If you read scripts for fun, you'll realize how many unnecessary sexual scenes are removed from really good movies. I wonder How many of those scripts are Green lit BECAUSE there's an expectation of such a Scene ending up being filmed. Only to be ignored or (like you showed) actors have it removed.
can we at least get it off screen? a tasteful fade to black so i don’t have to watch a simulated rpe or so that actors don’t have to simulate rpe. use it for character development and plot not just shock value.
Hi, I have a question, I am currently writing a story in which the protagonist was born as a result of sexual abuse, in the story her mother unsubscribes from life when she was barely weeks old, and well my protagonist is left with all her mother's feelings when she was pregnant, A main point of the plot is that she hates her body and along the way she learns how to live with her trauma. Am I being too insensitive towards her mother? She constantly has nightmares with memories of her mother so she has another point of view but I would still like to know if I am being too insensitive?
Um yes it will be absolutely. Shocking that harrington was originally written to rape nancy. This is why people hate 13 reasons why, among other reasons admittedly. Would you believe there was an animated show on adult swim called Moral Orel that showcased 2 women going through the aftermath of rapes (the rapes weren't shown by the way) and that was what pulled the plug on the show? It is one thing to tell these stories of rape aftermaths, but it is another for these companies to develop the maturity and foresight that the audience would learn from these stories and maybe even connect with them.
Stopped watching Outlander because of this. Every time they needed to move the plot along or push character development someone would be SAed. It’s poor writing and wholly unnecessary.
Yes well said!!!! These writers need to take notes from Michaela Coel's I May Destroy You. Except for Sally Wainwright who wrote Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax as these shows dont exploit those storylines whatsoever and never show any of it. Happy Valley is perfect in its representation of it actually. It takes place a decade after and it is about a girls mother, aunt and son trying to cope with her death and her rapist's release from prison back into the town. Its extremely realistic and painful - depressingly so. Amazing though.
I've always hated when shows or pieces of media just throw in something like SA and make the moment incredibly gratuitous to either shock the audience or to seem more 'mature' then it actually is, all the while handling the topic poorly and almost never exploring how such a traumatic moment can effect someone's life after it It's why I could never really get into GOT and why I despise shows like 13 Reasons Why and in general I don't like watching shows like them. There's just something so slimy and disingenuous to claim that you care about the subject and are doing it justice, all the while not only handling it terribly, but unintentionally sending a dangerous message to your audience and those who may have gone though this I wanna make it clear that I do think you can have a story that touches on the topic of SA and is handled with respect (Silent Hill 2 is a perfect example on how to handle this topic respectfully) I'm just really suck of people trying to excuse bad writing by saying 'it's supposed to be dark and gritty'
Game of Thrones was the story that proved once and for all that there is such a thing as Too Edgy. I literally couldn’t take it seriously because pretty much every two minutes I was flabbergasted at how meaninglessly screwed up it was. Like I’m all for edgy fiction but Game of Thrones was just…entirely too damn much.
Theres a reason why i will usually only watch comedic tv shows. Good Omens can be Gritty without SA. And someone said that all movies/tv shows should have intimacy coordinators,even if its for something as simple as holding hands.
I hated that they did this to my favourite character in Downtown Abbey and then made the plot all about her husband. This is a comfy show about up stairs down stairs classism, silly relationship drama, and drinking tea - why did they greenlight such a plot?! Remembering it is making mad lol.
Bertie and Tuca has a good depiction since it never goes into what exactly happened (the writers didn't want to show it and they didn't want people to try and brush off what happened to her as "not too bad"), and it focuses on the victim. She even goes to therapy
Thank you. I hate these plots and the way they are filmed. I know it happens to many people all across history but the ways its shot feels like voyeurism. I couldnt get past ep 2 of game of thrones because of it.
When you talk about how uncomfortable it is for actors and actresses to act out rape scenes I think about the acted out rape scene in perfect blue. The main charecter is a beginning actress who does the scene even though it makes her uncomfortable because she doesn’t want to let anybody down. Her co star acting out the scene with her even apologizes because he’s just as uncomfortable with the scene as she is.
I was skeptical about the route of Dexter season 5 with R of Lumen but they wrote and played it off amazingly , I think it portrayed very honest story (except the relationship development with Dexter and Lumen, I wish she would continue to be his partner and he should have stayed asexual)
Most people will never encounter murder, let alone violence. Thats why its interesting to watch in media. BUT the majority of women/girls are sexually assualted to some degree in real life and they DON'T want to be reminded of it when escaping in fantasy. Especially when most scenes are distasteful and fearmongering.
