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Post by gothos on Aug 11, 2014 16:22:49 GMT -5
I don't read a lot of current comics, so I'm asking for input on the following statement that appeared on my blog by a poster: "At one point I was keeping a tally of how many rapes occurred in comics (largely for this purpose) a month. I stopped because the whole thing just made me feel ill after a while." You can check the context of the remark here if you want: arche-arc.blogspot.com/2014/07/feelings-nothing-more-than-feelings.htmlThough I don't read many current comics, I do read THE BEAT and ROBOT6 on a regular basis. I suspect that if there were as many actual rapes as the poster claims, that fact would have been covered more than a little bit. It seems likely to me that the poster may be counting things like "attempted rapes" or even verbal sexual threats, of which there may indeed be a preponderance. What do you think of the above claim? |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 11, 2014 16:36:32 GMT -5
I read a good deal of comics as they come out and I can't remember seeing a single rape, or even attempted rape or sexual threat in the last year. Granted, I don't read even a fraction of every book, in fact I buy mainly from Dark Horse and DC, but if the number were really all that staggering surely I would have encountered at least one instance in the 14 titles I regularly pick up a month.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 11, 2014 16:42:47 GMT -5
I'm much too busy counting rape or attempted rape incidents in the public library rather than increase traffic on a blog. After I finish then I'll figure out what's the point
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 11, 2014 16:51:35 GMT -5
Right off the bat, on the spur of the moment I can think of rape in three different comics, since I've been reading since 1994 or so. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen a lot in comics, cause I wouldn't care to research the subject myself. But rape happens in movies, TV shows, novels, video games ... it's not as if, as some like to accuse, comics are not the only medium of entertainment to incorporate rape in their storylines for whatever purpose they want it to serve. It does someone how seem to be a subject that likes to be talked about in the medium of entertainment, so there maybe some validity to the claims that people make. But like anything on the internet you can't take much at face value without researching it.
And I'll also add that I haven't read anything recent within the last 3 years myself.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 11, 2014 16:58:41 GMT -5
Right off the bat, on the spur of the moment I can think of rape in three different comics, since I've been reading since 1994 or so. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen a lot in comics, cause I wouldn't care to research the subject myself. But rape happens in movies, TV shows, novels, video games ... it's not as if, as some like to accuse, comics are not the only medium of entertainment to incorporate rape in their storylines for whatever purpose they want it to serve. It does someone how seem to be a subject that likes to be talked about in the medium of entertainment, so there maybe some validity to the claims that people make. But like anything on the internet you can't take much at face value without researching it. And I'll also add that I haven't read anything recent within the last 3 years myself. Indeed, by saying I hadn't encountered any in the last year I wasn't saying it never happens, it has in the past and most likely will in the future, but I don't think it's as pervasive as the other commentator would like to suggest. And while I agree with Gothos' sentiment that rape should not be banned from fiction, I have to say I don't tend to care for it as a plot point as it tends to be used fairly gratuitously and I don't think it has any place in main stream super hero books. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 11, 2014 17:43:39 GMT -5
Right off the bat, on the spur of the moment I can think of rape in three different comics, since I've been reading since 1994 or so. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen a lot in comics, cause I wouldn't care to research the subject myself. But rape happens in movies, TV shows, novels, video games ... it's not as if, as some like to accuse, comics are not the only medium of entertainment to incorporate rape in their storylines for whatever purpose they want it to serve. It does someone how seem to be a subject that likes to be talked about in the medium of entertainment, so there maybe some validity to the claims that people make. But like anything on the internet you can't take much at face value without researching it. And I'll also add that I haven't read anything recent within the last 3 years myself. Indeed, by saying I hadn't encountered any in the last year I wasn't saying it never happens, it has in the past and most likely will in the future, but I don't think it's as pervasive as the other commentator would like to suggest. And while I agree with Gothos' sentiment that rape should not be banned from fiction, I have to say I don't tend to care for it as a plot point as it tends to be used fairly gratuitously and I don't think it has any place in main stream super hero books. Sorry, my intention wasn't to direct it towards your comment. I actually had gotten distracted from finishing my post, which was the first one before I hit submit. And I agree with you, for even in the past. Just because I have been reading comics for 20 years almost doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of rape in comics. It just doesn't happen to be the ones that I choose to read. Whether that's been chance or design I am not sure, but I have read rape in comics. But as I mentioned I've seen/read it in other material too. I think by banning, it would just bring more of a taboo stigma for people to perpetuate it. I don't think rape is any more heinous than murder, child abuse, torture or the hundreds of other things mankind has perpetrated on others. I just see that for some reason, it seems more brought up as a topic for discussion in comics than any other entertainment medium I read/view too. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 11, 2014 18:42:23 GMT -5
I think that's largely because at times we can be somewhat of an insular community that gets wrapped up in some of the minutiae of the genre. Where as we can have endless discussions on the rape of Sue Dibny and point to it as systemic of what's wrong with comics as a whole while the literary and film communities see Stanley's raping of Blanche as something only attached to Street Car Named Desire and not their entire respective fields.
