A couple weeks ago The Mary Sue announced they weren’t going to cover “Game of Thrones” any more after yet another female character being brutally raped. The thread is still being invaded by trolls periodically, and there are more than 12,000 comments on the article, which is a site record and probably an internet record. (12K comments because a single website said “We’re not going to recap or promote this show any more.” Baffling.)
Tons of trolls have thrown out the “but THINGS WERE JUST LIKE THAT BACK THEN!” argument ad nauseum. Which is total bullshit, of course. Now with the season finale of “Outlander” (which, spoiler, also included rape) the trolls are coming back.
I just want to ask, why is it whenever producers/directors/writers want to demonstrate “gritty historic realism” it’s ALWAYS RAPE? It’s always sexual violence toward women/girls.
You know what would be gritty historic realism? Dysentery. GoT has battles and armies marching all over the place. You want to show “what things were like back then”? Why aren’t we seeing 500 guys by the side of a road puking and shitting their guts out from drinking contaminated water while the rest of the army straggles along trying to keep going? Or a village getting wiped out by cholera? Or typhus, polio or plague epidemics?
You want to show what it was like back then for women? Show a woman dying of sepsis from an infection she caught while giving birth. Show a woman coping with ruptured ovarian cysts with nobody know what it is. Breast cancer that the audience will recognize immediately but the characters think is some mark of the devil or some shit.
But no, it’s always rape. And we all know why that is. Because these douchecanoes that do this, though they’ll deny it, think rape is sexy. Because they can’t make a modern set story where women get raped in every god damned episode without being called monsters. So they use “but but historical realism!” to cover their sexism (see “Mad Men”) and misogyny. Then they tell us “That’s just how it was back then!” with the clear implication “Shut the fuck up bitch, because that could be you and you should be thanking me that it’s not.”
Can we propose a rule for “realistic” historical fiction/fantasy? Twelve graphic cases of dysentery for every one graphic rape?
^^ I like this idea.
Maybe if high fantasy writers and creators weren’t all fucking hacks who’ve been riding JRRT’s dick for the last fifty years and insist on making every single god damn fantasy world they create a boring retread of Middle Earth based on the same three hundred year span of time in four countries of Western Europe they wouldn’t all have to rely on the same garbage logic to justify their garbage misogyny.
You know, they could deny that they find rape sexy, and they might even believe their own denials. But the point is that they clearly don’t think of rape as something distasteful enough and disgusting enough to omit.
And you know what, I’m not even gonna insist on the dysentery. Just this: if you’re going to include rape on the basis of historical accuracy, none of your female characters are allowed to have shaved legs or armpits. And all of your characters have to have terrible teeth – yellowed and worn and crooked, because nobody’s getting braces or regular visits to the dentist – with at least a few teeth blackened or missing for every character over the age of thirty.
Of course, if your reaction to blackened teeth and hairy armpits is “ugh, no, sure it might be historically accurate but it’s gross, nobody’s going to want to watch that" and you don’t have the exact same reaction to rape, you might want to think about why that is.
Not to mention that some of the societies portrayed, or inspiring similar fantasy settings, actually had STRONGER protections against and consequences for rape than the ones we live in today.
Accounts from Vikings’ contemporaries recount a lot of raiding, but not a single case of rape. Viking law didn’t treat rape as a property crime, and the penalty for it was outlawry, which was essentially a death sentence. Medieval English law prescribed that rapists be castrated and blinded. And the sagas contain vanishingly few references to rape (and violence against women is usually followed with comeuppance–often death–for the perpetrator).
TL;DR: History wasn’t one giant rape-fest, and in fact, members of the cultures high fantasy is usually based on may have actually been more disapproving of rape than we are today (imagine trying to pass a bill making rape a capital offense today!).
These writers include rape because they like writing about rape, not because history dictates it.
You can also see where they are in the process of getting passed.
You can also search all legislation currently being proposed on key terms.
