APE IN A CAPE: Someone Asked...

APE IN A CAPE: Someone Asked...:

tedcroland:

While I wouldn't call myself a "fan" of this scene, the objections that Simone (who is someone I have a high amount of respect for) are a bit unfair and don't take into account the nuanced characterizations that Moore was trying to establish.

gailsimone:

…so here we go.

One of my big problems with Watchmen is how stupidly the near-rape is handled. And it's EPIC stupid.

It's full of every dumbass cliche there is, and unfortunately, this was common in work of the time.

We have:

Slut Shaming, check.

Which would have been the case in the 1940's when the rape took place.

Woman falls in love with her rapist, check.

It's not as though Sally didn't have a relationship with The Comedian before and after the attempted rape. It's also well established that she's emotionally fucked up (like every other character in the book).

Man who object to rape is only doing so because he's gay, check.

Just because the Comedian says he's only objecting because he's gay doesn't make it true. Hooded Justice is established to have the closest thing to conventional morality than any other character.

Woman at least partly to blame for assault because of her clothes, check.

Also something that would have been the conception in the 1940's.

Man who rapes has oh-so tender spot for victim's daughter (see? He's not so bad, he's just misunderstood!), check.

Because rapists aren't all the devil, they are just fucked up people who have other emotions than wanton desire for rape.

There are other issues, but if those scenes were in any other book, they would have gotten the loud raspberries they deserve. It's just a bunch of gunk rape cliches, one after another.

Other books, for the most part, will not have been as amazing as Watchmen is.

I do like the book. But it's not completely unproblematic.

I hate rape as much as anyone else, and I find it repugnant in most uses of fiction, especially since this odd, endemic use of rape to establish the evilness of a character. I don't think Watchmen uses rape in the same appalling way that a lot of other fiction does. The action fits the morality of the character, as do the reactions of the other characters.

****************************

Wow.  What a bunch of…responses.

Well, first, let's start with using the 1940's as an excuse. It's crap, and here's why. THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES are the voices for the problems in this sequence, including the victim AND her grown daughter, whose scenes take place in the present day.

Not all rapists are purely monsters? What? It is a purely male bag of cliches from minute one, here. Sally falls in love with her rapist, that alone is just sheer horseshit, based on the character in the rest of the book.  I can't explain how obnoxious it is to see the best writer comics has ever had using this trite and stupid cliche so unreservedly.

The other problem is, nearly all of Alan's mature comics of the time feature similar problematic rape nonsense. Miracleman has a young girl repeatedly raped while in a stasis field, and she essentially says it's a fair trade because she got superpowers.

There's a ton of that stuff.

AND, I'm not basing Hooded Justice being gay on Comedian's accusations (although it's a problematic cliche in itself), but on other material and Alan's own notes on the subject, where it was implied.

"The Action fits the morality of the characters?" really?  SSII's reaction, as a modern woman, first having a crush on and then later forgiving her mother's attempted rapist makes sense to you, based on the character in the rest of the book?

It's a male vision story in every sense, in those sequences.

Also, sorry to be brusque, I'm on my way out the door and wanted to respond but am in haste.