Just Noticing: Observations of a Blogger
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 4th, 2014
Good morning!
It’s all about the ladies today.
“Just noticing…”
From Think Progress.
This article discusses plot points from the latest episode of Game Of Thrones.
Viewers and TV critics alike agree that Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thronesdepicted Jaime Lannister raping his sister Cersei, in a disturbing scene that Vulture’s Margeret Lyons calls “a new low for the deeply violent series.” The people involved in bringing that scene to the small screen, however, don’t see it that way. The director who shot the scene and the man who acted in it both believe it wasn’t necessarily nonconsensual sex — an attitude that isn’t totally surprising in a society that’s deeply confused about what constitutes consent, and that doesn’t always recognize sexual violence for what it is.
In the scene, Jaime forces himself on Cersei next to their son’s dead body. They had been kissing, but she pulls away from him, apparently still repulsed by the fact that he’s missing a hand — and Jaime becomes enraged with her rejection, hissing, “You’re a hateful woman. Why have the gods made me love a hateful woman?” He pushes her to the ground, holds her down, and thrusts into her despite her continued protests. After she repeatedly begs him to stop and tells him it’s not right, he responds, “I don’t care.”
Several critics have pointed out this is a sharp departure from the way things unfold on the page. The corresponding scene in George R.R Martin’s book describes Cersei as initially objecting to having sex with Jaime in a place where they could be caught, but quickly becoming an enthusiastic participant. That chapter is told from Jaime’s perspective, so it’s possible it’s colored by the character’s interpretation, but the dialogue is clear. Instead of saying “no” repeatedly, Cersei says “yes” three times.
Not everyone sees the scene as a reinterpretation, though. “There is significance in that scene, and it comes straight from the books — it’s George R.R. Martin’s mind at play,” the actor who plays Jaime, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, told the Daily Beast. “It took me awhile to wrap my head around it, because I think that, for some people, it’s just going to look like rape. The intention is that it’s not just that.”
When asked directly whether it’s rape, Coster-Waldau responded, “Yes, and no. There are moments where she gives in, and moments where she pushes him away. But it’s not pretty.” The director, Alex Graves, has expressed a similar perspective. “Well, it becomes consensual by the end, because anything for them ultimately results in a turn-on, especially a power struggle,” Graves told Alan Sepinwall in a recent interview.
Although Game of Thrones fans recoiled at the scene between Jaime and Cersei, it’s unfortunately not hard to see the attitudes that could have contributed to creating it. We’re raised in a society that doesn’t teach people they can withdraw their consent at any moment, doesn’t emphasize that sexual partners need to be seeking explicit consent every step of the way, and doesn’t draw hard lines in the sand when it comes to what’s considered assault. We frequently tell sexual assault survivors that what they experienced didn’t really “count” as rape.
The way we talk about rape, the systems we have in place for investigating and punishing rape, and the way we approach rape victims are all wrapped up in our struggle to recognize when someone’s consent has been violated, and our failure to acknowledge how serious that is. It’s perhaps no wonder we’re confused. Kids don’t grow up learning about consent, and it’s not a concept that’s deeply ingrained in our culture, so they don’t necessarily know when those boundaries have been crossed. Without that knowledge, people like Graves and Coster-Waldau can look at the interaction between Jaime and Cersei — or a college administrator can consider a sexual assault that occurred between two students after they attended a party together — and mislabel it as “consensual.”
This is already happening among our youth. A recent study of young women who have experienced some type of sexual violence found that most of them simply assume that sex is something that’s done to them, in the way that Jaime does what he pleases to Cersei, and not something that they can be an active participant in. Other research has found that rapists don’t necessarily believe they’ve done anything wrong because they simply feel entitled to women’s bodies.
If Graves and Coster-Waldau were attempting to portray something that viewers would perceive as consensual, they obviously didn’t succeed. And the fact that there’s such a gulf between those apparent intentions and the scene’s reception speaks to some fundamental truths about our society’s failure to clarify what constitutes a consensual sexual relationship in the first place. These two men certainly aren’t alone in their assumptions that sexual assault can have blurred lines, that something violent and invasive can become a “turn-on,” that two people who have a previous sexual history aren’t likely to have a purely nonconsensual experience. Those are incredibly common rape myths, and they’re pervasive in influencing our attitudes about sexual assault.
From Change.org and Bravegirlswant.com (click on the heading to support H.R. 4341)
We want to make sure that all consumers, especially children, know when a human body has been altered in an ad. Join us to achieve this historic public health goal!
