Jodie Foster Slams writers for use of

[Sheilawisz]

One of my favorite movies ever is The Lovely Bones, based on a famous novel of the same name even though the film is quite different from the original material.

In the movie, we witness as 14-years old Susie Salmon is lured into an underground room by her neighbor George Harvey. We do not get to see any graphic stuff taking place, but it's very clear that Harvey wanted to rape and murder the teenage girl and he accomplished it successfully in the middle of that cornfield.

The movie does include rape as part of the tragedy, but the story is all about how Susan's family deals with the loss and how they slowly rebuild their lives. Susie comes to slowly accept that her life has ended and she has to move on, so that's the message of the film: Life goes on, you can recover even if terrible things happen to you.

In this case rape happened, but the issue was treated respectfully and the fact that the story is about emotional recovery makes all the difference to me.

I agree with Chesterama in her view that rape has no place in Fantasy. In case that I wanted to read about such things, all I have to do is to search for the real-world stories about teenage girls and young women that keep disappearing where I live just to be found dead in forests and sewers some time later.

Apparently they are kidnapped by the organized crime in order to be raped, tortured, murdered and then dumped like garbage at the mentioned forests and sewers. I have heard real stories that happen here and would make any GoT fan cringe, so why would I want to read about the same stuff in Fantasy too?

Rape and other extremely delicate subjects can be used in Fiction, but they must be treated with great caution and respect. After all, we are talking about stuff that shatters lives everyday.

 

[Heliotrope]

Rape and other extremely delicate subjects can be used in Fiction, but they must be treated with great caution and respect. After all, we are talking about stuff that shatters lives everyday.

I disagree with this 100%.

While I never did read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and I had to turn off the film, I cannot ever, ever, tell another author what they can and cannot write about.

I absolutely do not agree that all fiction needs to be politically correct. I do not agree that all fiction need not offend. I do not agree that delicate subjects need to be treated with great caution and respect (100% of the time in fiction).

I agree that we all have a choice in what we do and do not decide to read. But I cannot agree that we need to put standards and limitations on what authors choose to write.

 

[Chessie]

No one is saying that writers can't write about rape or any other subject. For goodness's sake! Opinions and preferences are being mentioned, not censorship. Holy wow.

 

[Sheilawisz]

What I mean is that a super delicate issue like rape can contribute as part of a good story, just like is the case with The Lovely Bones for example. However, using it as cheap shock value just for the sake of it can be nauseating, and it makes loads of people very uncomfortable when that happens in a book or a movie.

In the case of Horror and Thrillers it's more justifiable to include such events in your story, but still, what is better? A deep, powerful story in which rape is treated as a complex and important issue, or one that features it like just another shocking element to frighten readers or watchers?

In any case, I believe that Fantasy is more about escaping to other worlds than about reliving the horrors of our own world. Sure that terrible things happen in my own Fantasy settings too, but I do not portray them in graphic detail.

Fantasy battles, monsters running around and people dying are very common in our genre, but... There is something in rape that makes it much more serious than the other stuff, for some reason it's much darker and I feel that many times the issue is treated wrong.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes, I agree with you here.

What I mean is that a super delicate issue like rape can contribute as part of a good story, just like is the case with The Lovely Bones for example. However, using it as cheap shock value just for the sake of it can be nauseating, and it makes loads of people very uncomfortable when that happens in a book or a movie.

In the case of Horror and Thrillers it's more justifiable to include such events in your story, but still, what is better? A deep, powerful story in which rape is treated as a complex and important issue, or one that features it like just another shocking element to frighten readers or watchers?

In any case, I believe that Fantasy is more about escaping to other worlds than about reliving the horrors of our own world. Sure that terrible things happen in my own Fantasy settings too, but I do not portray them in graphic detail.