I enjoyed Agatha more than any marvel project in existence and I haven't even watched Wanda Vision but i managed to piece it together and I've only been able to see reactions of it
OMG I saw a girl on tiktok dress as a cicada for Halloween. It is such a gorgeous and so weird costume 😂 it was like glittery too and with heels but at the same time super accurate to the bug. To this day my favourite costume anyone has ever done for Halloween
I have to ask though, despite fact this is in lots of shows theres really not that many types of trauma broadly speaking. You got topic of this vid, abuse verbal and physical, death, self injury etc and theres so many factors that go into all cuz if you look into weird behavior of real serial killers, not all is lust and they have weird rituals after killing and some had a trauma themself which is how they justify what do after killing. And if tv show dexter is accurate psychology dexter is controlled killer who takes blood sample from victims, his brother murders people same way their mom died. I dont wanna say this wrong but if a media piece is loosely believable and moderately respectful of a topic, i leave it alone, im not saying certain stuff is ok but im saying some tv shows that happened to have sa were otherwise good serries minus that. But got was accurate in how powerful men saw women even if was a wrong view, real history had it
OMG! Now their yabba yabba about yabba yabba. Cut to clip from Big Bang Theory- Penny: "Oh, my God, you’re about to jibber jabber about jibber jabber."
One of the online shows I've seen handle this tactfully is sharp objects. Nothing is seen and we only learn about it from the main characters blurred flashbacks. She remembers what happened to her differently and didn't take it seriously until the end of the show. I don't remember how I reacted because I was young (4 maybe 5) but her weirdness around sex is something I related to and think its pretty well written.
I stopped watching "Outlander" partly because of the constant sexual assualt. I do find it interesting though...I remember seeing a comment that a woman left about her husband who was so disturbed by R scene of Jamie Fraser in OL season 1 that he couldnt watch it. The woman pointed out to him he had no trouble watching the R scenes where women are the victims. He said, "thats different" yeah because women are constantly treated like this so people have become numb to male violence against women but flip the script and suddenly its unwatchable. Put a man in that position and they suddenly realize what a horrific experience it is.
Men still make uncomfortable jokes about Deliverance (mentioned in this video)-- a movie that came out decades ago. That's how traumatic a male rape scene is to men-- it becomes a thing of legend/a meme.
The "its realistic" thing irks me so much. Well women still get R'd in this day and age so 200 years from now, if they make shows set in 2024, are we going to have women being R'd left right and centre? Yes, we know it happens, unfortunately, but i don't need to see women being constantly brutalised on my screen.
I definitely have some arguments to TWD's depictions of SA, its LIGHT compared to GOT. I mean, they easily implied it with Randall's story to the group in Season 2, Maggie and Glenn's story when it comes to if the Govenor gRaped her or not, and Glenn making it about him is honestly realistic. I've seen Men act like they somehow should have been there, been stronger ect. Infact I feel they did a great job on that storyline, it was nice to see Glenn realize he was selfish and even better "making it about him." I'd honestly argue Carl's attempted SA on him by the big ol fat guy of The Claimers group was far more graphic. I will never forget the show coming back from commercial and them flashing a "Viewer advised." And then that man, crawling ontop of him. I was SO thrilled when Rick "took a bite outta crime." And actually later on, when Negan shows up and is going to ask Rick to cut his own sons arm off with his hatchet (he doesn't) and when Negan starts to remove one of his belts (to make a tourniquet further up) Carl looks genuinely unnerved as he doesn't know Negan wants his arm cut yet, but is panicking because of him undoing his belt and they don't know The Saviors. They have no clue if SA is on the table for them to terrorize Rick's people. And there are disabled characters in TWD. They don't talk about ADHD or Autism (actually Eugene Porter is canonically Autistic), but you can see it in how Negan's portrayed or Patrick from season 4. As for physical disabilities you have amputation around every corner. Merle Dixon, Carl Grimes, The Govenor, Hershel Greene. And even later you have a pair of sisters who are both deaf and from our main group, Daryl makes a genuine effort to learn ASL. As for Obeese casting of characters. On the road traveling, doubt it. As evidenced by a large amount of chubby to what I have deemed "Big Chungus" walkers, most overweight/obese people perished in the earlier days of the fall of civilization. Not to mention TWD's apocalypse begins in 2010, most people weren't obese til much later as shown by the page you put up. Alexandria, The Kingdom, and later The Commonwealth. Ya know settled places that have walls and you don't have to be on the run all the time, there a quite a few bigger characters. As for people in wheelchairs or needing mobile aid, yeah they would only live if they have a abled person with them at all times or behind a walled community. To me, other than Carl's SA attempted on him and learning the backstory of Terminus. The Walking Dead is very light on it and usually spoken of in past tense. As much as I don't love Fear The Walking Dead's later seasons Sherry (Dwights wife and former "wife" of Negan's "harem") she has to acknowledge her trauma from being forced to sleep with Negan when he would ask her to. They work through it together even though Sherry pushes him away and tells him he can't understand and kinda does destructive behavior before she can become better adjusted and start healing. I feel apocalypse stories should have mentions of SA, but nothing showing it. I think actors are amazing enough to get complexities of a character traumatized without having to fully see a person held down or even a weapon to their head. Oh and last thing the only other gRape well attempted once again I can think of is in season 7 when Sasha Williams is taken captive in Negan's settlement and one of his lackies "Davey" is saying he will give her water if she "Does something for him." Only to get headbutted by Sasha almost breaking his nose, when he goes after her in rage to push himself on her, Negan shows up and puts him down. Sorry to blast ya with all this info but as a SA survivor myself and TWD is my special interest I know all of the stories from it. I do agree that Law and Order SVU has kinda desensitized it. The last thing, I'm more than glad HBO didn't get their hands on TWD for adapting. I reccently looked into the graphic novel, The Govenor of the show has nothing on how sick he is in the comics, especially to Michonne
This is literally James with Silent Hill 2. Yes he committed an evil act. But is he inherently an evil character? No not at all, but new fans think he’s straight up satan, disregarding other aspects of his character/grief etc. There is no more middle ground. It’s just you’re either a saint or satan. Great video.
