Rape is Funny?


Other than the implied 'wink and a nod' towards Lewton Cole's rape of the Sheriff's daughter, this was a pretty darn funny movie. But, putting that aside for a moment, does anybody besides me have a hard time getting around the fact that the lead character RAPED a woman? I know times have changed, but even back in the 70's, this was distasteful (and just plain wrong!) When James Coburn's character is confronted with this behavior, he says "Well, that's just the way I am?" Huh? How is that funny, and how is that an excuse for rape? This implies that if you're charming, and even a bit of a scoundrel, it justifies you raping any woman that strikes your fancy. I will say one thing for the movie, though, when Bobbie (Margaret Blye) said 'No!.' she meant it - and fought tooth and nail to try and keep it from happening. Now days, hopefully, people understand that when a woman says 'no' - no matter how she says it - she still means no! This movie gave me a lot of laughs, but still left a bad taste in my mouth.

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I would agree that the treatment of rape mars an otherwise enjoyable film, especially when it's used as a recurring theme.

Here's a link to a review that has a similar view of the situation:
http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/waterhole3.php

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Get over yourselves, folks. Murder, violence and many other aspects of "real" life aren't funny either, but in the appropriate fiction context, they can be. Too many people have the attitude that jokes can be about anything except that which bothers them...!

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Well said.

"They sucked his brains out!"

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I agree wholeheartedly with you. Folks need to lighten up. This is entertainment, not reality for goodness sakes. When it comes to a good joke nothing should be off the table.
Sometimes the only way to broach a subject is with humor and if that is the case, so be it. People have to quit trying to be offended and relearn how to have fun, how to separate fact from fiction and reality from imagination.
Life is hard enough if you refuse to lighten up and enjoy it but it only gets worse if spend your time trying to prevent others from enjoying things, whether you like them or not. It's a big world out there, let's let everybody enjoy their part of it in peace as long as they are not physically hurting others.
Laugh folks, laugh, you'll feel a heII of a lot better for it.
Rich in New Mexico.

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Pasojabber,

It was the late 1960s. I was going through a lot, but whenever I saw a movie, at the back of my mind was the fact that a guy I'd known went to UCLA film school; maybe someday something will show up from him. Not as clear to my memory was the fact that I had already known about people writing screenplays and having them filmed under other's names, sharing the royalties with the named writers (it came out of the blacklisted writers being given that opportunity by some back in those days, which were unwinding in the 60s). When I began to watch this movie on TV, I was depressed about the amorality of much of it, not at all uncommon, but I happened to hear the line, "Billie--what kind of a name is that for a girl?" I remembered _that_ line, and so I paid close attention!!!

I agree that rape is horrible. The interesting, and sad, thing about the comments and reviews is that they defend it, and denigrate the ones who are upset about the rape, on the basis of mere "political correctness," not on the basis that it is "just plain wrong." It is wrong because it is wrong when it happens _to you_, it is wrong because it is wrong to let people run roughshod over others (bad for the social order; we don't really want an "order" that is based on that kind of amorality--do we?); most of all, it is wrong because God has said it is wrong; all the disastrous repercussions of it come out of the fact that it is in the warp and woof of the creation of God that abuse of others is wrong, and he made it that way because it is wrong according to the heart of God. That UCLA guy had some people trying to maneuver him into prison on various pretexts back in the late 60s; you can bet that he realized then that rape was wrong!

I looked up this movie today because I was thinking about it this morning, and had written kind of a journal entry about it, which included a synopsis of the plot as I remembered it. Funny thing is, I didn't remember that the "love" scene was a rape, but only that she had been sort-of taken advantage of and was sort of "imprinted" with him to love, since he had been her "first." I'm running out of computer time, so I will continue when I get back on.
Thanks for you entry, and thanks for reading!

Oh, I get to edit this; I will just add on to what I wrote before:
What I decided I _did_ like about this movie (as opposed to, say, a James Bond movie, where it is cool and funny, supposedly, when James Bond makes "love" to a woman and then holds her like a shield to take the bullet he sees coming, then coldly goes on as if nothing had happened; cold-blooded, ruthless bastards were big in the 1960s) is that it does at least examine the moral issues between the cold-blooded jokes, and it does give a lot of dignity to Billie's "imprinted" (like a chick or duckling) _love_ (she doesn't know any better, "she can't help herself", but there is something about it that the movie respects; it shows that sex is profound, although the movie is materialistic and denies meaning and even says that she didn't lose anything but her pride) and her determination--showing them to be "the same" by binding them together with a rope--at least initially, until she fails the "integrity" test, too. It is the screenwriter(s)/filmmakers who show Billie in a light that gives her plight dignity, in spite of the tone of the rest of the movie, so there was ambiguity in the amorality, even though it is presented in a way that was completely politically correct for its times, the 1960s.

At the end of the movie, it takes the _evil_ position that Lewt is the one with "integrity" because he didn't ever claim to have any, although it does make all kinds of moral judgments all the way through, in a somewhat inverted, nihilistic way. (And, by showing some tenderness and sensitivity toward Billie,
and by being set up by the film as the moral judge of integrity, Lewt _does too_ "claim" some morality/integrity! This subtlety might be lost on the guys who enjoy rape humor, but it was there. I would have preferred that it would tell those guys they were wrong, but that would have been a whole lot to ask of a comedy, I guess, especially at that time.

So, I concluded that this screenwriter, who seemed to be the guy I knew who had gone to film school, was not as entirely, or hopelessly, evil as the ones who have no moral concerns at all. At least he betrayed caring just a little bit, while holding the line of the boys. So I had hope for him; he seemed to have a conscience left.