For example, there are currently 38 bills being proposed with the word ‘abortion’ in it. (However, you do kinda have to know what sort of language the bigots in congress use. Any shit on limiting transgender rights for example, will probably not include the word transgender).
My brain can’t even understand how people would agree to get rid of the entire department of education. I can’t.
#stressedtfout
This is scary
Thanks Al Jazeera, making depression accessible to the public
I feel so bad but i’m just sitting here cackling as my bestie is sending me increasingly exasperated texts about her students’ first research paper (1 page long lol). Like. Despite having deadlines for each stage of research and writing, one kid emailed her at 7:45 pm for the final 10 pm deadline with a question about “resurch.” Multiple kids have plagiarized their papers, one of whom didn’t even bother changing the font or the color of the sections he copied and pasted. One girl just cited a fucking fanfiction story as one of her sources.
Middle schoolers are so precious, but god they can be so stupid too. Darling children lol
update: fanfiction girl may have put it in the works cited but didn’t even bother to put quotation marks in as she just copied and pasted two full pages of a fanfiction into her paper. every little additional detail i learn about these papers just gets worse lol
she sent me the link of the story she copied and pasted. it is…not good. it’s not even a good story. why did she steal it? god this entire sordid tale is so baffling. is it possible that this child has genuinely mistaken bad self-insert fanfiction for legitimate greek mythology? the world may never know
“Also, fanfiction.net is a community of modern fiction writers, and is not a credible source for your research papers.” – an actual sentence my friend just had to write to her students. i’m dying this is incredible lol
“Although the Trojan horse is something we all think is real, it’s actually classified as a myth.” oh you sweet summer child
“I used this video thing to find out what the roman house you can find out.” what does this even mean lol
god they’re such precious babies fumbling around like newborn colts and i am living
“The Trojan War Horse was built around the time the Trojan War took place.” I mean. He’s not wrong…
“
Like Gaea, Ouranos had a human form too, in his human form he was a tall buff guy, with long black hair, wearing only a loincloth… (don’t judge me, Gaea was the one who made him…)
So then they get married, bla bla bla bal bal.”
“
So they have triplets, and these kids define UGLY. Now don’t get me wrong they were as big and strong as the titans but they were so brutish and NEEDED any kind of waxing, and to top it all off each one had a huge eye in the middle of their forehead. They became the elder cyclops.Of course when Ouranos saw them he was like “Nope!” and made chains out the nights pure blackness and chained up the triplets and tossed them into the pit.”
“
So Gaea had come up with this new and brilliant idea called killing.”
“
But that is a story for another time. For now I will work on painting some of the moments for the LAVP so see ya later.My references are:“Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods” book by Rick Riordan, Goggle, Wikapedia”
Okay I honestly never anticipated this post to go beyond my immediate circle, and apparently some people have missed the point of this post. This is their first paper. They are learning and part of learning is doing things very badly before doing them well. Honestly I only wanted to share some nostalgic cute-response trigger with y’all witnessing the first adorable, fumbling baby steps into this kind of assignment, not for some of you to fucking judge them or their teacher just because their first attempts aren’t perfect. So like. God just enjoy it without being an asshole.
“In this paragraph I will be telling you the dimensions of the Colosseum in Rome.” “In this paragraph I will be talking about the features of the Colosseum.”
Not what was meant by making sure you have a strong thesis statement, but kudos to this kid who was obviously listening and trying to apply that to their paper ❤
“I am going to talk about things like Odysseus’s stops, the characters involved with his stops, and how long and far he traveled to get home. I can’t wait to show you everything that I have learned so far!”
oh my god this precious sunflower
“Nearly every town in Ancient Greek has a patron god or goddess because most gods didn’t share well.” There’s almost nothing wrong with this sentence I’m just enjoying this masterful use of understatement.
i read this entire thing nodding, going, yes, yes, this is what my students are like also. this is #relatable content.
me, visibly crying tears of joy and love: holy shit
now every man who makes a show set in some historic or fantasy-historic time period now has to have incredibly jacked actresses, for “historical realism”
That last one is DANGEROUS. I do not need this much power.