Fantasy battles, monsters running around and people dying are very common in our genre, but... There is something in rape that makes it much more serious than the other stuff, for some reason it's much darker and I feel that many times the issue is treated wrong.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

No one is saying that writers can't write about rape or any other subject. For goodness's sake! Opinions and preferences are being mentioned, not censorship. Holy wow.

That's not what is being said though. It's been mentioned more than once that these things have no place in fantasy, with a later mention of personal choices.

Of course everyone has a personal choice and their opinion, whichever side they may fall on is justified...for them.

But, whenever some trigger warning subject is batted around, the opposition to its use does verge toward censorship, which is very bad for creative arts. Sometimes an artist wants to offend.

Further, no one is talking about using grave subject matters flippantly. We are debating the opposite, that using those subjects appropriately should not be discouraged.

 

[FifthView]

I do disagree that rape is worse than physical torture + dismemberment + being eaten alive by some creature.

And so this touches again on that idea of "escaping reality" in fantasy media when that idea is used as a reason for avoiding writing certain things into a story.

The problem is an all-too-human problem: What is not my reality may not seem as real, and thus not as serious or troublesome, quite apart from a consideration of whether it is something that actually happens somewhere else, to other people, in our real world. And so a writer and/or reader might be more sensitive to things than another writer and/or reader will be.

 

[Heliotrope]

^^^ I actually stopped watching GOT when the King's Guard killed the king's bastard son (infant) in the brothel.

That for me was the limit.

When I tell other people that they look at me like I'm crazy. Like that was what did it for me? Out of all the terrible stuff?

 

[Reaver]

^^^ I actually stopped watching GOT when the King's Guard killed the king's bastard son (infant) in the brothel.

That for me was the limit.

When I tell other people that they look at me like I'm crazy. Like that was what did it for me? Out of all the terrible stuff?

I can relate. I tried watching GOT but the first time they showed some old dude's privates, that was it for me. I decided to start binge watching Hercules and Xena instead.

Here's me when I saw that on GOT:

 

[skip.knox]

I agree with T.Allen.Smith. Foster's point is that relying on rape as a motivational factor for a female character to drive her to action is employed far too often as a device. Or, rather, in far too many cases it is simply lazy writing.

*All* motivations should be carefully examined by an author. Another common plot device is: the bad guys slaughtered my family, or even my village. Of course a violent act can drive a character into action, but when it's employed repeatedly in poor to mediocre novels, it's right and proper for critics to call out the author on the point.

As a matter of fact, few of us have any sort of empathetic understanding of what it means to have one's village destroyed. When an author employs this device, he is not really evoking the experience and its aftermath, he's simply saying "and here's why my MC is really mad and it justifies whatever the MC does later in the story." As such, it trivializes the experience.

I read the critique of rape as a motivational device as being rather the same sort of thing. It's a weak prop for a story, and it cheapens the real-life event. If the author can make the device really work, then fine; at that point, it's a matter of taste for the reader. The criticism is aimed at the lazy ones, asking that they reconsider based on the wider considerations Foster brought to bear.

 

[Devor]

Concerning Jodi Foster, is it possible that people send her certain scripts because of her performance in The Accused? Like she's been typecast in the eyes of some producer or script writers?

 

[FifthView]

Concerning Jodi Foster, is it possible that people send her certain scripts because of her performance in The Accused? Like she's been typecast in the eyes of some producer or script writers?

It could be, or even if not then perhaps she's just in a position to read more scripts than we, who are not in the industry, will ever see in a completed movie. There's also the possibility that, as with many pet peeves, the irritation caused by a handful of events can seem to outweigh a far larger number of non-occurrences. I wonder how many good scripts actually feature a leading role for women? This has often been mentioned as a problem, and men do seem to have an edge on number of scripts featuring a male leading role. (Example: Marvel superhero franchises. A recent news story mentioned that Marvel rejected using a female villain in Iron Man 3 because.....the toy figure wouldn't sell as well.) So maybe that disparity helps to highlight even more the handful of stories featuring some rape backstory.