Page 24 - The Staunch Test
P. 24
THE STAUNCH TEST
7. But people enjoy watching films and TV shows with violence to
women!
Very true. Indeed, there’s a long tradition of people turning out to see other
people suffer and women are certainly among them. Witch burnings, lynchings,
hangings, beheadings, gladiatorial fights to the death, even street brawls filmed
on phones. You name it, humans have done it to others and shown it to an
audience. But slowly, over time, we come to understand that maybe public
violence, even when sanctioned, is not something to be relished in a civilised
society. These days, ironically, we indulge in on-screen ‘reality’ shows and
competitions, witnessing people who are paid to share parts of their lives,
sometimes scripted and staged, including love, heartbreak, humiliation, failure,
exposure, cheating, and so on, while we stare at their bodies and judge
everything about them, including its effect on their mental health.
Today, we can also see almost any atrocity we want (or didn’t want) to see
played out on screen, and we can do it in private if we don’t want anyone to
know. From fictional graphic violence in action films and thrillers, to casual
storylines of women’s assault and murder, to terrifyingly realistic horror movies,
to violent (if staged) porn, to actual rape, injury and even murder filmed with
unwilling or drugged victims. Humans have an appetite for the frightening,
shocking and distasteful. But while the law, in theory, exists to police and protect
what happens with nonconsenting subjects of violence, what we consume as
entertainment served up by the film and television industries goes less
examined — and is mainly passively and unquestioningly received.
Women enjoy bad things happening to women too…
It’s an undeniable fact that many women enjoy reading and watching scary and
horrible things happening to other women. We don’t dispute or try to conceal
that. What’s interesting is why the collective ‘we’ accept or welcome it
happening to this particular sector of humanity?
