{"title":"Empowerment by Design","authors":"Caetlin Benson-Allott","doi":"10.1525/fq.2023.76.4.67","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"She Said (Maria Schrader, 2022), Women Talking (Sarah Polley, 2022), and Tár (Todd Field, 2022) all address the aftermath of sexual harassment and rape. Notably, these films share a refusal to depict assault, which differentiates them from the prevailing cinematic practice of titillating audiences with sexual violence, ostensibly in order to repudiate it. By eschewing assault scenes, these films turn their audiences’ attention from individual acts to ideological structures. Each film represents a different version of and backlash against rape culture; in so doing each asks the spectator to extend culpability beyond assailants and their immediate enablers to the institutional systems that empower them. By not depicting rape or sexual assault, these movies also suggest that film viewers are complicit in rape culture too. Their representational strategies insinuate that sitting back and watching simulated assault as entertainment carries with it an implicit acceptance of such assault—and thus that audiences should not just demand better but do better themselves.","PeriodicalId":45540,"journal":{"name":"FILM QUARTERLY","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"FILM QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2023.76.4.67","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"FILM, RADIO, TELEVISION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
She Said (Maria Schrader, 2022), Women Talking (Sarah Polley, 2022), and Tár (Todd Field, 2022) all address the aftermath of sexual harassment and rape. Notably, these films share a refusal to depict assault, which differentiates them from the prevailing cinematic practice of titillating audiences with sexual violence, ostensibly in order to repudiate it. By eschewing assault scenes, these films turn their audiences’ attention from individual acts to ideological structures. Each film represents a different version of and backlash against rape culture; in so doing each asks the spectator to extend culpability beyond assailants and their immediate enablers to the institutional systems that empower them. By not depicting rape or sexual assault, these movies also suggest that film viewers are complicit in rape culture too. Their representational strategies insinuate that sitting back and watching simulated assault as entertainment carries with it an implicit acceptance of such assault—and thus that audiences should not just demand better but do better themselves.
期刊介绍：
Film Quarterly has been publishing substantial, peer-reviewed writing on motion pictures since 1958, earning a reputation as the most authoritative academic film journal in the United States. Its wide array of topics, perspectives, and approaches appeals to film scholars and film buffs alike. If you love all types of movies and are eager to encounter new ways of thinking about them, then Film Quarterly is the journal for you! Scholarly analyses of international cinemas, current blockbusters and Hollywood classics, documentaries, animation, and independent, avant-garde, and experimental film and video fill the pages of the journal.
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