The "sexual revolution" was "the" sexual cause back in the 1960s, and there really was no sympathy for rape victims, although there was sympathy for guys accused of rape. The assumption was that if an accusation was made, it was probably false, and if it was true, so what? She _got sex_, after all; she should be _thanking him_! Rape was a joke all the timeThere was really no tolerance for--no room for--anyone to protest rape, as if it _mattered_ that someone might not want to participate for reasons of their own, until the resurgence of feminism. Women began to talk about the cruelty and violence of rape; that it was not a sexual experience, it was an act of violence and domination and one that women are horribly harmed by.
to be continued


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Have those who do not like this film because of its 'morality' considered that the movie is actually criticizing a culture that considers rape funny? I do not have time to write a long essay, but consider the pertinent lyrics to the narrative ballad: 'Raping and killing weren't really so bad, but stealing Old Blue, now that made Sheriff John mad.' Is that the movie's message, or its commentary? This movie is not immoral; it is cleverly satirical.

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It can be in the hands of a careful comedic craftsman (such as George Carlin or Sarah Silverman), but if you're referring to this movie (and you most likely are) then, no. It's not even remotely funny.

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I cannot read the mind of the screenwriters or the director, but I think everyone here seems to be missing the main point - the rape scene was intended entirely as a setup for what I think was the funniest scene in the movie - the sheriff was not particularly disturbed that his daughter had been "taken advantage of", but then went crazy when he found out the guy stole his horse. To me that stands out as one of the funniest scenes in this or any other movie. When I think of this movie, the image that comes to my mind is of Carrol O'Connor in this scene. Of course it was highly irreverent, as was most of the movie. But this was the 1960s, before the feminist movement got into high gear, and the concept of "political correctness" had not yet been invented. If you watch the Matt Helm or Our Man Flint movies, they are very blatant in using women as sex objects, much more so in my mind than this movie.

At least in this film the woman is portrayed as being at least as smart and capable as the men, until her romantic weakness gets the best of her in the end.
It is not always the man who makes off with the money and leaves the woman with nothing - watch "Body Heat" , "The Bobo", or the more recent "One Night At McCools"

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I didn't think he raped her. He SEDUCED her. She wasn't completely willing, but she wasn't completely UNwilling, either. She was angry and used the word rape to her father. Cole never hit her. He never used any weapon or force of any kind.

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Who besides her father called it a case of rape? The girl spent the rest of the film trying to get back with James Coburn. That doesn't sound like a rape victim to me, it sounds like a hot-blooded girl wanting more of a good thing. If her father called it rape, it was likely a face-saving gesture on HIS part, not a level-headed, objective assessment of the situation.

"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae

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I think the problem with the film is not necessarily that Coburn forces himself on Maggie Blythe and she appears to enjoy it since this type of scene was not that uncommon in films of this era when the hero was always irresistible to women and of course Blythe is being attacked by Our Man Flint, the ultimate male sex God of the 1960s. In particular the 'rape scene' seems to be referencing a very similar James Bond/Pussy Galore scene in Goldfinger - possibly deliberately - although it is played a little more viciously and nastily and Flint is more violent than Bond whose preliminaries before he forces himself on Pussy are rough horseplay rather than a threat of actual violence. I think the real problem is the incessant amount of jokes made about it afterwards.

In Goldfinger, the episode isn't mentioned again and from this the viewer is led to either forget about it or conclude that it wasn't rape. Here, Blythe uses the word 'rape' several times afterwards but every time she does the response is a joke and a trivialisation of the word including right at the end when James Whitmore tells her there's no point pressing charges because she'd never get a conviction as everyone in the jury would want to rape her too. The cumulative effect of this conveys the impression that this is what the filmmakers think also else why harp on about it insessantly.

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Pasojabber, have you considered that the movie is actually criticizing a culture that considers rape funny? I do not have time to write a long essay in response to your comment, but consider the pertinent lyrics to the narrative ballad: 'Raping and killing weren't really so bad, but stealing Old Blue, now that made Sheriff john mad.' Is that the movie's message, or its commentary?

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I think most of you guys that are all up in arms about the rape scene in this movie are forgetting one very important fact. Although the movie was made in the '60's, it was supposed to have taken place in the 1800's, when rape was evidently no big deal. Now, that sounds terrible, but nevertheless, it's a fact. So, lets get over your indignant, pc selves, and try to enjoy the movie for what it was meant to be, a western comedy!

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I am a feminist, but come on. Maggie said "Daddy, I think I've been raped." It sounds as though she wasn't sure herself. And then there's the 'assault with a friendly weapon' remark, which always made my husband laugh. She knew she wasn't forced. It sounded more like seduction, but she knew she wasn't supposed to let that happen, and she wasn't supposed to like it either. Remember, this was an innocent but normal young woman who has no mother, and whose father doesn't have time for her. She can't ask questions (not that she would probably have gotten any answers; I remember my grandmother telling me she was told nothing about what happens on the wedding night, and yes, that lack of information/knowledge did often result in wedding night rape back then.)I think since this is a satire, it also makes fun of the old BS that women enjoy being raped. But Maggie really is innocent in spite of being seduced,and she thinks the Coburn character should marry her now, and that her father should make him do it.
My husband loved this movie and I used to be offended at what seemed like a rape, but I have a different view of it now, and I am no less a feminist. I am watching the film by myself. and maybe Marty is looking over my shoulder. He died on February 5th.





I could be a morning person if morning happened at noon.

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