In terms of writing, he had seen her face, he had to die at that point or the series would end so he died. They needed him to die so he conveniently made himself look like the aggressor and was instantly killed. Ophelia expected to see Jules torturing him with a knife and that would have been fine, she would have high-fived her and laughed about his pain, instead, she see's that Jules has lost control of the situation that she created and even though her life was not actually in danger Ophelia jumps in and kills an unarmed man for Jules. It was excessive force because she could have hit him anywhere or just yelled and then the chances of him walking over and strangling an unconscious woman to death at his place of work decreases to about zero now that there's a witness. If you sneak up behind and kill someone who's unarmed and defending themself because you want to back-up their armed attacker then yeah, that's murder.
I definitely didn't say that the targets have done nothing wrong and don't deserve to be punished. When I say that he was attacked by Jules unprovoked, I mean that he didn't know her, she didn't know him, she didn't even know for sure if he had ever raped anyone, she had simply heard that he was accused of a crime so she targeting him for assault and torture. He didn't do anything to her to provoke her into attacking him so when she assaults him, it's unprovoked.
You say that we should see the rapists as just as bad as cannibals or pedophiles but we never see them rape or hurt anybody. We just have to take it on faith that every one of them deserves to suffer horribly because that's all we're going to see of them. We hear someone say that they're bad guys and then we watch them suffer and get tortured while they plead for mercy. I am definitely not excusing rapists and their behaviour or disregarding their victim's humanity. I don't think someone accused of rape who is going to court for his crimes in like 2 days deserves to be tortured and killed before the trial.
The guy was just standing there at work when he was attacked by someone with a mask and a knife who heard from someone else that he had been accused of a crime. He punched his attacker once in self-defense and was killed for it. Yeah, he's kinda definitely the victim here. He wasn't presented as a rapist, he was presented as someone who was standing there defenseless when he was attacked and killed by two women with weapons. His only purpose is to be called a monster and be beaten to death.
Buffy and Spike's relationship was poorly handled for the most part. He was a soulless monster at the time, it was horribly abusive and mutually destructive, she never once gets called out for being significantly more abusive to him than he ever was to her and again, he was literally a soulless monster but he got to stay and better himself because he was handsome and popular. Other than the notable exceptions of the couple hot vampires that she developed relationships with, yes the villains tended to be unsympathetic monsters who were there to hurt people until Buffy killed them. Other than the notable exceptions of Harris and possibly Tyler, the men on this show are just there to hurt people (offscreen at some point in the past, according to other characters) until Jules and Ophelia beat and torture them.
Yes, it's a plot device because as I said, she could just tell Kennedy that Nate's name was on the rapist wall without confessing her own rape. She could very easily protect her friend without getting herself involved at all and she doesn't so that she'll have motivation to get over her fear of Nate and beat him up and torture him in a later episode when he reveals himself as an unsympathetic, irredeemable monster and hurts her.
What about how the man they killed was already due in court to stand trial for his crimes? What about how they hid the body so his family will have to suffer indefinitely? They literally killed someone because he got angry about being jumped and attacked. With the basketball player they prevented him from having a chance at the career he dedicated his life to because he got angry about being jumped and attacked.
How were they not psychos for torturing, crippling and celebrating their target's pain, suffering and loss of a future after he simply called them an accurate name? He had already been warned and punished and they were leaving and then they went back to make him suffer more for namecalling?
What is your definition of revenge porn? Is it anything like watching someone being tortured and suffering helplessly after being told "it's a good thing, don't worry, he deserved it"?
I don't expect them to go on a killing spree. This whole time you're arguing about the motivations of the characters, I'm arguing about how the show is written and presented. If someone else managed to pull off her mask then he would have to be killed too so nobody else is going to be written to pull off her mask.
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G_Woman
7 years ago
Revenge porn is totally the wrong word, oops! That's an entirely different thing. My definition of revenge porn is when dudes post naked pictures of their exes online for revenge.
The word I was looking for is rape and revenge films (not very catchy, probs why I couldnt remember it)
So, I define a rape and revenge film as a crappy 70s b-movie that sexualizes the violence of the revenge and where theres a lot of brutal rape scenes. So, very specific lol. Some people just flat out say any movie or tv show that involves the subjext of rape and revenge. tbh it's really complex and movies like I spit on your grave can't really be grouped in with black comedy films and tv shows that deal in the same subject matter but present it in a completely different manner/tone.
This whole time you're arguing about the motivations of the characters, I'm arguing about how the show is written and presented.
Dude! Totally.
Like. we are not on the same page AT ALL
You keep talking about writing and plot devices... When I talk about characters I talk about them as if they are actual people that exist irl. Fictions more fun when you completely immerse yourself in it imo
Other than the notable exceptions of Harris and possibly Tyler, the men on this show are just there to hurt people (offscreen at some point in the past, according to other characters) until Jules and Ophelia beat and torture them.
