Was he shagging his daughter?
"You hit Arthur?" -"I hit him... and he died of it."
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MovieChat Forums > Edge of Darkness (1986) Discussion > Was he shagging his daughter?
I think there was an implied incestuous attraction but the kissing of the vibrator was wanting to be close to something close to her. It was also a set up for finding the gun, you move from finding something secret but somewhat expected to finding something quite shocking. He is left trying to balance the Teddy Bear (his memories of Emma as a child) with the gun (the revelation of her secret life as a woman)
shareThere's definitely a running theme of him being very attracted to her. When he finds out about her lover she (or his memory of her) tells him he was jelous. When he turns up at the play it's about incest. I think there's one or two others off the top of my head.
I don't think he ever actually acted on his instincts though. She would have become a combination of his wife and daughter after his wife's death, and so it's understandable his feelings were confused. When he lost her he had finally lost his wife as well.
There's also the slightly-weird scene where he and his daughter are negotiating about whether he should sleep with her or not. As in sleep in the top bunk with her, or sleep down below with mummy.
I think if you take everything into account, the theme is more than just implied. Whether that means he was actually shagging her, I don't know. Personally, I doubt it...but she is Joanne Whalley, so who knows?
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That scene didn't seem weird to me, was more of a poignant memory of when the two people dearest to him were still alive, them debating who would sleep where. And also showing how considerate she was not wanting either parent to feel lonely. But there was another slightly odd scene where she asked him to sleep with her in one of the earlier episodes, which I found a little odd. The emphasis they added to the dialogue was sort of strange. Also his seemingly jealous behavior over her boyfriend, the bizarre dildo kiss, and how touchy-feely they were when he picked her up from her university. I have to say, I prefer the American movie more, there was more purity to their relationship, whereas in the show they kept inserting little moments that creeped me out.
shareIn the car in E1. Emma: "Sex is all you ever think about these days." There is no subsequent evdience that Craven was in a relationship, or having sex with anyone else.
shareThat scene's there to show how considerate his daughter was so neither parent would feel lonely but also because she was going to be buried on top of her mother.
shareI agree with your comments Andrew. I think his anger at her lover was not just jealousy though, but genuine protectiveness - he does seem to have been a bit of chancer after all.
shareMy boyfriend (who has a daughter) and I (who have experience with molestation) both found the vibrator kissing scene very startling and quite creepy and perverted. That is definitely NOT normal paternal behavior. You do not put your mouth on something that was inside your daughter when she was having an orgasm, *unless* you have incestuous feelings for her. It does not matter if she's dead or not. If you want to feel closer to your dead daughter you kiss something innocent of hers, not an extremely sexual object used for erotic pleasure. In fact I know grieving parents and typically When your kid dies as an adult they become more innocent to you, more like a child, at least at first. As for her having become a combination of his wife and herself after his wife's death and that making it "understandable" that his feelings were "confused," well...those feelings were incestuous then and frankly that is not understandable. There are no situations in which incestuous feelings can be explained as normal. I know people who have lost wives, and they do not confuse their wives with their daughters. They see them as entirely different people--which they are and should be understood and treated as such, otherwise something is very wrong. It's not a sweet fuzzy "natural" Lolita response. It continues to amaze me how extremely sexually inappropriate male behavior is normalized. I understand this is fiction, but it's been put there and should be observed without a cavalier attitude. I really tried to imagine it as an "I want to feel closer to my daughter who just died" moment but it is more bizarre and disturbing than that. It is not something I or my boyfriend can quite fathom a sexually normal person doing.
sharelol how exactly is this normalised? It's complete fiction .....
shareThere are some strange things about their relationship.
I don't think he was actually at it with his daughter, but there was an Electra Complex (the father-daughter version of the Oedipus Complex) thing going on. In the first episode, he finds her dildo and kisses it. At another point, the young daughter says something like "you'll have to sleep with me tonight" shortly after his being widowed. So there are thoughts and behavious that way, but was he abusing her? No, he just had a relationship with her that Freud would have been proud of.
