Tuesday, May 11, 2004

squeamish me

I've just been watching 'Cold Case', and there was a scene right near the end where a gang of white trash rape a young black woman in her own kitchen. I had to switch channels for a few minutes. I reacted the same way during a scene in Peter Greenaway's 'The baby of Macon' (I didn't see the whole movie, just a few scenes in an interview with Greenaway), in which a girl is raped by an endless line of soldiers as a form of punishment (long story).

Rape scenes just really upset me, though not because of any personal experience with it on my part. I just empathise with the victim and feel really bad. Murder scenes don't have the same effect, even torture scenes (unless they are sexual). I wonder why that is. Is it because, as a female, I'm highly aware of my vulnerability to an attack of this kind - one which most males would never feel threatened with?

1 comment:

Matthew said...

No, the plot line is fairly common, I read it in a Piers Anthony book once, a long, long time ago when I was a teenager. It works really well as a 'worst thing that some one can do' 'worst thing that can happen to someone' theme and I suspect it is universal a powerful idea.