Buffy and Angel 1: BUFFYNANGLE4EVA!!!!!1!
Is it better the second time around? Or the third? Or tenth? This is the place to come when you have a burning desire to talk about an old episode that was just re-run.
She doesn't consent, but she's happy about it the morning after, and so I am never comfortable considering it a rape, because Scarlett doesn't seem to.
That's really dicey, the way I look at it. It's not just that she doesn't consent; she struggles and protests. No matter how much I want to romanticize it (and until that point in the movie, I *adore* Rhett unreservedly), she's fighting him.
Honestly, the Spike/Buffy attempted rape scene could have been lifted straight out of GwtW, now that I think about it. Buffy just manages to stop him.
And that bit about Scarlett looking all glowy and well-plowed the next morning? I think that's all about the writers' intent -- when the movie was made, it was still a ludicrous notion that a husband could rape his wife -- to show that she really wanted it; she just didn't *know* she wanted it. Which, in 2005, is all kinds of dangerous territory, but was par for the course when GwtW was made.
She doesn't consent, but she's happy about it the morning after, and so I am never comfortable considering it a rape, because Scarlett doesn't seem to.
I'm fine with calling it rape, in the same way I'm fine with calling the slavery in GWTW oppression, though the slaves don't seem to think so.
And it looks like I may have to forgive TB for liking salmon, for lo, he has proved himself once again as my one true imaginary internet boyfriend.
Honestly, the Spike/Buffy attempted rape scene could have been lifted straight out of GwtW, now that I think about it. Buffy just manages to stop him.
Well, and that she wasn't all glowy and actually said she could never love him after the attempt, of course that was all before the New!With Soul!
If you locked Tony Geary, James Marsters, and Maurice Bernard (Sonny/GH) on a locked set. Who'd chew the most scenery?
Tony by a hair.
That's really dicey, the way I look at it. It's not just that she doesn't consent; she struggles and protests. No matter how much I want to romanticize it (and until that point in the movie, I *adore* Rhett unreservedly), she's fighting him.
Yes, and I understand that. In the book, you never see a thing in the bedroom, so it takes judgment to make a pronouncement, either way. They have their argument in the dining room. Then he sweeps her upstairs. It cuts 'til the next morning. We don't know what went on in the bedroom, so the only place to take our cue is from Scarlett's reaction.
I'm fine with calling it rape, in the same way I'm fine with calling the slavery in GWTW oppression, though the slaves don't seem to think so.
I'm having trouble with the analogy, because I think this is more akin to discerning if a given character was a slave. Of course slavery is oppression. Rape is assault. But since rape involves a person's consent, it also involves her perception of events. I don't think it's a huge overstep to call the scene in GWTW a rape, but it takes making a decision based on what happened in that bedroom, and all we know about what happened in the bedroom is that the next morning, Scarlett is happy about it.
Similarly, the "Happy Rape" is an old trope - Sabine Women, or a famous verse in Orlando Furioso for example. Don't think you could write Luke and Laura or GWTW today (GWTW for reasons besides the rape scene ending). Don't think we are poorer for that.
I agree. I don't think though, that every story has to be socially responsible. It's fiction. If Buffy weren't put forth as take-back-the-night girl, my expectations of how she would be presented would have been different, and on plot points like her reaction to Spike after the rape attempt, they would be lower. If you're telling random individual's story, and that random individual isn't being put forth as a hero, you could actually have her be happy she was forced into sex/raped. I probably wouldn't want to read it, but that's a different issue.
Tony by a hair.
I'm thinking Maurice. I think I'm the only one who is, though.
I'm having trouble with the analogy, because I think this is more akin to discerning if a given character was a slave.
I guess what I'm saying is that with my modern viewer's eyes saying no and physically pushing someone off of me and them not stopping=rape, whether it is for Scarlet or not in the same way that owning someone as property=oppressive whether Mamie considered it to be or not.
If you locked Tony Geary, James Marsters, and Maurice Bernard (Sonny/GH) on a locked set. Who'd chew the most scenery?
Tony by a hair.
Don't you mean "Tony by a BADLY PERMED hair"?
Similarly, the "Happy Rape" is an old trope - Sabine Women, or a famous verse in Orlando Furioso for example. Don't think you could write Luke and Laura or GWTW today (GWTW for reasons besides the rape scene ending). Don't think we are poorer for that.
I agree. I don't think though, that every story has to be socially responsible. It's fiction.
Oh, absolutely. I don't think the issue of "responsibility" comes into play with fiction until/unless the character who does something reprehensible is lionized *by the creator/writers*. I definitely don't think that happened with Spike. (Granted, segments of fandom said that poor widdle Spikey was just misunderstood and Buffy was such a bitca to him, but I'm definitely not talking about fans here. I don't think the *writers,* however, presented Spike's actions in a favorable light.)
I don't think it's a huge overstep to call the scene in GWTW a rape, but it takes making a decision based on what happened in that bedroom, and all we know about what happened in the bedroom is that the next morning, Scarlett is happy about it.
She starts out by saying (thinking) that he'd "humbled her, hurt her, used her brutally." It's explicitly violent, and explicitly without her consent. The fact that she also thinks it was TEH HAWT just makes it a disturbing rape fantasy.
(And honestly, I don't think it's supposed to reflect well on Scarlett that she reacts that way. Scarlett's the hero, but she's also a shallow bitch with no people skills. Rhett's the self-aware bad-boy who's the only person bad enough and deep enough to really understand her and love her for who she is. And wow, they really are the Antebellum Crazyfen Spuffy, aren't they?)
I don't think the *writers,* however, presented Spike's actions in a favorable light.
Favourable, no. But way more forgivable than I felt, and the disconnect threatened to taint the ensuing plotlines (hence dismissal in my head -- not to preserve widdle Spike, but just to buy anything that happened with him later).
