The Political Thread

[GordonR]

Always a joy to hear straight white males - and I'm one myself - complain about "pandering to a demographic", when the overwhelming content of our popular culture already panders to them, and they're not even a majority demographic themselves.

[The Legendary Shark]

I wonder if most heroes are white heterosexual males because most of the writers and editors are white heterosexual males? When I'm devising stories, the default "skeleton" of my hero is a white heterosexual male because that's who I am. I could try writing about a black disabled lesbian Sikh but then would I be guilty of racism and/or pandering? Also, what do I know about that particular demographic? I could write about a female hero but might fall into the trap then of being sexist - although I have written stories with female leads - because all I can think of is that being female isn't all that much different from being male, or being homosexual isn't all that much different from being heterosexual, or being raised in a Christian environment isn't all that much different from being raised in a Muslim environment. Except that maybe there are huge differences, or subtle differences I couldn't hope to grasp well enough to base a character on. So it's safer for me to write from my point of view. I don't think this makes me racist, sexist or religionist - just ignorant.

That said, J. K. Rowling wrote about Harry Potter and not Hermione Potter. I wonder if so-called "positive discrimination" might have seen her manuscript accepted sooner if her hero had been female - or would it still be sitting in her drawer? If John Wagner had been Jane Wagner, would we still have Joe Dredd or would it have been Jo Dredd? Would Patricia Mills have given us Billi Savage? Even Shako was a (very) white male when a female could have been much more fierce. Hookjaw was male (I think), Bonjo was male and King Kong was male.

I think it's a reflection of the fundamental male/female imbalance prevalent throughout the world. I want to see more stories (more everything, really) from the female point of view. I can't write these stories and, with the best will in the world, I don't think Alan Moore really can either - although such luminaries might produce works with a certain verisimilitude. The best female character a lowlife like me could ever hope to create would be a man with tits, which doesn't really help anybody. Maybe that's where editors go wrong as well - can any work from a female  be properly evaluated by a male? If Tharg had employed Marg more, might we have seen a better mix of stories inspiring a better mix of writers?

At the risk of being booed off, I'm also quite confused by the general reluctance to portray certain crimes such as rape (of any sex) and violence against women. Don't get me wrong, these are despicable crimes but rape is a marginally lesser crime than murder. Action heroes, including our own beloved Twoothy characters, have killed millions of their fellow humans in countless vicious and imaginative ways and we have cheered them on. They have ended lives, murdering their way through stories, and the deaths are seen as nothing much - just bad guys getting their just desserts, portraying such acts as "meh" events. Portray a wife-beater, however, or a rapist, and the reaction is visceral.

Columbo has pursued and incarcerated any number of murderers but has never, to my memory, gone after a rapist. Rape is a horrible, horrible crime but, as I said, a marginally lesser crime than murder. Why, then, is murder glorified and sanitised so that even Miss Marple can bumble her way through an amicable investigation whereas rape, a crime which happens in reality all too often, is virtually ignored? When was the last time Judge Dredd pursued a serial rapist? It's almost as if popular culture's ignoring of this crime will make it go away. Arnold Schwarzenegger can take the lives of a thousand silver screen bad-guys and nobody bats an eyelid but if he killed as many silver screen bad-girls there'd be ructions. A single silver screen rape, with a victim of any sex, and there'd be riots. Why? Why do we cheer a merciless killer but revile a merciless rapist? Why don't we revile both?

According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 695 homicides in England and Wales between October 2015 and September 2016, whilst there were 37,813 rapes in the same period. Yet it seems that just about every t.v. cop show is about hunting down murderers, hammering home to us how bad murder is. 695 murders is not a good statistic but pales into relative insignificance next to a number like 37,813 - which seems like an epidemic. Shouldn't there be more stories about hunting rapists and bringing them to justice? Hammering home to us all just how wrong and evil a crime rape is instead of huffing and puffing and complaining about its portrayal? If we went off the statistics, for every single story about chasing a murderer there should be 54 about chasing a rapist but a parity would do, wouldn't it?

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating the glorification of rape in the same way that murder has been glorified. What I'm saying is that it should not be ignored or swept under the carpet in the media because that suggests this hienous crime belongs under the carpet in the real world. Art, after all, should hold up a mirror to reality. One wonders if this particular crime doesn't make it into cop shows so often because of attitudes from the past which shielded, and even tacitly encouraged, rapists in the upper echelons. Or it could be another symptom of the male/female imbalance. Murder is generally seen as a male on male crime, men killing men seems almost natural, as if that's what men were born to do, and so in a male-dominated world murder is just one of those things that men do and are proud of. Rape, on the other hand, is generally a male on female crime, men dominating women seeming like a secret right, as if that's what men were born to do, and so in a male-dominated world rape is just one of those things that men do and are secretly proud of. I don't think either perspective is correct and that both crimes deserve to be treated as such and exposed, pursued and punished with equal vigour.