With bipartisan Congressional sponsorship, the Truth in Advertising Act of 2014 (HR4341) calls on the Federal Trade Commission to develop a legislative framework for any advertising materially altering the human body (i.e. shape, size, proportion, color, etc.). The bill directs the FTC, as the nation’s consumer protection agency, to develop recommendations and remedies for these photoshopped ads that are:
- False and deceptive
- Linked to a series of emotional, psychological and physical health issues, and economic consequences – particularly affecting, but not limited to, girls and women
We are building a campaign of people and organizations who agree that the current status-quo isn’t acceptable any more.
- 69% of elementary school girls say magazine images influence their concept of ideal body shape
- Over 30% of high-school girls and 16% of high-school boys suffering from disordered eating
- 80% of women feel “shame” after reading a beauty magazine
This is the moment that many have been working towards for a long time. We need to make the most of it, and hope you’ll join us.
- Allow us to use your name when we talk about who’s supporting the bill and this campaign
- Let your community know about what’s going on, and ask them to (re)tweet, post, pin, sign the materials we’ll post here so the FTC and our US House (and soon Senate) sponsors know people are paying attention and care
From Think Progress.
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The Clinton Baby Joke That Made Jimmy Fallon’s Audience Boo
Last night, Jimmy Fallon made a joke that totally bombed. This happens to the best of us, even professionally funny humans such as Mr. Fallon, recent inheritor of theTonight Show desk. But it’s especially surprising that it would happen to Fallon, given that he’s quite possibly the most likeable fellow in comedy right now. Fallon is sort of the Prom King of late night: adorable in the tux, all genuine enthusiasm and goofy sketches and slow jams. This is the guy who gets Springsteen to dress like old school Springsteen! Who brings The Roots together with Adele Nazeem to play “Let it Go” on children’s instruments!
And yet: he was booed. During his monologue, Fallon ruminated on the possible gender of Chelsea Clinton’s baby.
“If it’s a girl, it will get some of Chelsea’s old hand-me-downs. And if it’s a boy, it will get some of Hillary’s.”
Ha! Get it? Because Hillary is so manly in those man-clothes she’s always man-wearing, man.
The audience did not find this funny. There were a few tiny giggles. But mostly boos.
Fallon attempted to rescue the joke. “It’s a little pantsuit! It’s a little pantsuit.” He held up his hands, Vanna White-ing in the air, to show how tiny the hypothetical pantsuit would be. “It’s a little cream pantsuit.”
The boos gave way to quiet, and the suddenly very-loud-sounding laughter of Steve Higgins, Fallon’s announcer/right-hand-man was the only laughter to be heard. Until Fallon laughed.
Then he said: “It wasn’t that hard of a joke. What’s the big deal?”
The whole scene reminded me of the way, on this week’s Mad Men, Roger Sterling told a joke that bombed and he had no idea why. The content of Roger’s joke was an anti-Semitic slur and its inappropriateness is just about impossible to argue. (Definitely several notches worse than “sorry I made fun of heteronormative clothing choices circa 1995.”) But when no one laughed at his story, Roger looked totally gobsmacked, much like Fallon mid-monologue. Both men were telling jokes that would have killed approximately ten years earlier. Hillary pantsuit jokes had their heyday, right around when Chelsea Clinton still had braces. Fallon is supposed to be the host who gets young people: their values, their humor, their nostalgia. This felt like a joke he borrowed from someone else. Like, maybe his dad.
For starters, not to keep complaining about how late night is a bunch of guys but: late night IS a bunch of guys. This pantsuit bit strikes me as a joke that a woman would have screened as “obviously not funny.” Diversifying late night isn’t just about diversity for diversity’s sake; it’s about the perspectives we lose when we only hear jokes from one narrow group of people.
As far as the “dresses are for girls, pantsuits are for boys” element of the joke, well, that’s also pretty dated territory. And it would be the greatest if we could stop ragging on Hillary for dressing the way she wants to dress. In fact, let’s stop ragging on all women for dressing the way they want to dress! That would be spectacular. Workplace-wear for women has been a tricky issue as long as there have been women in the workplace. Pick a suit, no matter how immaculately tailored, and you risk being a woman who “dresses like a man.” Pick a dress or a skirt, deal with the inevitable accusations that the hem is too high, or the neckline is too low, or it’s not authoritative enough, and on and on. And the problem starts long before women head to the office. Dress codes all the way down to grade school are designed with “don’t distract the boys” dictums in mind, all but ignoring the needs and wants of the girls and women.
