General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Empowering or exploitive to women? [View all]seabeyond
(110,159 posts)absolutely. i think how they portrayed the middle age man (especially in swedish version, mediocre at best) as a hot chick magnetic and everything about him poses a sexist bent to it as they try to create it as pro female empowered, while it came nowhere close to that in my estimation.
the person explains how i see the rape. this is far from the only person expressing this. sexualizing a rape.
"What is really gnawing at me about this film is whether or not it is okay to portray a supposedly feminist character and tell a feminist story through the vein of violence against women. Because when you take away all the bells and whistles, all of the things about the Lisbeth character that cause our knee-jerk reaction to be Feminist! the story itself is just more media-created violence against women. For example, Lisbeth is physically assaulted in the subway within the first 30 minutes of the film. Then graphically assaulted by her legal guardian/parole officer TWICE in what could arguably be one of the worst rape scenes since Leaving Las Vegas. These two scenes (plus, the revenge rape scene where she attacks her attacker) truly test the boundary of rape fantasy; it is very unclear to me when it starts to become something that is used for titillation as opposed to activism, and that cannot be good. Furthermore, the main plot mystery is driven by a sadist, misogynist, serial killing, rapist Nazi who has been murdering women for the better part of 40 years. Pictures & flash-backs of those gratuitously violent murders are scattered throughout the entire film (and, from what I understand described in all-too-much detail in the novel).
Larsson the books author founded the Expo-foundation, a group intended on exposing neo-Nazi activity in Sweden. He was known for his pre-occupation with misogyny and racism, and spent his life fighting against these things, as well as capitalism. I wish that I could say with his beliefs he created a character and a series of stories & films that are worthy of feminist praise and accolades. But, I am afraid all that exists in this story is rape fantasy and the kinds of violence that the feminist community is fighting to rid the media and, possibly more importantly, society as a whole of. Additionally, Larsson wrote our feminist heroin as having a great amount of disdain for her body, and the sequel to Dragon Tattoobegins with Lisbeth getting breast implants. Im not sure what kind of feminist heroin Larsson was trying to create, but we can thank Niels Arden Oplev, the films director, for ditching those crappy & oh-so-feminist story-lines.
To sum it up
.Lisbeth is a great, strong female character. We need more characters like her. We need them to inspire the ferocious, feral spirit that lives in all women. But, what we dont need are more morally ambiguous, violent stories that are held on their axis by the portrayal of a form of violence against women that borders on sexualizing it."
http://www.feministfatale.com/2010/04/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-rape-fantasy/
But then theres the rape. Given that this is a book primarily about abuse and rape, it would be strange if neither were discussed. The books treatment of rape, however, left me confused. Salanders boss has feelings both paternal and sexual for her, and that attitude seems to be shared by every male in the book. He describes her multiple times as the perfect victim. The books contains a graphic rape scene thats upsetting
to which I say, well, of course. As normal, non-psychopathic human beings, we should be upset and shaken by descriptions of rape. Yet (and perhaps this is a gross double standard), I see a huge difference between Alice Sebold (a rape victim herself) describing a rape in The Lovely Bones and a man describing the brutal and graphic rape of the perfect victim. The very phrase perfect victim
Such detailed description of Salanders rape (which, at that point, the reader is all but expecting) makes me wonder if the reader is supposed to be repulsed or titillated. Or, perhaps, both. Im not suggesting that such description not be included in the book; Im hardly a fan of censorship and Ive read my fair share of material both violent and sexual. But when a scene garners so much attention and leads to interviews with Mara Rooney (the American films Lisbeth) that barely discuss anything but the rape scene, I start to think, Whats the point? Think of the movie Hounddog, which you probably know only as the Dakota Fanning rape movie. One of the reasons people were so upset by that was because, somewhere, some scumbag was jerking off to that scene. I certainly dont think we should let the potential masturbation habits of perverts govern our actions (or else no one would ever make anything or put pictures of themselves on the internet), but in general, what purpose does such a scene serve? Even if Larsson, feminist that he was, meant the scene to highlight the horror of rape, the unfortunate truth is that such a scene might only serve to sexualize a crime that, despite its nature, isnt rooted in sex at all.
http://welcometoladyville.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/