I mean that's a lot more than a lot of famous well rated, well loved movies represent women. One of my favorite movies is Dr. Strangelove. I think theres like one woman in the whole movie and all she does is lie on a bed in her underwear talking on the phone idk I had a horrible memory and watched it like 7 years ago, any way point is. What's so wrong with having media that focuses on women? Rapists exist. The show ackoledging this doesn't mean all men are bad or all men are rapists and its weird that I feel like I even have to say that because there are soooooooooooooooooooooo many good representations in the media of men.
Welp Ive run out of emotional labour. imma go watch brooklyn nine nine
not even gonna check for typos or incomplete sentences. too tired.
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andrewrrrr
7 years ago
That was totally my mistake, I read that as "torture porn", my bad, how embarrassing, I should have said "this show has a decent element of torture porn to it"
This essentially is like a rape/revenge movie without including the rape to make us hate the targets and root for the protagonists before showing them exacting brutal revenge where the villains suffer mercilessly (I'm not saying I want to see rape on the show, I don't, I'm just saying that without showing them doing something wrong they seem too innocent when the girls start beating and torturing them in an unprovoked manner). In I spit on your Grave 3 the protagonist rape survivor hunts down and tortures to death any men accused of rape that she can find and every man in the movie is an unsympathetic rapist monster for her to kill. This is a toned down version of that same story isn't it?
I'd say that being presented nearly exclusively as unsympathetic irredeemable monsters that are in the story just to suffer and die at the hands of women while played for laughs and cheers is more disrespectful and disappointing than having a small role but we can agree to disagree.
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G_Woman
7 years ago
If they were false accusations why would you A)not actually accuse them at all by not filing a police reports or B)go to group therapy for rape survivors.
We know the rapes happened because the writers tell us it happened. It's fiction and the writers are writing it as fact and the rapists as rapists.
idk I didn't watch the 2nd and 3rd I spit on your grave movies
There are two main male characters who are not rapists and one who is, 8 recurring male characters idk the ratio of rapist vs non rapist because i dont believe we've been introduced to all those characters but at least two of those characters are police officers and one is a coach. Lots of male authority figures who i'm guessing aren't rapists. Lots of positive representation.
I think the whole zero media representation vs bad media representation thing is viewed differently depending on how represented you are. Like if you have no representation in fictional media you're probably more likely to be happy with whatever representation you can get no matter how negatively it portrays people like you or how many times they violently and senselessly kill off the only character that was like you.
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andrewrrrr
7 years ago
I don't entirely agree, they're not being written and presented as rapists, they're being written and presented as unarmed and defenseless people standing around not hurting anyone until they get attacked out of nowhere and tortured or killed.
It is the same story as ISoYG 3. A rape survivor hunts down and tortures/kills rapists and accused rapists. That is the summary of both ISoYG 3 and this series isn't it? The only difference is this is on Mtv instead of an R-rated movie so these protagonists stop at torture and let their targets survive most of the time. This is just a rape/revenge story that keeps all the rape implied and offscreen so that it can focus on the revenge. That doesn't work as well, the villains aren't vilified effectively before we're introduced to them in the same scene where we watch them suffer mercilessly. Someone says that they hurt someone else offscreen at some point in the past. We only ever get one side of the story and we never see them do anything wrong before we see them punished for it. Someone hearing a rumour about them hurting someone else does not tell the audience with certainty that he actually is a monster who knew what he was doing and deserves to suffer horribly, we're just going to watch him suffer horribly and assume that his pain is a good thing.
Harris is a good example of a positive male character on the show and his presence literally does make this show seem significantly less "man-hating". The others I have no faith in. The coach will presumably be an antagonist who tries to protect his athletes from repercussions when they rape someone so he'll have to be beaten up too, Tyler seems like a good man so far but we don't know him yet, I legitimately expect him to push Jules too far when they first try to have sex and he'll reveal himself as an unredeemable monster who has to be punished, and if not, he'll get upset about them murdering his step-brother and he'll have to be punished for getting angry at them. There's the stupid and incompetent security guard who's pain is also played for laughs and the cop who had two lines and seemed like he might be an ok person so far. We'll see how the rest of the episodes develop. Overall, the tone is only mildly "man-hating" due to the fact that all the antagonists are men, all the protagonists are women and the pain and suffering of men is always presented as a good thing while the pain and suffering of women is always presented as a bad thing.
I agree that even with vast improvements in recent years women are still poorly represented in terms of numbers and that should be definitely corrected, but even if the number of actors in movies and tv were split 50/50 between the genders, you would never ever see a show that treated women like the men are treated here. Exclusively men accused of crimes being assaulted, tortured and/or murdered by exclusively women is the premise of this show. The very idea of a show about exclusively men hurting exclusively women even if those women were pedophiles or murderers or cannibals or nazis or anything, is insane. The idea of even an evil woman's pain ever being presented as a good thing, is completely absurd and would never be considered acceptable.
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