A couple weeks ago, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (currently starring as Vice President Selina Meyer on HBO’s Veep) and Nancy Pelosi were interviewed together in The New York Times. They briefly discussed fashion, and Louis-Dreyfus talked about her character’s form-fitting, classically feminine officewear. “The dresses are constricting, and the heels are high,” she said. “So there’s a pinched-in-ness that’s specific to the character.” Which is to say: an entire wardrobe department decided the best way to translate Selina’s uptight, uncomfortable-with-the-normals nature was through these dresses that limit Selina’s range of motion. Not, say, a pantsuit. Meanwhile, Pelosi, the real-life public servant, wears “clean, immaculate suits,” as the interviewer describes them, and she explains her choice as “clean and easy works for me.”
None of this is to say that fashion shouldn’t be a high priority just because a person holds high office; I share Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s belief that sartorial savvy and intellectual horsepower are not mutually exclusive. But it’s fair to say there’s nothing wrong with choosing not to focus all of one’s thoughts on wardrobe choices. Or that, should clothing be important to a person, he or she should be make choices that allow him or her to be comfortable and enjoy unhindered movement.
How else would Nancy Pelosi straddle a chair like A.C. Slater in Saved By The Bell? It is difficult, nay, impossible, to Sally Bowles your seat in a dress.
From Think Progress.
Updated Army regulations banning certain kinds of hairstyles are biased against black women, a new White House petition charges. The newly codified grooming rules, which went into effect on Monday, specifically forbid several hairstyles popular for black women who keep their hair natural, including twists, headbands, dreadlocks, or multiple braids that are larger than a quarter-inch. It also requires that the “bulk of hair” not exceed 2 inches from the scalp.
A PowerPoint presentation of the new rules was leaked last month ahead of publication. While twists and dreadlocks have been banned since 2005, these updated regulations go into more detail about specific hairstyles.
Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs of the Georgia National Guard launched the petition, pointing out that nearly a third of women serving in the military are non-white and many wear their hair natural (not chemically altered or in extensions). “I’ve been in the military six years, I’ve had my hair natural four years, and it’s never been out of regulation. It’s never interfered with my head gear,” Jacobs, who says she wears her hair in two twists, told Army Times.
Over the past few decades, natural hairstyles have expanded from political statement to mainstream fashion. Chemical relaxer sales dropped 26 percentfrom 2008 to 2013, according to consumer trends firm Mintel, and 70 percent of black women say they wear or have worn their hair natural.
One veteran told Al Jazeera America that most black women in the Army wear their hair natural because they usually don’t have the tools to maintain chemically relaxed or straightened hair when they are deployed.
While the Army traditionally dictates stricter appearance standards than most, plenty of civilian companies and schools have also used hair to discriminate against black women and girls. Eight-year-old Tiana Parker and 12-year-old Vanessa Van Dyke are just two students who were threatened with expulsion from their schools if they did not change their hair. Another woman with natural hair, Ashley Davis, was fired from her job for refusing to cut her dreadlocks.
And the last one from Think Progress.
Judge Richard Kopf, a George H.W. Bush appointee to a federal court in Nebraska, offered some strange advice to women litigators in a piece posted to his personal blog on Tuesday: don’t wear clothing that would cause “the female law clerks” to call you “an ignorant slut behind your back.”
Kopf’s comments were a reaction to a Slate piece by Amanda Hess entitled “Female Lawyers Who Dress Too ‘Sexy’ Are Apparently a ‘Huge Problem’ in the Courtroom.” Judge Kopf’s piece has the more provocative title “On being a dirty old man and how young women lawyers dress.”
Among other things, Kopf’s piece reveals that he has “been a dirty old man ever since I was a very young man. Except, that is, when it comes to my daughters (and other young women that I care deeply about).” And it includes a description of a “very pretty female lawyer” who practices in his court. “She is brilliant, she writes well, she speaks eloquently, she is zealous but not overly so, she is always prepared, she treats others, including her opponents, with civility and respect, she wears very short skirts and shows lots of her ample chest. I especially appreciate the last two attributes.”
Kopf’s purpose in describing this attorney was to reveal that several of the women who clerk on his court viewed her as “unprofessional,” and to imply that perhaps a young attorney doesn’t want to incur the ire of a judge’s closest advisers. Whatever the wisdom of this advice, however, he picked a particularly inflammatory way to express it (in fairness, the “ignorant slut” comment is a reference to a famous, if very dated, Saturday Night Live skit).
