submissive – it is what fuels a billion films and books. Granted it is not pleasant when you’re turned down, and for the record, it isn’t easy turning someone down either. Something is usually lost; the end of a good conversation at the very least, and sometimes even a friendship. But it is a gamble you take because you can’t bear another moment of not knowing; it is the gamble you take because when someone says ‘yes’ to you it is about the hottest feeling you’ll ever know.

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