Shetland

[osprey_archer]

I am literally one episode from the end of Shetland, and part of me just wants to barrel right on through so that’s done & dusted - but in the penultimate episode they did a rape plot and I've lost all will to watch the last one.



I didn’t even think they handled the rape badly, per se, insofar as it is possible to handle well a plot where the bad guy sends a thug to rape a female sidekick (Tosh) to send a message to the male main character (Jimmy Perez). It’s not graphic or titillating and the focus is more on its effect on Tosh than its effect on Jimmy Perez. I’m just so tired of that plotline.

I’m tired of most rape plotlines. Pretty much the only show that I would trust to do a rape plotline in an interesting way is Orphan Black (that reminds me: does Netflix have season 5 yet? No) because it generally does a good job with bodily autonomy issues - but even there - eh.

If only some kind of robotic creature - I’m thinking Janet from The Good Place, the world’s perkiest robot - would pop up whenever the writers room for a TV show started toying with ideas for rape storylines.

“I’m sorry,” Janet would chirp. “This year’s limit for women raped in TV shows has already been passed. But if you want, you can do that storyline with a male character! How about Jimmy Perez’s male sidekick Sandy? Or maybe Jimmy Perez himself? The statistics say that one in six men has been sexually assaulted, you know! That’s a huge demographic of suffering men who really need to see their painful experience represented on screen in a sensitive and thoughtful manner. Don’t you think it would help them to see that even a tough, highly-trained police officer like Jimmy Perez can be vulnerable to sexual assault?”

Mind, I don’t think most TV writers would take Janet up on it. I think the male writers would recoil from having to imagine themselves (even by proxy) as victims, and come up with some other way for the villain to send a message. How about a horse’s decapitated head in Jimmy Perez’s bed, hmm?

Comments

[sartorias]

Oh wow, I was shouting (inside my head) yes, yes, YES all through this post.

[evelyn_b]

insofar as it is possible to handle well a plot where the bad guy sends a thug to rape a female sidekick (Tosh) to send a message to the male main character (Jimmy Perez).

Ugh.

Man, I don't know what I think about depictions of rape in popular culture because mostly I just avoid, avoid, avoid. More male rape victims would probably be an improvement in some ways, but also more for me to avoid.

(I just finished an otherwise extremely likable book with a VERY UNLIKABLE rape subplot and I'm probably going to be babbling about it in spoiler-text come Wednesday).

[rachelmanija]

I initially misread that as "If only some robotic creature could be substituted for the rape whenever the writers started thinking about writing one." So instead of Tosh being raped, Bad Place Janet would be sent to fart at Jimmy Perez.

I also love your idea, though. I totally agree, if they had to write and then see representations of their gender being raped onscreen, depictions of rape would plummet by about 90%.

[asakiyume]

I WISH we could make that Janet dream a reality. And you're right; she'd be perfect--with exactly the lines you suggest.

And I think you're right about the male writers' reactions, too. Their notions of rape are totally tied up in the victim being a woman, and boy do they not want to be women.

[osprey_archer]

She'd just be so PERKY. I imagine the (mostly male) writers around the table gaping at her fish-mouthed in horror as she cheerfully lays out the possibilities.

[osprey_archer]

If only I had a Janet I could deploy!

[osprey_archer]

One of the reasons I liked Shetland was that there were no rapes in the first two seasons. And then this happened. WHY YOU GOTTA BETRAY ME LIKE THAT, SHETLAND.

I suspect that if (male) writers were required to have any kind of proportional parity for male & female rape victims they'd cut way down on rape plots, because having to write men getting raped at all would make them so uncomfortable. So the end result would probably be less fictional rapes all around.

[osprey_archer]

I just imagine how uncomfortable these guys would be, faced with Janet's smiling spiel. But - but - but if we have to write about men being raped that's just not fun at all, Janet! How could we inflict that on the character? How could we do that to the actor!

[sovay]

So the end result would probably be less fictional rapes all around.

You may already have seen it because it came out in 2013, but this essay by Sophia McDougall addresses that point: "The Rape of James Bond."

[silverusagi]

FWIW, I thought Broadchurch is a show that handled a rape plot well. The rape is the season-long case they solve, so the rape itself is not about the effect it has on a male character.

Though the Janet idea would be fabulous.

[osprey_archer]

I'm usually more on board with rape plots in a mystery show if it is a mystery they need to solve -
something that happened to a third party - rather than something that happens to one of our recurring detective characters who previously has been very much a secondary character, and this is her very first big plot of her own.

I think the mere possibility of Janet popping out of nowhere and spouting male rape statistics would be enough to put a lot of showrunners off doing rape plots. It's just such a bummer! And she's SO perky about it!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I read that one!