One day after his original post, Kopf posted an apology, of sorts:
If, on balance, you think the post was harmful to the image of the federal judiciary and truly treated women as objects, I am very, very, very sorry for that, but I would ask you to pause and reread it. I hope you will find upon objective reflection that the mockery I make of myself and the hyperbole and somewhat mordant tone I employed, made a point worth considering.
*****
Readers: There is so much more I could post today, but you get my drift. Everyone needs to be aware of what is going on with women and girls, from the very loud and blatant to the unspoken, hoping to stay hidden, nuances. However, awareness is not enough. Solutions are what is going to create change. Get on board with something that pulls at you and be an advocate for women and girls. Like I know so many of you already are! Thank you.
Blog me.
Janet: One of my faves too.
Ellie: What a story. Your mother Claire is very lucky to have children so supportive.
Denise: I am assuming you are different from the above Denise…Thank you. Yes, there are so many subliminal messages, and blatant ones too.
Rebecca: oohh…I am not familiar with Anne Bonny. Thanks for sharing such an interesting story. I would love to see a movie on her from her point of view.
Ambilikile: Thank you. Wishing you and all the sisters…the club members, my very best.
Keri: Thank you. Yes, and I am so grateful that she is!
Louise: You named another one of my faves. She was a kick ass girl.
It is getting late and I must post. I will address more comments tomorrow. Happy Sunday!
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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May 4th, 2014 at 1:26 pm
I’ll get back to you when I decide what to comment on.
May 4th, 2014 at 1:28 pm
Women are always crying rape. This is a slut who enjoyed fucking her brother. Why women are suddenly claiming she was being raped is just the kind of shit men have to put up with when we aggressively pursue pussy in the bedroom.
May 4th, 2014 at 1:29 pm
Happy Mother’s day First Lady.
May 4th, 2014 at 1:39 pm
Face it white america just has little tolerance or concern for the feelings of OTWs.
May 4th, 2014 at 3:47 pm
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA: Still Going Strong . . .
I know this is not Michelle’s Post for today, but — The recent Kansas City J.C.C. murders remind us that virulent anti-Semitism does exists in the United States as it always had.
American Jews have become too complacent. We forget that we have been hated and thrown out of so many countries including Israel by the Assyrians, Greeks, Romans and finally Babylonians who thrust Jews into Diaspora — Exiled from our homeland which was given to the Jews by God himself according to the Bible and forced to spread around the world.
Miller, a 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, knows all about the Holocaust – enough, at any rate, to extol Adolf Hitler as “the greatest man who ever walked the earth” and to shout “Heil Hitler!” after his arrest. Like his hero, Miller is obsessed with Jews. Asked once in an interview whom he hated more, blacks or Jews, he didn’t hesitate: “Jews!” he said. “A thousand times more!”
Such anti-Semitic malevolence led 70 years ago to the Shoah – the industrial-scale annihilation of two-thirds of Europe’s Jews: six million men, women, and children, They were murdered not as a means to an end — not for their money or their land or because they posed a military or political threat — but as an end in itself. Hitler’s purpose in exterminating the Jews was for the Jews to be exterminated.
For decades after the Holocaust, it was tempting to believe that such genocidal prejudice against Jews was a thing of the past, at least in the enlightened West. The world had seen what anti-Semitism at its most uninhibited could do. What people had been sure could never happen had happened – but by harnessing the power of memory, we could ensure that it never happened again. So Holocaust memorials and museums were erected in cities large and small. Concentration-camp survivors published their memoirs and spoke about their experiences. Students were taught about the Nazis and the Final Solution. Yom HaShoah – an annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, which we mark this week – was added to the calendar each spring.
But Jew-hatred hasn’t been purged. On the contrary: It has erupted in recent years with shocking scope and strength. It has been revived “in the halls of parliament and in the streets,” writes political scientist Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in a new book, The Devil that Never Dies. “Among elites and common people. In public media, places of worship, and in the privacy of homes. Where Jews live and where they do not.”
An old-style white-supremacist neo-Nazi like the shooter in Kansas, evil as his crime was, is the least of this resurgent threat, especially in this country. Hitler-idolizing anti-Semites like Miller, widely regarded as abhorrent, are a negligible phenomenon in the United States. His deadly rampage was instantly condemned across the board; only among the kooks did anyone express support for Miller’s maligning of Jews.
Where anti-Semitism is gaining market share today is not among those who yell “Heil Hitler” or demonize Jews as Christ-killers. The oldest of hatreds has assumed a new form for a new age: hostility to Zionism and Israel. The classic anti-Semitic motifs — Jews are aliens, Jews are murderous, Jews are greedy, Jews are disloyal, Jews manipulate governments – have been repurposed for a post-Holocaust generation that speaks with a post-Holocaust vocabulary.
