passports, and rape in fic
Feb. 22nd, 2007 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseI got my passport today! I'm absurdly happy about this, despite the fact that the picture is (of course) hideous. I tried so hard to get a good one. But... whatever. ID photos are pretty much destined to be hideous, so I suppose it doesn't really matter. I'm just bitter about the fact that my one ID photo that was actually pretty ended up being my most short-lived - it got broken in my pocket and had to be replaced barely three years later. *Sighs* One of the best pictures ever taken of me.
Anyway. Have been reading a lot of fanfic lately...
(Why no, I'm not procrastinating on my own fic-writing... I'm practicing good academic habits by researching the field before I spend too much energy writing on a subject that someone else has already covered. And it's already saved me some trouble, since last night I discovered not one but two fics dealing quite handily with a subject I thought had somehow been neglected. So clearly this is a good idea. Riiiiiiight.)
...And it occurs to me to make a note of something that once (when I was about 15) seemed very natural to me.
Why is it that fanfic-writers seem to regard rape as the best possible plot device? Is it just a case of "hey, I'm trying to think of something horrible to have happen to this character, and it just so happens that rape is the worst I can imagine" or is something else at work here? I ask because I had previously assumed the prior theory (particularly based on innumerable experiences with hurt/comfort fics and rape of the rival/enemy-slash variety - see HP fanfic for endless iterations on the theme), but this last fic just kind of jumped out and grabbed me in a Very Bad Way, as did the fic prior to it that dealt with the same theme. Prior to this was a piece of Firefly fiction around which there's something of a controversy - supposedly it was based on a plot concept that was intended for filming but never finished due to the end of the series, and which after the plot concept was leaked was made into fanfic. I remember thinking as I read both the concept and the fic that followed, "no, I cannot see this happening. I can't see Joss doing this."
Other Joss-verse fans will perhaps understand why these feelings surprise me. It's not as though the man has delicate sensibilities about what he does to his characters.
And yet.
The idea that Inara would go into a meeting with a client armed with some sort of... something that would poison the 'gentleman' once he'd had sex with her (specifically, in the fic, as punishment for abuses that he put other companions through), and then would somehow be kidnapped by the Reavers directly after this assignation and summarily gang-raped, thus killing all the Reavers so that she could be rescued by Mal & co., just seems a little bit beyond Joss's usual brand of torture. Why is that?
This brand of torture hinges on the fact that Inara is a woman, and hinges on her sexuality as the only power available to her (and to the other companions).
Nothing that I've seen in Joss-verse so far indicates a similar focus on female sexual power as the be-all and end-all of female agency. Think about it. When Nandi and her cohorts run into trouble with Rance Burgess, do they kill him while he's at his fun? Do they pretend to be cowed by him only to poison him through some tricky companion concoction? No. They call in favors, hire some guns, and fight the man face to face, even though it results in the death of several of their number. Similarly, it absolutely beggars belief that a powerful organization like the Companion's Guild would have no better way of punishing a latter-day Green River killer than by sending in another of their number to be abused and possibly murdered. The whole reason that men have traditionally gotten away with killing prostitutes in America and England is that they are legally and socially vulnerable. The entire idea behind the Firefly-verse Companions is that they are socially accepted and held in high regard. They are a guild - they have power. I see no possible reason that they could not simply turn this bastard over to the proper authorities, and a plot device to the contrary serves no purpose other than to put Inara in an intensely compromising situation... which, in this story, is only the beginning of her sexual torment.
In the other fic, the one that I read just a few days ago, the conceit is that a powerful warlock arrives in Sunnydale at the beginning of the second season and ends up fighting Giles for Jenny's affections. A slightly Victorian/medieval concept, but otherwise inoffensive and mildly entertaining, I thought, and at the beginning it was handled well enough, particularly in terms of Giles' insistence that Jenny could handle herself just fine against the unwanted suitor. Said warlock decides that his best bet is to cast a bizarre sort of lingering-weakness-and-then-death spell on Giles, complete with a provision against his being able to have sex (yes, it's at this point that I really should have known something was slightly rotten in the state of Denmark - I plead the late hour and non-intercourse nice passages of smutty Giles)... and eventually his state of weakness is such that Jenny, independent and strong-minded woman that she is, decides she can't handle just watching him waste away while he tries to figure out a solution.
So she goes and offers herself sexually to the warlock in return for him backing off the spell on Giles.
