Rape a tool of female and community oppression has been prevalent in the western narrative for millennia and its value as a symbol, illustrating the necessity and gaining of power by men, has transformed in the twentieth century, albeit subtly so. While modern interpreters of such texts might assess rape as a symbol of seizing power at the expense of an individual (woman, historically), it is all too easy to dismiss both the myths themselves and their analyses as obsolete products of their times. Closer examination of both the historic context and development of rape as this emblem for male power, however, reveals that its evolving meaning is as relevant as ever in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While simple analyses portray this taking of power as linear— moving from victim to perpetrator- the act and significance of rape for women, their communities, and the art that reflects them, requires further assessment, particularly in a contemporary western context, where women’s “equality” in sex is superficially valued and mistakenly considered achieved.
Rape’s connotative significance has and continues to pervade popular narrative form and media, veiled as a plot device in popular fiction, as comedy, as euphemism, and its current place as a “women’s issue.” These forums shape common misconceptions perpetuate rape as an omnipresent tool for oppressing women. The lack of violence often portrayed in popular fictional narratives in turn labels “real rape” as synonymous with gratuitous violence. No matter what the differences in cultural uses and perceptions of rape, men’s acquisition of power is almost always achieved at the expense of women. Realizing that rape’s multidimensional symbolic meaning changes over time and space, it is crucial to evaluate current conceptions of sexual violence against women in the United States from historical keystone texts, its nebulous place in current events, and its increasing but concealed presence in popular art today.
To understand contemporary interpretations of rape and symbolic value in the western world, we must at least briefly establish its role in critical texts from more than two millennia ago. Widely remembered, for example, though not regarded commonly as a violent exchange in the Hebrew Bible, rape establishes women’s place as currency exchanged for freedom and power in the story of Lot and his daughter. Similar examples match this stage-setting illustration of rape, spanning hundreds of years. Persephone’s rape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for instance, indicates to readers that the sacrificial lamb’s virginal undoing is honorable and even necessary, although tragic. Much later in popular myth, but equal in its willingness to dismiss women as accessories to the complex issue of male power dynamics, rape is centrally depicted in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. These texts are only a few in the thousands that have used rape symbolically in their efforts to address practical social, spiritual and political issues as they pertain to men. Thus, the historic and current significance of these texts have unquestionably shaped the way that literature and art view and use rape as a pliable symbol of power among men at the apparently inconsequential expense of women. In contemporary contexts, the status of rape as solely a women’s and human rights issue demonstrates how we reinforce its symbolic value today in our own social, spiritual and political spheres. Rape as a gendered health emergency— indeed, more than 90% of victims identify as women— is widely, inaccurately depicted as a strictly social force in U.S. media through television, film, and the internet in the United States (Franklin 2010). In a culture with the second largest film industry in the world and where pornography comprises the highest grossing industry in the country, the work of top contenders in the narratives forum via sex and entertainment wields unparalleled power.
Despite what American perceptions of “real” sexual violence do to reinforce the historic connotative meaning of rape, however, the symbolic value of sexual violence as a power acquisition by force is actually rejected within both the justice system and industry in the United States. Where women are allegedly treated as “equal” to men, and are granted greater sexual liberties, rape in the U.S. is rarely represented in modern narratives as a violent, gendered struggle in power dynamics. What, then, does rape symbolize in contemporary texts, as it continues to claim the safety, minds and bodies of 20% of women in the United States (Koss 1988)? Likewise, what is rape’s symbolic place now in the American metanarrative, as it is embedded frequently in pornography and the film industry’s top earning films?