Thank you for this. Thank you for sharing your story. I've never felt so seen and related so much to the experiences of another survivor, and so much to the experience of learning to love again and not knowing how to deal with patience and kindness.
@skulliebythesea thank you! I have only just discovered your videos so I've been on a bit of a binge 😅 you are such a refreshing voice, I am loving your content
If you're after an easy darker read, I have been singing the praises of Jamison Shea's I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is me. They're a queer, Black, enby author and the book feels really fresh. It's a horror about a Black ballerina studying in Paris and bargaining with an ancient God to help her ascend in the deeply white supremacist world of elite ballet. Not sponsored I swear, I have no stake in this, I just think you might enjoy it.
Would you be able to link it? Because a lot of the research from certified professionals and personal anecdotes I've compiled from other survivors said the exact opposite.
I think Outlander is a good example of this even if I do like the show, I cannot sugarcoat how much it began to rely on this trope. The first and maybe second season was good because it's an unfortunate reality of the times and it's not played for a plot point, it shows how Claire and Jamie both are respectively affected. My one criticism is how Jamie's scene was so long and drawn out and it's shot almost like a love scene with the lighting, I even heard that they wanted Jamie's actor to shoot more of it and he didn't want to at all. Now the show is on it's 7th season and it has just gotten ridiculous. So far almost every member of the main cast has been SA'd and most of it has been because of the need for a plot point or cheap shock value. For example, the main villain does this to a young boy and is only used to get Jamie and the main villain to fight, after that it is never brought up again. It happens again to Jamie's teenage nephew as if him almost getting murdered wasn't enough, Jamie and Claire's daughter for some BS drama about who the father of her baby is, and more. Later in the series it happens again to Claire and is shown in great detail, which is so graphic I don't think I can describe, but the way Claire gets over it is done in such a corny way that it feels like a bad PSA. If you want to lean into dark and violent themes, why not focus more on the wars being fought? I'm sure you can create more drama or get characters to meet rather than inflicting one of your characters - usually women or children - with long lasting trauma that they get over after one conversation somehow.
tbh i've been exposed to so many "free SA" scenes in tv shows and movies since a very young age, this most happening to women and it's mostly in horror/action movies that i've grown absolutely reluctant of those genres. I am very picky before watching anything new specially if it's a "heavy" show because I fear i'll find more SA's and sexual violence and it genuinely get's me sick and feeling deeply sad afterwards.
And there's plenty of other (non sexualized, non fetishized, etc) kinds of trauma that a character can be changed by and work to overcome. Drowning, fire, heights, endless other understandable fears that might be derived from traumatic experiences that a person could have to push through to do something plot relevant.
1. Your hair is awesome! 2. Love the fairy lights, they give a cozy feel despite the somewhat heavy subject matter :3 3. I'm glad this vid got recommended to me, cause as I'm getting older and watching more adult shows nowadays (I'm 19), I've noticed these themes/tropes basically in every one I've seen. :/ I finished the new season of The Boys a few months back, with my parents actually! Overall we loved it and are excited for the next season, but man, episode 6? (iykyk) Tbh I laughed, but I was laughing out of disbelief and discomfort, I couldn't believe how far they took it-- I'm not really a puritan but geez I did not know you could put scenes like that on TV and get away with it 😭😭 Maybe I haven't watched enough TV. I teared up at Hughie breaking down with Annie, and was glad that his trauma was being addressed, but still... It didn't need to happen, it was way too drawn out, way too graphic, heartless even. Hughie's a mess but he has a heart of gold, idk why it has to be him out of all the characters. It's not even the first worst thing to happen to him, but I'd say it's definitely the most disgusting. And I don't even wanna get started on the mindfvck of him and the shapeshifter, he basically got violeted TWICE. I hope the writers will give him a break next season, or just... Not make him suffer in gratuitously perverse ways anymore? TLDR: adult TV shows should have less SA scenes and more scenes about petting a puppy, or touching grass.