It was at this point that I realized the last several pages of reading might have been a mistake on my part. But... there was still time for a reprieve, right? I mean, the natural thing to do would be to use this to put the guy off his watch and then attack him, or at least pull a Judith-and-Holofernes and kill him while he's distracted and post-coital. Nope. After being three times raped while a weak and miserable Giles experienced the whole ordeal second-hand through a magical link set up by Mr Warlock Bad Guy, Jenny suffers herself to be kicked out of his home, and stumbles back to Giles' place. I suppose this is meant to be a moment of noble sacrifice in the name of love, but it totally failed on me. I guess I was too busy feeling ill. Anyway, the end result of the fic is that the whole thing has become more about Giles' magic (dark bad chaos magic that is so powerful he can't access it without potentially destroying the whole city...) than about Jenny, and there is some degree of Last Battle between Giles and the Warlock, after which Giles disappears, then reappears some months later (during a thunderstorm...) brimming over with magic, after making a deal with the demon/god that the warlock had been borrowing power from.
I think we're meant to take this as a good ending. I, for one, was by now so frustrated that I could only think of one thing - this was all prior to "Passion." I'm not sure whether the writer simply hadn't seen that episode yet or whether it was meant to lead off into an AU of some kind... but either way, I couldn't help thinking that I preferred the canonical bad ending of Jenny Calendar to the fic-writer's good ending. Being chased and killed by a vampire, in the end, is a hell of a lot less harrowing. Once again, despite all the shit Joss puts his characters through, I submit that I honestly can't imagine him pulling something like this... even if he could get it past the censors. Maybe I'm being too generous to the old boy, but from what I've seen, he tends to stick with tortures that are pretty damned sex-equal. Breaking of fingers. Electrocution. Sharp pointy objects through the abdomen. I've been told enough about the rape in 6th or 7th season Buffy that I don't really think it applies in this case - it isn't a matter of torture, as I understand it, but of a bad relationship gone much worse. If that isn't the case, I apologize... but that's the impression I've gotten from not having seen it for myself. And that, in my opinion, is a slightly different issue. Not necessarily better or worse - just different.
I have no idea what conclusions I meant to bring to all of this. I think one of the things that's bothering me is that yes, I'm a child of the sorts of images that Naomi Wolf described in "The Beauty Myth" as, to some extent, having sex and danger/harm/submission mixed up together. Growing up reading sci-fi (and watching) and fantasy, I do recall a number of situations of abuse, capture and the like that were sexualized to the extent that they affected my impressions and predilections. And so, on some level, I'm one of those hurt/comfort-is-sexy kind of girls, and I do still occasionally struggle with the issue of rape or slave fantasies as counter to feminism, etc. This kind of stuff, though... totally different level, IMHO. Maybe I'm just getting prissy as I get older or something, or maybe I just got unaccountably irritated because of a sudden, late-in-the-text accumulation of things I hated about that second fic; I don't know.
I can't think of any other worthwhile conclusions or subjects to raise, and my hands feel like they're frozen. I need to pop my laundry into the dryer and go upstairs. I'd be interested to hear what other fannish folk think of all this, though.
Anyway. Have been reading a lot of fanfic lately...
(Why no, I'm not procrastinating on my own fic-writing... I'm practicing good academic habits by researching the field before I spend too much energy writing on a subject that someone else has already covered. And it's already saved me some trouble, since last night I discovered not one but two fics dealing quite handily with a subject I thought had somehow been neglected. So clearly this is a good idea. Riiiiiiight.)
...And it occurs to me to make a note of something that once (when I was about 15) seemed very natural to me.
Why is it that fanfic-writers seem to regard rape as the best possible plot device? Is it just a case of "hey, I'm trying to think of something horrible to have happen to this character, and it just so happens that rape is the worst I can imagine" or is something else at work here? I ask because I had previously assumed the prior theory (particularly based on innumerable experiences with hurt/comfort fics and rape of the rival/enemy-slash variety - see HP fanfic for endless iterations on the theme), but this last fic just kind of jumped out and grabbed me in a Very Bad Way, as did the fic prior to it that dealt with the same theme. Prior to this was a piece of Firefly fiction around which there's something of a controversy - supposedly it was based on a plot concept that was intended for filming but never finished due to the end of the series, and which after the plot concept was leaked was made into fanfic. I remember thinking as I read both the concept and the fic that followed, "no, I cannot see this happening. I can't see Joss doing this."
Other Joss-verse fans will perhaps understand why these feelings surprise me. It's not as though the man has delicate sensibilities about what he does to his characters.
And yet.
The idea that Inara would go into a meeting with a client armed with some sort of... something that would poison the 'gentleman' once he'd had sex with her (specifically, in the fic, as punishment for abuses that he put other companions through), and then would somehow be kidnapped by the Reavers directly after this assignation and summarily gang-raped, thus killing all the Reavers so that she could be rescued by Mal & co., just seems a little bit beyond Joss's usual brand of torture. Why is that?
This brand of torture hinges on the fact that Inara is a woman, and hinges on her sexuality as the only power available to her (and to the other companions).
