Jodie Foster Slams writers for use of

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Seems a bit hypocritical to win an academy award for starring in a movie where your role is a victim of rape (and the source of the character's motivation) & then slam writers for the use decades later, without so much as a mention of the role.

I can see where the issue lies if that was the only motivation ever used, or if, as Foster implies, rape is used as a fallback for weak writing. But, I don't think it's as prevalent as the article seems to imply.

I might be wrong. I'm just not reading/viewing it as a norm.

 

No one takes any celebrity seriously. Especially when it comes to serious societal issues.

They're so far removed from real life that the comments they make about anything other than being a celebrity border on the farcical.

She obviously has an agenda and doesn't actually care about the real issue itself.

 

I would advice people to take this issue more seriously.

A very long time ago, we had a problem when people were bashing famous authors and one of them actually showed up here (using a different name) in order to defend him or herself. Please do not attack Jodie Foster personally in your posts, because she could be reading this and we do not want to look like a site that throws personal attacks at famous and generally admired people.

Many actors and actresses have participated in roles and films that they later regretted.

I also dislike very much how the issue in question has become so common in Fantasy stories these days. I am not sure why or how this has happened, but I agree with Foster on her opinion that the tendency is wrong. It's a very serious, delicate issue and it should be treated with more respect.

 

I think the response here would be better if it wasn't Jodie Foster. But she's also a producer and director, and if you consider how many scripts she must read, she has every right to comment in this area.

Regardless, I think rape has risen to the level of a fad, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was mentioned in the same breath as "Zombies" on the list of story content a publication won't accept. (For those saying they don't see a lot of rape.... how many zombie stories do you see?)

I can't really comment on why people want to write about rape. I don't understand it at all.

 

Besides Game of Thrones, Thomas Covenant, & maybe a Joe Abercrombie story (I haven't read them all), where is this practice so common in fantasy?

I think the backlash against writers, male writers, is largely coming from the TV series Game of Thrones where the TV writers made a different choice of direction for the character Sansa, which a great number of people disliked, female and male.

It should be noted that this was not the original writing by GRRM. It was altered for TV.

Due to the show's popularity, I can see why that might stoke the fires on the issue of proper agency for female characters, but I still think it's being overblown. I'm open to persuasion though if someone can provide a contemporary list of male authors relying on rape as a female character motivator. Even concerning Martin's ASOIF series, I remember threats of sexual assault being leveled, but I don't remember the action depicted blatantly. It has been awhile since reading those stories though.

To be clear, I don't mind Foster voicing an opinion that is in opposition with a previous role. I do, however, think she should be more forthright about her change of mind and the role in question, not just the article mentioning the link to the movie The Accused.

 

Terry Goodkind, Sword of Truth, which is extremely popular for some people.

 

Haven't read that, but we'll add it to the list:

Donaldson - Thomas Covenant 1977
Martin - ASOIF 1996
Goodkind - Sword of Truth 2008
Lawrence - Prince of Thorns 2011
Abercrombie - ?

I agree. But, it should be part of her discussion primarily to properly frame her change in thinking from starting actress to director.

 

I'm having trouble finding more because the words "fantasy" and "rape" do not belong in the same search box.

 

Agreed.

I didn't want anyone to do a search. I was hoping people would know these stories offhand if they're so prevalent.

I only limited the discussion to fantasy as that is the topic genre here at MS, & the prevalence in fantasy was mentioned earlier in this thread.

 

I will weigh in as a 32-year-old woman

GRRM defends his use of sexual violence in a few ways:

But Martin told the New York Times that although his books are epic fantasy, they are based on history (the series is loosely inspired by the Wars of the Roses). And "rape and sexual violence have been a part of every war ever fought, from the ancient Sumerians to our present day".

"To omit them from a narrative centered on war and power would have been fundamentally false and dishonest, and would have undermined one of the themes of the books: that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves. We are the monsters. (And the heroes too). Each of us has within himself the capacity for great good, and great evil," the author said.

George RR Martin defends Game of Thrones' sexual violence | Books | The Guardian

"I'm writing about war, which is what almost all epic fantasy is about, but if you're going to write about war and you just want to include all the cool battles and heroes killing a lot of orcs and things like that and you don't portray [sexual violence], then there's something fundamentally dishonest about that," he said.

"Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It's not a strong testament to the human race, but I don't think we should pretend it doesn't exist."

Game of Thrones: George RR Martin insists omitting rape would be 'fundamentally dishonest' and criticises 'Disneyland Middle Ages' stories | News | Culture | The Independent

"People will say 'Well, he's not writing history, he's writing fantasy - he put in dragons, he should have made an egalitarian society'," he said.

"Just because you put in dragons doesn't mean you can put in anything you want. I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like.

"Most stories depict what I call the 'Disneyland Middle Ages' - there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor but they didn't want to show what these societies meant and how they functioned."

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/chit-chat/16570-jodie-foster-slams-writers-use-2.html#post237686


Am I tired of the constant portrayal of women as sex-objects in media? Yes. Of course.

Do I think that rape is a huge problem in media and needs to be avoided at all costs?

No.

I'm raising a little boy right now. One thing that I have noticed since becoming a parent is how sugar coated everything is. How much we try to protect our children. How much we avoid certain conversations and pretend that certain things don't exist. At our local play school group they can't sing "The little old woman who swallowed a fly" because the song is about death.

Are you freaking kidding me?

We live in a rural town. Our cat catches mice and squirrels from the mountain and eats them, dragging the carcasses home. I had a friend try to use the "he's only sleeping" BS.

It bothers me that we keep trying to push rape, racism, homophobia etc under the carpet and pretend it doesn't exist. It does exist. Is has existed for a long time. As a person who is very interested in history, I think we have a lot to learn from history. I think out children have a lot to learn from history so that history does not repeat itself.

So while of course I'm not going to talk to my four-year-old son about rape, I will talk to my 14-year-old son about rape, racism, homophobia, and how and why those things are not OK. I'm not going to sugar coat real tragedies that happen in our world.

So back to literature. I feel like when we Disneyland our literature then we are dumbing down our society. Sheltering them too much does not make leaders of change.

So while I do agree that woman should be portrayed as more rounded than simply objects of rape, I also think that Fantasy is a safe venue to explore some of these terrible experiences that have happened (and still DO) happen in our world. Fantasy can be a great way of addressing social issues in a manner that is 'removed' enough from the 'real world' so that we can learn from them.

I read "The Giver" every year with my Eighth Graders . This is a YA book where a child is in charge of keeping the memories of the community. One baby born into the community does not fit the mold of what the community expects, and so he is going to be destroyed. Injected with a toxin to stop his heart and then dumped down a chute into an incinerator.

That is some pretty heavy stuff! But the fantasy setting and the fact that it is fiction... (We aren't reading articles about infanticide) makes it sort of a safe way to have some really tough conversations about what really happens in the world.

So after all that (lol) I agree with Jodie Foster that women should have other roles then just being raped and surviving rape.

However, I still feel that rape does have a role in story telling and should not be avoided completely.