I spoke a bit before about the combination of violence and sex. The inspiration came from this poster that's been all over Manhattan lately:
This is the kind of thing that always makes me wonder: is this bad for society? I think if I say that this poster sexualizes violence against women, I will not have to explain why. It's pretty obvious once you think about it.
I can't say it offends me, but maybe it should. The reasons it does not offend me are two-fold: one, The Tudors is higher-brow than, say, Captivity,* and whether it should or not that makes me slower to attack. The more-to-the-point reason is that, as discussed, consensual violence is sometimes sexy. So how do we separate sexual violence from violent sex? Is it wrong to find images like the above a little sexy in a kinky way? Obviously, the violence suggested by the poster is not consensual, but the image suggests sexual enjoyment--on the woman's part even more than the man's, really. Doesn't this suggest that you can beat and murder women and it's okay because they're kind of into it? The image is clearly supposed to excite us, titillate us, but as we know from knowing who these characters are historically, the "taking" that the text describes entails, or at least presages, the woman's decapitation.
So the overall question is: Should I be pissed? Or am I complicit because I too find it a little hot?
*Which in part inspired the Joss Whedon essay I mentioned back in the day. Also I should mention that the poster depicted is not even ACCURATE--I read the plot summary on wikipedia and--spoiler alert!--she doesn't actually die. What a rip-off!
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2 comments:
Wait, is the woman on the poster not Anne Boleyn? Because if it's Anne Boleyn, then it's pretty accurate, because girlfriend hits the chopping block. If it's Katherine of Aragon, it's a little more inaccurate, but she was the victim of verbal if not physical violence from Henry VIII once he decided to divorce her. I've never watched the show, clearly, so I have no idea how it works within the show, but that's the history.
I had assumed it was Anne Boleyn. The issue is not the violence--which, as you say, is historically accurate--but that it is sexualized here.
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