I don't know why our community likes to fixate on these kinds of things while others do not, but that does tend to be the case.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 0:02:14 GMT -5
I think that's largely because at times we can be somewhat of an insular community that gets wrapped up in some of the minutiae of the genre. Where as we can have endless discussions on the rape of Sue Dibny and point to it as systemic of what's wrong with comics as a whole while the literary and film communities see Stanley's raping of Blanche as something only attached to Street Car Named Desire and not their entire respective fields. I don't know why our community likes to fixate on these kinds of things while others do not, but that does tend to be the case. I think because film and TV aren't monopolized by a single genre and a duo of film studios. They aren't all sharing the same small pool of writers and actors, and aren't all under the direction of a small handful of directors/editors. There's less corporate mandate, or if there isn't, it's not all the same corporate mandate applied evenly by the same guy to all of film and TV. There's tropes in Law & Order, but if you don't like it maybe you'll like The Simpsons, it's another network show in a slightly earlier bracket. That show has tropes too, completely different ones, and I doubt it shares any with L&E. It might share several with popular primetime cartoons though. But if you don't like those then there's sports, daytime judge shows, game shows, there's comedy, fantasy, drama, ect. I think the evenly distributed variety of movies and television is why we don't say "There's too much X in movies!" Because even though I think there's too much CGI in action movies, I know that the action flick is only one genre of film, and there are plenty more to choose from. Not just from small arthouse production companies either. The big ones, all of them. One movie may have an underlying misogynistic portrayal of women, it doesn't mean everything mainstream will though. That's a problem kind of unique to comics as entertainment. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Aug 12, 2014 10:49:19 GMT -5
I think that's largely because at times we can be somewhat of an insular community that gets wrapped up in some of the minutiae of the genre. Where as we can have endless discussions on the rape of Sue Dibny and point to it as systemic of what's wrong with comics as a whole while the literary and film communities see Stanley's raping of Blanche as something only attached to Street Car Named Desire and not their entire respective fields. I don't know why our community likes to fixate on these kinds of things while others do not, but that does tend to be the case. I believe it's because the medium, comics, and the most prevalent genre, super-heroes, is still regarded even by us as something that should be, at least nominally, suitable for kids. And rape ain't for kids. Granted, murder shouldn't be either, but rape has a different stigma to it. |
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Post by gothos on Aug 12, 2014 15:19:58 GMT -5
I think that's largely because at times we can be somewhat of an insular community that gets wrapped up in some of the minutiae of the genre. Where as we can have endless discussions on the rape of Sue Dibny and point to it as systemic of what's wrong with comics as a whole while the literary and film communities see Stanley's raping of Blanche as something only attached to Street Car Named Desire and not their entire respective fields. I don't know why our community likes to fixate on these kinds of things while others do not, but that does tend to be the case. I tended to think that the alleged proliferation of rape in modern comics is probably exaggerated. There are authors who would use it if they thought it would sell more books, but I don't think there's any evidence that things work that way, and it tends to rouse the watchdogs as well. Why bother using rape if simple sexploitation works more dependably?  I'd generally prefer to see the crime used when an author has a particular point to make with it, but I've seen a few critics take issue with even showing the simple trope of "hero saves helpless woman from rape," because it reduces the victim to a stereotype, or something like that. |
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Post by gothos on Aug 12, 2014 15:24:56 GMT -5
I think that's largely because at times we can be somewhat of an insular community that gets wrapped up in some of the minutiae of the genre. Where as we can have endless discussions on the rape of Sue Dibny and point to it as systemic of what's wrong with comics as a whole while the literary and film communities see Stanley's raping of Blanche as something only attached to Street Car Named Desire and not their entire respective fields. I don't know why our community likes to fixate on these kinds of things while others do not, but that does tend to be the case. I think because film and TV aren't monopolized by a single genre and a duo of film studios. They aren't all sharing the same small pool of writers and actors, and aren't all under the direction of a small handful of directors/editors. There's less corporate mandate, or if there isn't, it's not all the same corporate mandate applied evenly by the same guy to all of film and TV. There's tropes