Over the past few years, there has been a marketing blitzkrieg concerning the topic of rape. Viral content websites such as BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post churned out article after article about it as vloggers like Laci Green post rape lectures on YouTube. This evolved from rape into a term known as “rape culture,” which is roughly identified as whatever the person arguing it feels is appropriate. (My gathering is that it means that through sexism and “microaggressions,” society has made rape seem subtly more excusable?) If you need an example, here is a Huffington Post article titled “A Gentleman’s Guide to Rape Culture.”
Now, to me, this all sounds ridiculous. One is an active participant in rape culture just by being a man? All women feel vulnerable and helpless? First off, I have to say that as a guy, there are many times I’ve felt unsafe walking around at night. Maybe I’m more immediately afraid of being murdered than rape, but I’d take that as a legitimate worry. And then to characterize women as these feeble, scared creatures who are at the whims of men’s baser urges sounds degrading. This doesn’t seem like an informative piece of journalism, but rather propaganda, a war-cry in the battle of the sexes. It stereotypes both men and women, but more offensively, it tries to create a divide between them. It’s an odd example (You’ll understand if you’ve seen it.), but think of "Zootopia" with the predators and prey. Same case here. Men must be controlled, because it is their “natural instinct” to rape women, according to this media.
These people believe that simply by watching a piece of sexist entertainment, one can be transformed from perfect gentleman to a pervert frothing at the mouth. I’m not going to defend cliches in movies, video games or comics, but I stand up for the capability one has to separate reality from fiction. The outlets today claiming Eminem songs inspire sex-offenders are the same people who claimed that "Doom" and Marilyn Manson caused Columbine. Rape is more than Chris Pratt in "Jurassic World" coming onto his boss or a female character in a video game appearing scantily-clad as the men are adorned with armor. A rational man won’t be driven to rape by pop culture, just as a rapist probably can’t be converted into a non-rapist by what entertainment they consume alone. You can put as many Black Widow toys on shelves as you want, but that’s not going to help the cause.
A slightly off-topic point I'd like to bring up is something like Lady Gaga's Oscars performance. First of all, her song "Til It Happens To You" is the definition of passive aggressive. The lyrics reference a struggle to "pull [oneself] together" after being raped. The chorus goes something like "Tell me, what the hell do you know? What do you know? Tell me, how the hell could you know, til it happens to you?" Should that be the focus of a song about rape, this bitter, passive aggressive rebuttal to people to who have never suffered from such an event and cannot understand. Shouldn't the focus of the song be more along the lines of "I hope this never happens to you. I hope that you'll never know how it feels." The lyrics about having a hard time moving on should either have better resolution (for a stand-alone song, of course as a component of a concept album, it'd be totes diff), or change in tone entirely. The song excuses being angry at the world, lashes out where it should be mending. In the wake of tragedy, isn't it healthier to make amends with the world and try to repair oneself as well as one's surroundings, rather than to single oneself out from it? I don't like discussing the morality of art very often because I don't feel that art should always be moral, but with such content matter and a presentation as Lady Gaga has given us, there's no other way to look at it. It's pandering, insulting to the reality of rape.
Rape is a very serious topic, a very, very serious topic. Should there be articles or videos informing the public about its dangers and how to avoid/prevent them? Most definitely. However, this approach to covering the subject is no different than how the media has covered Muslim people over the past decade. It takes advantage of those who have been raped, making them victims rather than survivors, and capitalizes on the fear of rape. These people want rape to exist, they need it to exist, because it pays their bills. The media’s approach to rape and its rumination over it is the real rape culture. The conflict of man vs. woman is exaggerated in these pieces to spread hate and does little to bridge that gap between them. Rape should be dealt with, not monetized, and if we ever want to find proper preventions, we must first turn our backs on those who profit from it.
