As much as I enjoyed this movie, I have to say that the part where she seemed to be enjoying the rape detracted from the credibility and realism of the movie to some extent. It would have been more dramatic if she had put up a fight against her attack, whether he was old flame or not.
Any of you agree?
The Webmaster
www.wirralwriter.co.uk
No. I think she didn't want to have sex with him at first, but once it was underway, she enjoyed it. I think what she enjoyed was being the object of desire. I think by enjoying it, she was sending a big ole F-U to her husband, who she felt, by wanting to work, was ignoring her. And she's just way too special to be ignored (in her mind). I have known a lot of women who have reacted this way (infidelity) to a husband/lover who has the audacity to find happiness on their own, ie, thru work, and not thru just having the hottest chick in town on their arm.
Her pay-back, if you will, comes when the other guy comes in and nails her while Charlie holds her down. He ruined the "victory" she felt in enjoying the sex with Charlie. And she couldn't tell David because she knew how she reacted. So she blames David for it. Because NOTHING is ever this girl's fault, and everyone should to kiss her perfect a$$.
(Before anyone flames me as a woman-hater, I am female. Women like Amy give pretty girls a bad name.)
There are no heroes in this movie; all of the characters are flawed and despicable. Amy needs to be the center of attention. When she isn't, she acts like a petulant child. I think Amy is the most unlikable character in the film.
I think people miss the point, women DO get turned on by being roughed up a bit, why do you think so many go out with so many 'bad boys' when there's so many decent fellas about.
BUT, they only want it from who they want it. In this case, the first one she wanted it, but was married, so the rape angle was an 'excuse', the second fella she wasn't betting on and she didn't want him that so it was a 'proper' rape.
Had it been just her and the first one, it wouldn't have been heard of again unless they got caught out.
Only those with no valid argument pick holes in people's spelling and grammar.
No, but I do think its deeply unsettling. What I take from that scene is how fragile our consciousness is, essentially we see ourselves as set apart from animals with the fact we have minds but what happens in that scene is even though the higher part of her doesn't want to have sex, the unconscious part, the animal, recognises it and rewards the brain with sexual pleasure.
Also I think enjoys is the wrong word, enjoyment is something humans consciously derive. So she could orgasm and thus receive sexual pleasure but she may not enjoy the experience.
For example a majority of female rape victims will become "wet" and a percentage of those women will orgasm. This isn't because that person wanted to be raped or ended up enjoying it, it is an evolution response, because not lubricating in that way could mean the intercourse damages the female's reproductive organs, making harder for them to have offspring in the future.
Women who do orgasm during rape often can never enjoy sex again, as that sexual pleasure is associated with the negative experience of the rape.
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If a woman who is getting raped experiences an orgasm, then she hasn't been raped, because for her to have an orgasm
I agree with your analogy. It makes it easier to understand once it's explained as a man being sexually assaulted orally-his body would react even though his mind would be rebelling...
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Rape is rape. It never 'ceases to be rape.' Tell the judge, 'yes I broke into the house and forced myself on her and she screamed & cried, said no repeatedly, and begged me to stop, but then she 'acted like she liked it,' so it's not rape.' Great defense. You'll spend a considerable amount of time in jail where you can see how YOU deal with being raped.
shareWomen often do experience both arousal and orgasm during rape as a survival response. I thought the scene was right in showing that. It was horrific without being too graphic, and I was impressed by the the brief flashbacks afterwards.
share[deleted]
This all depends on whether art -- in order for you to enjoy it -- must conform to your view of
(a) How the world is.
(b) How the world ought to be.
I saw it more as a surrender than enjoyment but in many ways even though her ex-boyfriend was raping her he was showing her more kindness than she was accustomed and it did stoke the fire. Be that as it may, the first time I watched this movie in 1971 I felt her response to the first rape added to the credibility because ensuing guilt and probable unwillingness to open another conflict could have prevented her from telling her husband about the entire incident when she should have. Doing so certainly may have changed the story immensely but I believe any missing credibility might be found in the missing footage.
In the version I saw the story was more complex and her character was a lot more sympathetic even though it contained probably only a minute more than available versions. In the DVDs it shows a bunch of guys sneaking away from the field but only shows where two of them end up. In the theater version I recall you find out where most of them end up plus a few others. The violence in the missing footage quickly escalates until the gun ends up in clumsy hands and goes off by accident, I think wounding one of the locals which changes their focus.
When the "unreleased" version came out I ordered it thinking it would be the one I saw in the theater which it was not. Having now paid for two versions I ordered a third version from an online collector that claimed to have frames missing from the "uncut" version, which it did, but they were insignificant. I contacted him and exchanged a few emails in which he let me return it and told me he had indeed heard of a fuller version but reportedly not worth pursuing due to exceptionally poor picture quality of a badly aimed and out of focus hand camera. He also gave me links to a few discussion forums where I learned a little more but not much.
Apparently the actual full version was released to at least some theaters then immediately withdrawn to replace with a tamer version, in most cases before it had even been shown in the target theater or, according to some, the full version was shown the first day then replaced on the second day.
Funny how no one considers that maybe she was just pretending to enjoy it so that he wouldn't hurt her any further---which is a little more realistic, anyway. I personally thought the whole set-up of that scene was sexist, anyway---there was the subtle implication that just because she had been with the ex-boyfriend, that she was his property simply because they had been intimate with each other before, so that he could do whatever he wanted with her. I mean, there was nothing consensual about what he did to her at all. In fact, the whole thing seemed like some delusional male fantasy of how a woman would react to a rape---and knowing that the director was himself a misogynistic bastard who treated the women in his life like s*** (and therefore treated the female characters in his movies like s***, also) definitely influences how one sees that scene, or any other scene involving women with abusive men in his films.(Being a female film lover myself, that's how I looked at it.) Like, for example, that scene from Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (another Peckinpah flick) where the main female character gets intimate with the main male character in a way that really makes no damn sense, period--if you're seen the film, you'll know what I'm talking about.