Sophisticated and educated Westerners today know better than to blame “the Jews” for society’s ills, or to suggest that the best solution to the “Jewish Problem” is for Jews to disappear.
But it is widely acceptable in many circles to debate whether the world’s only Jewish state has a right to exist. Or to insist that the Middle East’s turmoil would be resolved if only that Jewish state would make peace with its enemies by conceding to their demands. Or to claim with a straight face, when Israel defends itself against Arab and Islamist violence, that it is behaving as the Nazis did.
This helps explain why anti-Semitism soared in recent years even as Palestinian terrorism against Israel soared. For if Zionists are the same as Nazis — if the Jewish state is the equivalent of Hitler’s Germany — then decent people everywhere must oppose it. Through endless repetition of the most hateful “Israelis — Nazis” hoaxes, the memory of the most lethal horror ever inflicted on the Jewish people has been transmuted into a new bludgeon with which to batter them. Meanwhile, waves of incitement build against the largest Jewish community on the planet, whipped up by enemies who make no secret of their ultimate goal: to annihilate it.
That is how the old plague of anti-Semitism mutates and flourishes once again, in the very shadow of the Holocaust Memorials put up as a warning of what unchecked Jew-hatred can lead to. Truly, it is diabolical. The News Media is slanted as well — Comparing Israel to Nazis. How absurd!
In today’s news Palestinian Authorities have told the world that they will never recognize Israel as a legitimate Land. There can NEVER be peace with the other side not recognizing Israel’s existence.
We must open our minds, or wallets and support the State of Israel. It is the only Home Jews have in the World. Anywhere else just tolerates us because we look like White people.
We must talk about our problems between ourselves and keep it alive through our children. We must let our elected government officials know how we feel. It must never be forgotten. The worst thing a Jew can do is pretend that they are not Jewish. Those that Hate will find your roots and if your Mother or Grandmother was Jewish — that makes YOU Jewish.
Embrace it. It is a long, proud heritage we have. We must support our Homeland in any way we can. If the economy gets as bad as I expect it to, who do you think will be the scapegoats blamed for the economic and political situation? It will be the Jews like you and me.
History has a way of repeating itself because en masse, we are very forgetful and stupid. History repeats itself. I do not want to live through that as it occurs again, do you? All for the sake of Oil in the Middle East. NEVER AGAIN!
OTWs and the 95% of non-billionaires will never inherit this country. Any group that is not White and super rich will be living to take care of the few percent who control this nation.
Life has become cheap once again
HOWIE
May 4th, 2014 at 6:27 pm
You have my cooperation Howie.
May 4th, 2014 at 6:29 pm
Deference to power is ubiquitous. This is part of the greatest terrorist entity humanity has ever known. 3 million dead in the Vietnam War. Over 1 million dead in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands dead in Afghanistan. Building runways on the Syrian border so that weapons and terrorists can be flown in to fight on the side of Al Qaeda (Zvi Bar’el, Military option against Syria is alive, Haaretz, Feb. 24, 2014).
The “humanitarian intervention” in Libya? Are you kidding. Sirte was levelled (Mary Beth Sheridan, Gaddafi home town largely destroyed, Washington Post, October 16, 2011).
May 4th, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Spreading it a little thin are we Michelle? Okay I’ll comment on Jimmy F because his joke was Hilarious! or was that Hilarious?
May 4th, 2014 at 6:38 pm
At least Jimmy is not afraid to joke about liberals as well as conservatives!
May 4th, 2014 at 6:38 pm
Jimmy. Just treat the conservatives and liberals equally, and I guarantee that your viewership will go up in all demographics. A lot of people are getting tired of the same old “bash the conservatives” “comedy”.
Just stay out of Federal Parks and off government planes.
May 4th, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Pyle#10, you and your cohorts are always trying to claim that you represent some great majority. The only thing you represent is hatred, racism, and greed. Jimmy knows what side of the bread his butter is on.
Besides if you “conservatives” weren’t so damn ridiculous you wouldn’t be such easy material for comedians.
May 4th, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Ain’t that the truth Pyle#10.
May 4th, 2014 at 6:57 pm
Jimmy, tread easily on HRC, ok? That lady scares me.
May 4th, 2014 at 7:03 pm
Fuck the jews. If you weren’t always marrying our women and trying to be white we wouldn’t need to toast your miscegenation inclined asses.
What you can’t marry your own mud women. No, you’d rather grab the bible and pretend to be Christian so you can marry a white woman or man and pass.