This analysis is best begun with the existing literature on rape in the United States. Statistically, less than 3% of reports of rape will lead to a conviction of the defendant (Vickers 2007). Of reports filed by victims, between 2% and 8% are determined false. However, surveys of jury panelists report believing that up to half of all reports to law enforcement are false. This is particularly true for survey participants when questioned about victims who were intoxicated at the time of their assaults, the majority of which occur on university campuses (Lisak 2008). In these environments, where law enforcement often instructs victims to utilize their administration’s adjudication processes, it is estimated that fewer than 10% of all claims of rape are investigated or treated in the context of disciplinary hearings (Traywick 2010). More often, the victims and defendants are treated “equally” in mediation sessions facilitated by administrators—the very same who report their institutions’ rates of violent crimes to college boards annually. Popular constructions of rape reflect “equality” similar to that which American popular culture cherishes in granting equal sexual liberty to women and men: women are equally culpable as men in these acts of violence— if one dare call it violence. It can be surmised, then, that within the U.S., rape is not simply regarded as a unilateral act of violence, but rather, a mutual (though perhaps regrettable) act of sex by both parties, in the event that the “victim” has not sustained visible injury, as she must in order to be regarded as victim. This new symbol of women’s sexual culpability, conjoined with the image of historic unreliability, is thus revolutionized in a victim-blaming model, found in popular film and media, the narrative forms which attract the same university-age victims and perpetrators as their target audiences (Armstrong 2006).
The catalogs of admired film makers such as Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan, for instance, are no exception. Their careers in film have used rape contained in the context of mixed messages by women, unreachable female caricatures, and playfully innocent “drunk sex,” facilitated by their male protagonists. These top figures in the industry are the producers, or in some cases the actors, writers and directors of top-grossing hits such as The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005); Superbad (2007); and Observe and Report, (2009)— the popularity and success of which cannot be challenged. Troubling, though, is that every single one of these films uses sexual violence against women as fodder for comedy and as plot device, without addressing the act’s symbolic value, which is only increased by the successful production of the films themselves.
Rogan’s 2007 hit Superbad illustrates rape’s current place as a gray area mired in women’s elusive sexuality through its importance in achieving the goal of its male protagonist, Seth: alcohol-facilitated sex with a peer. To quote his character’s view of alcohol-facilitated sexual encounters, he states early in the film to his friend regarding purchasing alcohol for an underage female peer, “Yeah, man that will be pimp! That way you know she'll be drunk. You know when you hear girls say 'Ah man, I was so shit-faced last night, I shouldn't have fucked that guy?' We could be that mistake!” However, it must be noted that the film itself never explicitly refers to the protagonist’s method of achieving sex (intoxicating the victim to incapacitation) as rape, which is literally the entire plot of the film. Here, the female target is regarded by the protagonist and his dubious friend as too confusing to understand, too difficult to reach, and ultimately out of [his] league. Implicitly, incapacitated sex with his target is necessary and forgivable, as she states later in the film, and as audiences and critics reflect in their high regard for this “romantic comedy” (Rogan 2007). Here, rape is not a violent act of desperation or seizing power, but merely an exchange through which the playing field of sex may be leveled.
In every other popular film mentioned above, too, similar portrayals of these unreliable and ultimately dangerous sexual beings are achieved not in female characters’ supposed dominance over their male predators, but in their willing participation in self-incapacitation and submission. The filmmakers succeed in depicting their ideal blend of masochistic and subordinate women through the symbolic value of rape implied as premeditated, attempted drunk sex. In The 40 Year Old Virgin, for instance, the protagonist’s group of three male friends explains the most successful tactic in selection the right “drunk bitches”— not too intoxicated to walk, but just enough to weaken their decision-making (Apatow 2005). Such a tactic and its popular reception by producers, fellow filmmakers, audiences, and women further intensifies what rape, embedded in more innocent terms, stands for in contemporary contexts. It makes women accountable—“equal”- in this supposed exchange of power, and therefore eliminates any opportunity for any women to be victims at all.
If rape as a symbol of power-acquisition between men and women or between men (using women as the tradable commodity) is regarded as obsolete in the United States, low reporting numbers among women 15-24 and the representation of rape in popular media illustrate an undeniable correlate in attitudes about violence against women (Baugher 2010). Whether the symbol reinforces the social construction or merely reflects it, sexual violence is undoubtedly among the most complex women’s health and rights issues around the globe. Therefore, its symbolic value—that is, how we treat rape- must be scrutinized. Its meaning and place in shared realities of violence change not only over time, but especially by whom it is observed and condoned. Rape, considering the myriad factors and influences under which it takes place, is never an act easily understood. This begs the question: what would rape look like in the American narrative if it were finally acknowledged as a domestic problem, a health issue, a war crime, and a not simply playful misunderstanding among confused youth in the status quo?