I think the point is that the implications just add to the wierdness of it all, and confuse us about Craven's mental state. He never gives much away, even when "talking" with Emma. It's a device to make the audience never become comfortable, I think.
shareI agree it is sort of open to interpretation, especially with the vibrator scene. Has anyone also noticed that later on when Craven meets Clemmy at the Barbican Centre and they go to the theatre he asks he what the play is about and she replies Incest - is that also a connection?
shareAs a father myself I found the vibrator kiss absolutely shocking. Under no circumstances would a father do such a thing unless.... Butr it's also those small gestures in the car and the way she says "I think you should sleep with me" when she was child. Interesting turn of phrase she uses and she almost looks like a seductress in that scene. There actually are verbal hints as well such as when Ross tells him he would be spared a trial and "dirty little secrets" coming out and when they go to the theatre he asks Clemmy what the play is about, she simply replies: Incest. So everyone seems to know it too.
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If he had any kind of reaction to Clemmy's line about incest, I would feel more sure that the weird hints were all put there deliberately with the intention of suggesting it. But he has no reaction at all to the word (that we can see). If he really was a long-term incestuous weirdo, you'd think he would flinch or something at the word. But then again, he's not much of a flincher, our Craven.
I thought it was odd that he kept touching up and kissing crims and Provos, though, lol.
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Look at his face when he says "She allowed herself to be abused" in front of the psychiatrist.
It's heavily implied, and we know he can be physically and emotionally manipulative.
You can't draw a solid conclusion one way or another, and I think the sense of discomfort the audience feels as a result is very deliberate.
Yeah, there were some weird moments with the psychiatrist. I was surprised that Craven told him anything at all, considering his own professional background - he would know all the tricks of how to draw deep secrets out of people, and would be resistant to most of them, and suspicious of the process. Or so I thought. I was surprised when he just opened up... well, he opened up a little bit, anyway.
I agree that it's impossible to draw a solid conclusion on whether incest really happened. The hints are definitely there, and are deliberate, I just don't know how it relates to the rest of the story - unless it's got something to do with the "rape" of Mother Earth by her "sons"?
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I would shy away from such a literal interpretation, but this was the 80s, so you could well be right.
I think I need to watch for a third time, as your post has made me realise that the missing mother in their relationship could easily have a bearing on 'mother earth'. A bit cheesy, but then as I said, it's the 80s.
Firstly, it wouldn't be that black and white.
And secondly, there are some rather exaggerated readings of the dildo scene. She had died, he was sorting through her personal possessions, the dildo was something that had brought her intimate pleasure. He was trying to capture something that was still her. The gun broke through his preconceived understanding of her, and the rest of the story was him reconciling with who his daughter had become.
No.
What would be the point of an incest storyline in the background in a six-part series that's already full of themes that are fully explored like revenge, loss, government corruption, the environment, and has a supernatural/mystical element to it? It adds nothing at all.
Craven's daughter wasn't just a daughter to him. She was like a close friend, and a wife too. But not his wife in a sexual way. His wife in an emotionally dependent way. Communication, taking care of the house etc. Notice how she nags him about the washer in his head and he looks around at how messy the kitchen is. She took care of the house while he worked odd hours.
They evidently talk about things like sex with each other comfortably like friends do. She's one week away from turning 22 so she's not a little girl.
When she gets in the car she just gives him a normal kiss on the cheek. He kisses her hand and strokes his face with it but only AFTER she says "what will do you when I'm gone?". It's like a moment for the audience to see what a tower of strength she's been for him over the years. I also think the caressing of her hand on his cheek foreshadows his unusual method of comforting people he wants information from later on in the series.
Then there's the famous dildo kissing. Several critics have noted that the actor managed to do it in such a way that wasn't sexual or creepy. And I agree with them. There's no long lingering kiss or lick. Just a gentle kiss of something intimate of hers. He sees it as part of her and therefore something to be cherished.
Do I think it's normal? Well no but there's no normal when it comes to shock and grief. Everyone's different. He's a cop who it's strongly implied still hasn't fully gotten over his wife's death and then he loses his daughter too and she'd just been just murdered right in front of him moments ago. On top of that, this is just before he finds the gun so he believes he's responsible for her death at that moment. As he searches her room the song playing has the lyrics "He went out of his mind" which is subtext from the director and writer of his mental state. And he finds and kisses the dildo AFTER he's heard her voice around the house. So he's already becoming emotionally unhinged at this point anyway.
I see no signs that their relationship was sexual.