At least the niggers are proud to be black. You fucking jews will do anything to be white. I’m donating all my funds to a good extermination factory.
May 4th, 2014 at 7:07 pm
Will someone tell me how a picture photoshopped or not is hurting my kids. If my sons grow up to be like their daddy they want a fine woman on their arms, in their beds, in a wedding dress and they don’t have to all be the same.
May 4th, 2014 at 7:09 pm
York#13, I agree with you, last time I looked at a picture of her for more than 7 seconds, I got herpes.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:23 am
Greg#13, you are just another pathetic tiny dick wonder.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:26 am
George#14, thank god not all white men are like you. My father was a bigot like you, but none of his six children became bigots. We realized that our father was just plain sick.
I hope that Jews, blacks, hispanics, women and everyone who just want an equal opportunity in this country know that many whites like myself aren’t sick like you.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:27 am
Beautiful Post Howie.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:33 am
Only a man could believe that something that starts out violent could be consensual at the end. Men grow up believing that using violence to accomplish their goals is acceptable.
Rape you bastards is rape.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:34 am
The whole “you don’t have to watch if you don’t like it” argument never holds water.
Yes, anyone can stop watching a show if it I believe it is in some way unethical. That has nothing to do with the fact that they can and also should express their indignation or protestations.
I’m a GoT fan, books and show, and will continue to watch. That doesn’t mean I’m going to fanboy apologize for the show for this portrayal of a woman “giving in to passion”. That stuff was tired in the 1950s.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:46 am
Game of Thrones is a success because this country is majority white and we can by our numbers and incredible stupidity make any piece of shit a hit. Most of the sit coms that are big hits are all white casts about absolutely stupid shit.
We make them big hits. Face it this country won’t get any real class until there is a demographic change that takes that kind of power away from us.
My sisters can’t stand up for us. If OTW women didn’t set the bar high we would still be chattel for white men.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:49 am
There is nothing special about the Game of thrones. It is just another piece of white trash that is being force upon us by a sick race with an even sicker culture.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:52 am
What a silly comparison. No one is saying that you should be persecuted, like those in the 50s, for your convictions. What I was saying below is that you ACT on them if you firmly adhere to them.
Am I asking you to go on a hunger strike? Chain yourself to a truck? Attack riot cops with bricks and Molotov cocktails? Endure a long prison sentence?
No, of course not.
My challlenge to the outraged and indignant ninnies is as follows: if you truly believe the show’s creators have contributed to the larger trend of ‘rape culture’ (as so many below have sheepishly contended but can’t really elaborate properly how this is so), you desist immediately from watching the show as a way to prove your committment. Is that really so hard given the stakes?
It’s sufficient to say you don’t agree with the creators’ interpretation of the scene, that they, in effect, did not convey the message properly. What is incorrect, as well as being insulting and stupid, is to imply that they are complicit in some larger plot to demean women. That has been the overall tenor of the criticism here.
It hasn’t been an ‘agree-to-disagree’ approach, but one which seeks to marginalize those who see the scene in a more complicated light. If you feel THAT way, then you should, at the very least, boycott the show. If you don’t, I refuse to take you seriously because, in the end, you are not serious.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:55 am
It’s seems odd that this one scene of all other scenes should get all the press. Depiction is NOT the same as condoning BTW, but somehow that seems to have been lost on a few.
So where’s all the outrage about all the other scenes in the show? Nothing about the little boy who sees his parents cut down, and then promised they’d be EATEN for dinner? Somehow that’s not as “horrifying” as Cersie Lannister getting raped by her lover?
This IS the same woman who has callously ordered the murder of dozens (and caused thousands by way of ripple effects) of people, starting with having a boy pushed out of window all because “he might tell” about her and her brother doing it.
The list could go on forever really, but…
Woman hunted down in cold blood and then eaten ALIVE by two vicious dogs (last week’s ep.). No big deal?
How about flaying alive. Or castration? Numerous innocents hacked to death, tortured and several burned alive… The world in GOT is realistic and violent, especially in times of war and the general social order coming apart.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:56 am
Given the nature of the show and the associated resource constraints, along with the fact that the primary purpose of this show is entertainment and exploring the psychological aftermath of rape is not exactly entertaining, the writers would be absolutely irresponsible in their first and most important duty.
May 5th, 2014 at 2:58 am
The men clearly aren’t getting the complaint here, so I’m going to try to explain it. Bear with me.