[TordelBack]

Ye gods, here we go again.  I'm sure most variation in depiction or murder v. rape has its source in a historical context of selective religious prudishness about sex, but...

I always come back to this: how many people do you know who have been murdered, versus how many have been raped?  It's a fair bet that if you're watching a dramatised murder on telly you haven't been murdered yourself.  But there's a significant chance that you or loved one have been subject to some form of serious sexual assault, with potential for genuine non-snowflakey offence and upset.  Murder is a rare crime (in most places), rape is almost ubiquitous.

Perhaps more significantly, murder is taken seriously by society, and (usually) punished accordingly.  The areas of doubt that exist tend to be about intent, responsibility and premeditation (an in some jurisdictions, race).  It is clearly a fundamentally more serious crime than rape, and is treated as such.

Rape, by contrast, was legal in my country until 1990.  And the almost monotonous issues of doubt and victim blaming with rape are so familiar as to require no further comment. Not long ago, I regularly heard people arguing that it wasn't even possible to rape a healthy, mobile woman. 

In the rich west at least the adult victims of rape are mainly women (I'm aware of the wartime exceptions and variations globally).  Where one group is disproportionately affected, there has to be concern.

Further, there is an undeniable issue of potential sexual titillation* involved in depictions rape.  As a sexual crime, that has to be a concern in using that to boost takings.

I personally have no real issue with depiction of rape in fiction, except for the fact that I have no desire whatsoever to read/watch it as it makes me deeply, deeply uncomfortable.



*I'm not sure I entirely buy the argument that rape is about power, not sex - I used to firmly believe this, but now I think that a selfish desire for sexual gratification has a role to play in many cases.

[Hawkmumbler]

Tordels saved me from smashing my keyboard against my monitor in frustration there.

Seriously Sharky, claiming rape is "marginally" less evil than murder is incredibly disingenuous to the victims.

[Satanist]

Columbo has pursued and incarcerated any number of murderers but has never, to my memory, gone after a rapist.

He's a homicide detective, that's why we don't see him arresting shoplifters either. There's a lot of tosh in that post but this annoyed me the most 

[JamesC]

I think we can all be grateful that Agatha Christie didn't write rape stories.

[The Legendary Shark]

Rape, like murder, destroys lives but rape is a less serious crime than murder. But murder, the worst of crimes, is portrayed, especially by Hollywood, as nothing much - gangs of baddies being mowed down by the "hero" or a case for some kooky and irascible detective who drives a weird car and wears an odd hat - and if murder is portrayed as being so matter-of-fact it cannot help but diminish the perceived seriousness of rape. To dilute the perceived seriousness of one automatically dilutes the perceived seriousness of other crimes through comparison.

It's the very fact that murder is so rare and rape so ubiquitous that upsets me. I know of one person from my village who was murdered, and I did not know her personally, and this was at least twenty years ago. I know several who have been raped. My point is that the media has a part to play in attempting to make rape as rare as murder. By ignoring it, by making it seem like nothing much, the crime is pushed out of the public consciousness and kept in the dark. My thought was that, as rape is a crime generally perpetrated by men against women and that our society is currently so male dominated, it doesn't get treated as seriously as it should, which I think is utterly wrong.

I'm not saying that every story currently involving murder should be switched over to involve rape (and certainly not in a titillating way) but that, I think, the media has a duty to tell such stories (and to portray murder as the ultimate crime it actually is), to help educate us as to how wrong it is and help remove the stigma of reporting such horrid crimes. Just talking about it raises vehement knee-jerk anger and that's good, it's the first step on the path to stamping it out, which is what we all want.

Hawkie, I did not say rape was marginally less evil, I said it was a marginally lesser crime, which is not the same thing at all. The margin, thin as it is, comes from the fact that one is survived and the other is not. Tordels, that's what you get when you let governments put their legislation above the Golden Rule...