in Law & Order, but if you don't like it maybe you'll like The Simpsons, it's another network show in a slightly earlier bracket. That show has tropes too, completely different ones, and I doubt it shares any with L&E. It might share several with popular primetime cartoons though. But if you don't like those then there's sports, daytime judge shows, game shows, there's comedy, fantasy, drama, ect. I think the evenly distributed variety of movies and television is why we don't say "There's too much X in movies!" Because even though I think there's too much CGI in action movies, I know that the action flick is only one genre of film, and there are plenty more to choose from. Not just from small arthouse production companies either. The big ones, all of them. One movie may have an underlying misogynistic portrayal of women, it doesn't mean everything mainstream will though. That's a problem kind of unique to comics as entertainment. Keep in mind, though, that back in the Golden Age-- when you had many publishers and genres-- Frederic Wertham and a few other bluenoses did indeed say, "there's too much X in comics." Wertham found harmful amounts of sex and violence in every genre he touched upon in his overview, focused largely on early 1950s comics-- westerns, jungle comics, superheroes, crime stories and even romances. He wasn't always entirely wrong about some of them, but on some occasions he would rant about minor scenes of violence or even Freudian readings that would have occured to no one of that period. So a proliferation of genres is not always a protection against accusations of misogyny or whatever. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 15:41:20 GMT -5
That could be because back then comics were seen as entertainment for a single demographic.
The same could be said of cartoons today, and was definitely said of cartoons before 1985 or so. But actual film has always been pretty much considered entertainment for everybody. Maybe not every genre of film, but film as a whole.
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Post by gothos on Aug 15, 2014 16:18:48 GMT -5
That could be because back then comics were seen as entertainment for a single demographic. The same could be said of cartoons today, and was definitely said of cartoons before 1985 or so. But actual film has always been pretty much considered entertainment for everybody. Maybe not every genre of film, but film as a whole. It's true that Frederic Wertham and others justified blanderizing comic books because they thought of them as children's entertainment. But that doesn't mean that this is a pre-condition for censorship. You probably know that the Comics Code was loosely based on the Motion Picture Code, right? Well, the latter Code was adopted for the films of the 1930s-- even though in theory these were aimed more at adults than at kids-- precisely because a lot of adults didn't like being exposed to some of the more "adult" material of that period. I'm not gonna claim that no advocate of motion picture censorship didn't invoke the old chestnut "what about the children?" They probably did, in part. But again, just like comics of the 1950s, movies had a lot of studios and a lot of genres. IMO the "advance censorship" advocates never take the attitude, "well, if you don't like murders, don't watch thrillers." Their attitude is generally totalizing: we don't like X anywhere, so no one should see it. On a side-note, I'm not sure the average Americans in the 1930s considered cartoons to be kidstuff. Some early critics respected Disney as an innovator in general storytelling, not just for kids. The dominant view of cartoons being for kids may owe a lot to the development of TV, which almost totally ghetto-ized cartoons new and old but using them to sell kids' products. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2014 23:46:11 GMT -5
But they didn't stop making movies for adults at any point. In fact, X-rated movies used to get national theater distribution. Back when "Rated-x" was for movies like Scarface and not actual pornography. But then again, pornography got national theater distribution too.
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Post by gothos on Aug 16, 2014 16:41:41 GMT -5
The point I'm making is that from the 1930s to the late 1960s, a Code was imposed on adult patrons as to what they could or could not see depicted on the screen. This was more "pre-censorship" rather than "censorship," an attempt by the studios to put forth a semblance of propriety so that their films wouldn't become the subjects of Sunday school jeremiads. The Code wasn't bad in all respects, but it was directed at adults, until social factors made it possible to widely distribute films on controversial subjects. And even though "X" was originally a designation used by filmmakers to hype their works-- including films like MIDNIGHT COWBOY, that were "adult" in the *good* sense-- the label quickly became associated almost exclusively with sex-films. There was a brief period in the 1970s in which big studios flirted with the idea of "quality porn" like CALIGULA and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, but cultural blowback did away with such attempts. Even today studios practice pre-censorship for the adult audience, editing films to get a PG-13 rather than a R.
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