The show does have a lot of violence. In most cases, we see the impact, the outcome, and the grief that the violence causes; we see weeping, despair, and lamentations for the murdered. How much screen time has the Stark family had to express their grief over Ned’s death? Quite a bit.
How much screen time did Dany get for her grief over her rape? None. Her rape was a quick, nasty bit of action, followed by precisely zero outcome and zero follow-up. In reality, being raped would have some negative repercussions, and Dany would have some human feelings with it. She wasn’t allowed that in the show.
Will Cersei be allowed it? The odds say no; while the show devotes a lot of time to the grief and pain of people who suffer ‘normal’ violence, it devotes almost zero time to the grief and pain of rape survivors.
Does rape happen in the real world? Every day. Every woman has a 25% chance of being raped in her life. Most rapists do not face punishment–they don’t even go to trial or get charged. People deny that rape happens, or they deny that it happens often, or they rationalize rape and forgive and excuse the men who commit it.
No one really does that with assassinations and beheadings, do they? While violence and murder does happen in our world, most people are pretty clear that outright killing another human deliberately with a weapon is wrong.
When possible, murderers do get caught, and they always face trials. No one says, ‘Oh the victim was asking to be murdered! Let’s just not look for the killer or charge him with a crime.’
This is what makes rape different from murder, and why this article exists; there is literally no other explanation or argument that makes even one whit of sense.
If you have a counter-point to this article, your counter-point is “I’m tired of hearing women talk about rape!” Gee buddy! You know what I bet? I bet women are even MORE tired of rape than you are, but they don’t get to leave the room; it is a conversation that occurs throughout their whole life, no matter what they do or don’t want.
Yes, boys, that is what women experience, which is why they are speaking up and out about these issues. If you don’t like it, exercise your male privilege, and leave the room. No one can make you listen to a conversation about rape. That, right there, is privilege, and that, right there, is why you should stop telling women to shut up about rape.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:18 am
First let me state I’m a white male. It’s distressing that people who have read the books (and even a few who haven’t but have read that particular scene) don’t seem to recognize that the language there also strongly evokes rape. Jaime throws her onto an altar, pushes her legs apart and tears off her undergarments, all while ignoring her physical and verbal protests (as on the show, she beats her fists against his chest).
Just because Cersei ultimately consents doesn’t make Jaime’s previous actions that much more palatable; many comments from book readers skirt perilously close to implying that in spite of her initial objections, the fact that she eventually gave in to Jaime means that she wanted sex all along, and therefore he was justified in ignoring her protests.
I have dated many women of color and none of them would accept this as anything but a rape. But most of the white women I have dated and even the one I married can see shades of gray here. White women in this country contribute to this inane and self-serving concept that a woman will eventually like being taken by force, raped.
In fact the book scenario seems to me to constitute a primary example of a sexual assault ‘becoming’ consensual, which as the writer says, is a hugely problematic concept in light of modern understanding of sexual agency.
Yes, the visual language on the show paints the encounter in a less ambiguous way by removing even Cersei’s delayed consent, but I question the understanding of anyone who claims that the scene in the book depicted an “absolutely consensual” sexual encounter.
The scene was always going to pose problems in a screen adaptation because of the dubious sexual consent involved, so I think it’s a bit premature to accuse HBO of unnecessarily inserting sexual violence at a point where it did not exist.
Having said that, I find the comments made by the cast and crew regarding the nature of that scene on the show to be baffling – it unambiguously constitutes rape, regardless of whether Cersei had mixed feelings about the sex or whether she was trying to reject her brother outright.
White women you need to get a clue. If it were only about your silly asses I’d say lay back and enjoy what you refuse to reject. But since your inanity is causing unnecessary pain and suffering to the majority of the women on the planet, I say get a fucking clue. When a man is forcing himself upon you that is rape.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:19 am
The sex was consensual between Daenerys and Drogo, too. They changed that, too, for some reason. I have no clue why the hell they keep feeling like they have to deny the lead female characters consensual sexual experiences. Women get horny, too, y’all.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:22 am
I understand the directors artistic intent in this scene. As twisted as it may have been, he accomplished the goal of establishing his own vision, no matter how much it deviates from the book. Clearly the writers/directors wanted Cersei’s character to be caught in the dilemma of logically denying something ultra perverse, yet inexplicably desiring it at the same time. It adds a unique complexity to her character and I am interested to see where it goes from here.
And even though society should have no place for rape, there is no denying the sometimes tragic ambiguity of the subject. It’s part of human nature for a person to both want and not want something at the same time. Sex is no exception. A scenario could exist where a female logically says ‘no’ to sex, but really desires it at the same time.