[JamesC]

I'll agree that murder has been somewhat sanitised in our culture and the concept of the cosy murder mystery may seem very odd to a visiting alien.
There's no denying that some subject matter is more palatable than others in our culture and it has little to do with the supposed 'seriousness' of the crime. You could say that animal cruelty is a lesser crime than murder or rape but I don't see many tea time dramas or films tackling puppy farms either. It's another subject that's just far too emotive and upsetting to be the basis of a character drama.

It's deeper than how the media portrays murder too. Murder is a word used flippantly throughout our culture. You may say you could murder a cold beer but you're unlikely to say you could rape one.

[Hawkmumbler]

Hawkie, I did not say rape was marginally less evil, I said it was a marginally lesser crime, which is not the same thing at all. The margin, thin as it is, comes from the fact that one is survived and the other is not. Tordels, that's what you get when you let governments put their legislation above the Golden Rule...

I think the ratio of rape victims suffering with long term PTSD and the percentage of whom commit suicide is a pretty firm indicator that this is utter tosh.

http://www.rrsonline.org/?page_id=944

[The Legendary Shark]

Hawkie, what is it - specifically - that you think is "utter tosh"?

[Tjm86]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the phrase 'one is survived and the other is not' might be the point of offence.  I'm guessing that, as Hawkie notes, there is a significant incidence of mental health issues with debilitating effects up to and including loss of life, that there may be a slight semantic issue with the word 'survived'.  Considering how sensitive an issue it is, language that might be perceived as demeaning rape as a crime is always going to be difficult to navigate.  As you say, in the eyes of the law rape is considered a lesser crime perhaps due to the immediate cessation of life.  That is not the same as saying it is a lesser crime in the sense of potential impact.

Perhaps we need to rename this thread the "Light Blue Touchpaper" thread?

Only a slightly tangential note, I've always found murder programmes mildly bemusing.  You'd think considering the population of a village like Midsomer (okay, fictional I know) that the incredibly high murder rate would make anyone think twice before moving there.  Plus, wouldn't any halfway rational psychologist be seriously questioning the level of psychosis in the area generating so many murderers?

[The Legendary Shark]

That's what I was thinking, Tjm, but didn't want to presume.

Logically and dispassionately speaking, rape victims have a better chance of recovery than murder victims. Thus my assertion that rape is a marginally lesser crime. To say so does not diminish the overall seriousness (or "evil" if you want to use an emotive word) of either crime.

Midsomer would probably be of interest to Professor Quatermass!

[Tjm86]

I think the simple fact of the matter is that it is such an emotive subject largely due to a, regrettably, higher level of familiarity people have with it.  Statistically speaking there are probably a large number of forum members that have either direct or indirect knowledge of the subject, as Tordels points out.  Particularly when you take into account under reporting due to the rather pleasant attitude of some members of the criminal justice system.  That is not to say that this limits those who can speak on the topic.

Mulder and Scully might have fun in Midsomer too.  (hmm, title for a book perhaps?)

[The Legendary Shark]

Agreed.

And agreed!

[Professor Bear]

The thought experiment that best models that one for me  is to imagine that I'm a kid when almost EVERY comic hero is a Muslim girl of middle-eastern descent, as are most politicans and pubic figures, and the only time a white character shows up in fictio is when he or his brother/father is a member of a terrorist organisation, and his dialogue is peppered with 'Begorrah!' or '...arr flegs!' as he fondles some rosary beads/gathers bonfire tyres. And then an Irish superhero (note: not Banshee)  shows up in a good comic and people complain about 'pandering' to my demographic.

You miss the major component of the thought experiment: that you shouldn't be reading comics for Muslim girls of middle-eastern descent in the first place because those comics are not for you, they're for people who've been reading them for years already and those people alone.

I have a certain amount of empathy for the fanboy's point of view - clumsily articulated as it is and occasionally tinged with cultural, racial, and politically-insensitive thoughts and language - because on some level he has a point that these are "his" comics, as he's been supporting them for decades and thanks to Diamond and the Big Two publishers (and, of course, the seemingly endless supply of titty comics like Vampirella), the industry has focused on making him feel like the center of the world (and anyone else feel unwelcome) to the point of near-destruction.  Why wouldn't he feel that comics are "his" when the industry has gone out of its way to encourage this viewpoint?

Having said all that, if they really don't like Ms Marvel that much, you'd think if they were that big a comics fanboy they'd know to just wait a few years and things will run their natural course when everyone goes back to buying Wolverine or Deadpool.  Remember non-Caucasian teenage female superhero Arana and her quirky, occasionally topical title that dealt with then-relevant teen issues as well as the usual NYC superheroics?  It's okay if you don't.