^This
Ok, sorry, but I have to reblog this! Definitely trying out the cake mix one!
I’ve been doing the cake mix one for a while ( this post opened my eyes) they taste home made ! My husband is amazed ! I haven’t told him anything, just take the praise 😂
@devcon03 I remember you were wondering about this.
friendly reminder that fanfic authors write full length novels for free, and all most of us ask in return is exposure in the form of recommendations, reblogs, and feedback
Not just full length novels, but full-length BOOK SERIES.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stones was 76,944 words.
Eragon was 157k words
The Hobbit was 95,022.words (and yes, those 22 at the end are very important words~)
Anyway, please PLEASE review, comment, and share the fanfictions you like.
These authors are, for free, giving you hours and hours and hours of entertainment.
Thank them.
All I’m getting from this is that Dragon!Bucky was in the novella range
“We don’t have epic space battles here on planet earth, but he (Adam Driver) said ‘A lot of kids can relate to having parents who are really devoted to like a political cause or to a business, or to their faith, their church. And that devotion sometimes makes the kids rebel against it, rebelling in this case against the actual rebellion.’“ – Anthony Breznican on how Kylo Ren is relatable
Okay so this is why I’ve had a huge, huge problem with Kylo Ren this whole time: because even in The Force Awakens, it was clear that we were supposed to blame his parents, his uncle, Snoke, literally everyone else for his turn to the dark side. And it looks like Johnson didn’t do a whole lot of work unpacking that, which is frustrating.
Ben Solo is in his early twenties, perhaps mid-twenties, when he joins Snoke officially; he is about 30 during the events of TFA. That is, frankly, way too fucking old to not be responsible for your own actions. We’ve seen this sort of thing too much in real life—Don Jr. being called a “good kid” when he’s in his late 30s comes to mind—for me to have a lot of patience for it in fiction. Plus, while the idea of a distant mother (and come on, they’re talking about Leia here, Han’s about as “devoted to the rebellion” as a cat) being a catalyst for men’s shittiness is a very, very worn-out trope, it’s not actually a valid reason to become a terrible person.
So this is the opposite of relatable—it makes me less empathetic for Kylo Ren’s struggle, which I’m sure is meant to be compelling, because I know of so, so many people who’ve had genuinely abusive and harmful and neglectful parents who are good and kind and work to make this world better. While I can very much imagine that Leia would be a tough mom to get along with, to frame Kylo Ren’s behavior as “youthful rebellion” instead of what it is, a conscious and adult choice to kill innocents in a quest for power, is to once again woobify a male character at the expense of any woman nearby.
I’d love it if they used it as a way to think critically about our problem in the US with radicalized white men but it seems like they want to excuse it, not critique it. Not only do I have no sympathy for that plot line, I think we can’t afford it. We seriously cannot afford to make white male violence resulting from a feeling of neglect or marginalization more sympathetic to Americans than it already is.
“My parents cared about the welfare of other beings too much so I had no choice but to become an asshole you see. IT’S DEEP”
“We seriously cannot afford to make white male violence resulting from a
feeling of neglect or marginalization more sympathetic to Americans than
it already is.” <- THIS! Shitty parenting (and let’s be honest, Leia would be a tough mom, sure, and maybe Han would be a useless Dad, but neither of them would be in any way abusive, plus you cannot tell me that with all the Rebellion do-gooders around the ONLY viable, efficient and interested surrogate
parent figure would be a FASCIST MURDERBEAST!) is no excuse for becoming a homocidal maniac. It’s been accepted as one for FAR too long.
Do you ever get rly pissed because the hunger games films could’ve told such a deep story with themes that reflect our own society’s oppressive systems
but instead they whitewashed the main leads, erased their disabilities, and pretty much romanticized the violence
The degree to which THG movies play into exactly the things the story condemns will never not be staggering to me
backup from Tumblr 