A theatrical example of this is the final sex scene in the film ‘Unfaithful’. Diane Lane’s character – whose trying to end the affair – verbally and physically screams ‘no’, yet still engages in sex willfully, leading to a very erotic scene. Situations such as that happen all the time in real life.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:41 am
I, too, am sick of these whites reminding us how great this show is. Since when does the volume of ones sales in America mean quality? White people will buy shit if you package it and put a designer label on it.
Most of their most successful sit-coms are about the eliminating of body parts, shit and piss jokes abound. Most have no real taste. They are told what is good, bad or ugly. They couldn’t make a decision until you give it to them.
Game of Thrones is just another excuse to portray violence towards the weak, rape women and molest children. The Suprannos, the Godfather, and any number of sick violent pay per view series are huge successes because white people love violence, rape, murder and torture. They always make the characters who do those things sympathetic.
They want the audience to like them. This is not hard for a white audience to do, hence the huge success of these mediocre shows that the same media is telling us is so great.
They are just a reflection of the sick twisted minds that most white people possess.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:43 am
Harvey#30, but as a society we should understand that we cannot know the thoughts of a woman who is saying ‘no’, and take them at their word. That way, there are no ‘misunderstandings’
May 5th, 2014 at 3:45 am
Harris#29, Only if you consider sex between a 13 year old with an adult consemsual, which newsflash it isn’t.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:46 am
Actually, in the context of the show, 13 year olds *are* adults. Just as they were in our own feudal ages. Yes, it’s a bit too much for our modern sensibilities, but at the time, 13 year olds had the rights and responsibilities of adults.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:48 am
Even if that the whole “they say no but they mean yes” thing was not utter bull, it’s besides the point. A simple question clears it up (“Do you mean no or yes?”). Continuing despite protestations is rape.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:50 am
David#34, actually just because a man says a child of 13 is an adult for the purposes of sexual consent doesn’t mean a child could exercise intelligence to act in her own best interest.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:55 am
David#34, that was typical male bullshit. We both know that those 13 year old girls did not have the right to say no to men their males elders married them off to. That’s like saying slavery was okay because it was legal then.
Slavery and making sexual consent legal for females of 13 didn’t arise magically out of thin air. They were legislated by evil, sick white men for their benefit.
Yet, you come on this blog with that trite statement as an excuse for pencil dick white men to rape children.
May 5th, 2014 at 3:58 am
Rape abounds in any successful premium channel series because white men get off on rape.
For a premium channel to have a successful series women’s rights and feelings have to be disregarded, more often than not. It’s something that the main female characters have to deal with and try to overcome, constantly. It is brutal and ugly.
May 5th, 2014 at 8:36 am
Larry, thank you.
I’m not a TV watcher and haven’t heard anything good about this show at all, after reading here, I guess that’s a good decision on my part.
Photoshopping isn’t going to warp your boy’s mind (forget commenter) but it gives little girls impossible standards for beauty and those women in the before pictures looked damn good, why did they need to be enhanced is the real question.
The military is a rigid white man world, so it’s not shocking that they’d want to control everything, why can’t males just stop already…dreadlocks, braids, rows, etc…don’t stop women from doing the job they’re contracted to do, maybe we should insist that old white dudes keep their nose and eyebrow hairs under control and see if they like it.
This is a good mix of the stupid shit people/women/OTW women have to listen to, deal with, and put up with? Fek.
Luv, Zen Lill
May 5th, 2014 at 8:41 am
Ah and the only reason why I wrote women/OTW women is bc they are differentiated in above comments, to me all women are in one boat, white women just have created a stupider psychological hypnosis boat of crap to listen to, religion, media, white dudes who spew garbage about controlling women’s bodies, thinking they’re better or have it so much better than OTW women, etc…
Just wanted to clarify.
Howie. I’m with you and don’t listen to any hater bs, hater bs always says more about the hater than it does about you…
Luv, Zen Lill
May 5th, 2014 at 8:49 am
Alycedale: Sorry to be the one to tell you, but after reading your post, #31, it is easy to see that you are one angry racist! You are every bit as twisted as George WN, I suggest you take an introspective look at what you have written.
May 5th, 2014 at 9:02 am
[…] Thomas: It figures a man would say this. But I’ll be easy and just say, “I know how you feel.” Commenting is no sweat when there is only one topic. It is similar to how I feel when choosing which important topic to post when there are so many that need to be highlighted. It ain’t easy. Please see the rest of my comments above if you haven’t read them already. I noticed you haven’t come back to comment yet. […]