We all have our vicarious thresholds when it comes to violence in entertainment. Rape functions differently for me in genres like suspense, horror, and sci fi than it does in drama. I am too squeamish for a huge proportion of dramas that involve sexual violence, with the exception of those laughably rare scenarios, like Demi Moore sexually harassing Kurt Douglas--shit, pass the popcorn and let's watch the white dude get terrorized for an hour. We can make a Straw Feminist drinking game!
Sexualized fright sells, and it always has. It is not only a foundation of horror, it is a foundation of cinema itself. Think of the idiotic silent films in which "savage" blackface dudes capture the pretty white lady in a long dress. Think Hitchcock, who made breathless thrillers in which he attentively tortured his starlets, both on and off screen. Think of the massacre franchises and their relation to sexuality; think of the Final Girl complex.
When the movie asks me to suspend my disbelief by presenting itself as otherworldly, when it does not claim to tell a literal human story, my personal tolerance for violence is much higher. It is that, and a healthy ability to dissociate, that makes it possible for me to not only view but also speak about ostensibly triggering material such as the prolonged gang rapes that are a critical part of the rape-revenge movie formula, often referenced as rapesploitation. It's a largely 1970's phenomenon, with some perennial remakes such as The Last House on the Left (1972, 2009) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978, 2010) and some millennial takers such as Sweet Karma (2005), and Tomboys (2009).
It is this distinction between genre and drama that makes it so I will eventually get around to watching The Hills Have Eyes (also a remake) before I will ever consider finishing The Piano. This is also why I'm not going to talk about the popular Men Who Hate Women series (besides, there is a lot of great critical material out there about that trilogy already). When I watch horror, I'm not empathizing with the human condition, I'm on the Human Condition Wild Ride. That ride has a familiar, circular track, even if it is a little jerky, and I'm more able to consider what went into the construction of that experience.
There is a lot that I want to discuss about the utilization of rape in horror and thrillers, from 'sploitation to subversion. I'm going to start at the bottom, work my way through some more respectable (read: less gory, equally problematic) films that include rape, and see if there is anything that passes the test of a skeptical survivor intersectional feminist. Sensitive folks, please feel free to skip past this stuff, and be good to yourself if you decide to actually watch anything I discuss. Because I'm not necessarily recommending any of the movies I'm talking about.
So next I'm going to Spit on Your Grave, and take it from there. Please keep your hands and feet inside the Human Condition Wild Ride at all times.
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