GAME OF THROES: RAPE IS NOT A SHORTCUT TO NARRATIVE SUBSTANCE
If you didn’t catch the news, last Friday, the website Comic Book Resources posted a five-page preview of the latest issue of the Game of Thrones comic book adaptation. And the pages they published — the pages Dynamite Entertainment sent out as representative of the book, which is a standard practice for comic book publishers — included an incredibly graphic rape scene. Erect penis, front and center. Woman bent back nearly double, naked, arched like a porn star.
It just so happens that was also the week that HBO decided to add—and then vigorously defend — a graphic rape scene in the Game of Thrones TV series (a trend the network continued this week), and that both fall in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness month — and yes, thanks, HBO, Dynamite and CBR, we are in fact extra aware of sexual assault now, so, well done, there. It’s worth noting, too, that this is coming on the heels of an incident where a fellow comics editor and journalist got a slew of graphic rape threats for having the temerity to critique the portrayal of a teen girl in a piece of cover art (also published on CBR).
But it’s also not just this week, or this month. It’s this year. This decade. This lifetime. This is business as usual.
I am so tired of writing about rape, and especially rape in pop media, because I have had this conversation dozens and hundreds and thousands of times, as a crisis advocate and an educator, as an editor and writer, as a human being. Because last week, a fellow pop-culture journalist realized that she’s gotten so many rape threats that they’ve begun to feel routine, and this is the landscape where I work every day.
Because rape is still the go-to for lazy storytellers trying to look edgy or add depth to a heroine’s backstory with a minimum of thought.
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
SEAREIGNS 