Nothing that I've seen in Joss-verse so far indicates a similar focus on female sexual power as the be-all and end-all of female agency. Think about it. When Nandi and her cohorts run into trouble with Rance Burgess, do they kill him while he's at his fun? Do they pretend to be cowed by him only to poison him through some tricky companion concoction? No. They call in favors, hire some guns, and fight the man face to face, even though it results in the death of several of their number. Similarly, it absolutely beggars belief that a powerful organization like the Companion's Guild would have no better way of punishing a latter-day Green River killer than by sending in another of their number to be abused and possibly murdered. The whole reason that men have traditionally gotten away with killing prostitutes in America and England is that they are legally and socially vulnerable. The entire idea behind the Firefly-verse Companions is that they are socially accepted and held in high regard. They are a guild - they have power. I see no possible reason that they could not simply turn this bastard over to the proper authorities, and a plot device to the contrary serves no purpose other than to put Inara in an intensely compromising situation... which, in this story, is only the beginning of her sexual torment.
In the other fic, the one that I read just a few days ago, the conceit is that a powerful warlock arrives in Sunnydale at the beginning of the second season and ends up fighting Giles for Jenny's affections. A slightly Victorian/medieval concept, but otherwise inoffensive and mildly entertaining, I thought, and at the beginning it was handled well enough, particularly in terms of Giles' insistence that Jenny could handle herself just fine against the unwanted suitor. Said warlock decides that his best bet is to cast a bizarre sort of lingering-weakness-and-then-death spell on Giles, complete with a provision against his being able to have sex (yes, it's at this point that I really should have known something was slightly rotten in the state of Denmark - I plead the late hour and non-intercourse nice passages of smutty Giles)... and eventually his state of weakness is such that Jenny, independent and strong-minded woman that she is, decides she can't handle just watching him waste away while he tries to figure out a solution.
So she goes and offers herself sexually to the warlock in return for him backing off the spell on Giles.
It was at this point that I realized the last several pages of reading might have been a mistake on my part. But... there was still time for a reprieve, right? I mean, the natural thing to do would be to use this to put the guy off his watch and then attack him, or at least pull a Judith-and-Holofernes and kill him while he's distracted and post-coital. Nope. After being three times raped while a weak and miserable Giles experienced the whole ordeal second-hand through a magical link set up by Mr Warlock Bad Guy, Jenny suffers herself to be kicked out of his home, and stumbles back to Giles' place. I suppose this is meant to be a moment of noble sacrifice in the name of love, but it totally failed on me. I guess I was too busy feeling ill. Anyway, the end result of the fic is that the whole thing has become more about Giles' magic (dark bad chaos magic that is so powerful he can't access it without potentially destroying the whole city...) than about Jenny, and there is some degree of Last Battle between Giles and the Warlock, after which Giles disappears, then reappears some months later (during a thunderstorm...) brimming over with magic, after making a deal with the demon/god that the warlock had been borrowing power from.
I think we're meant to take this as a good ending. I, for one, was by now so frustrated that I could only think of one thing - this was all prior to "Passion." I'm not sure whether the writer simply hadn't seen that episode yet or whether it was meant to lead off into an AU of some kind... but either way, I couldn't help thinking that I preferred the canonical bad ending of Jenny Calendar to the fic-writer's good ending. Being chased and killed by a vampire, in the end, is a hell of a lot less harrowing. Once again, despite all the shit Joss puts his characters through, I submit that I honestly can't imagine him pulling something like this... even if he could get it past the censors. Maybe I'm being too generous to the old boy, but from what I've seen, he tends to stick with tortures that are pretty damned sex-equal. Breaking of fingers. Electrocution. Sharp pointy objects through the abdomen. I've been told enough about the rape in 6th or 7th season Buffy that I don't really think it applies in this case - it isn't a matter of torture, as I understand it, but of a bad relationship gone much worse. If that isn't the case, I apologize... but that's the impression I've gotten from not having seen it for myself. And that, in my opinion, is a slightly different issue. Not necessarily better or worse - just different.
I have no idea what conclusions I meant to bring to all of this. I think one of the things that's bothering me is that yes, I'm a child of the sorts of images that Naomi Wolf described in "The Beauty Myth" as, to some extent, having sex and danger/harm/submission mixed up together. Growing up reading sci-fi (and watching) and fantasy, I do recall a number of situations of abuse, capture and the like that were sexualized to the extent that they affected my impressions and predilections. And so, on some level, I'm one of those hurt/comfort-is-sexy kind of girls, and I do still occasionally struggle with the issue of rape or slave fantasies as counter to feminism, etc. This kind of stuff, though... totally different level, IMHO. Maybe I'm just getting prissy as I get older or something, or maybe I just got unaccountably irritated because of a sudden, late-in-the-text accumulation of things I hated about that second fic; I don't know.
I can't think of any other worthwhile conclusions or subjects to raise, and my hands feel like they're frozen. I need to pop my laundry into the dryer and go upstairs. I'd be interested to hear what other fannish folk think of all this, though.
