Heroine Addict: Let’s Talk About Rape

This past weekend, I was having a lunch date with a fine gent who happens to be a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. While emphatically discussing the books and the show, I made a comment on how great the women are depicted in the story and how it really could be examined as feminist literature, if you were so inclined. My date looked at me, shocked and perturbed. “Are you serious? Unless you’re [a short list of female characters which has been redacted for potential spoilers], you’re going to be raped. At least once.”

I tried to make an argument for how that was realistic, given the time period, and that the fact that GRRM even allows for women to play in his Game of Thrones was pretty awesome (Yeah, Tolkien. I’m looking at you. Eowyn aside.), but the conversation pretty much ended on that note. Which got me thinking the rest of the weekend about rape in fiction. The main question that came to my mind was, since these characters are controlled by an author (or some other conglomerate), is it okay for a character to be raped or is it fridging as usual? As with all things, it depends on its purpose and how it affects the character after the fact.

Retroactive rape is still rape.

For many a costumed heroine, rape is part of her origin story, either originally (Starfire and, depending on canon, Helena Bertinelli), or retroactively tacked on (Felicia Hardy). Even male superheroes are often subjected to rape. Though, in those cases it is less often about power and usually due to a female villain trying to breed some kind of super heir. In the Batfamily, there are only two characters that I can think of who have not yet been raped, nearly raped or a product of rape and they are Kate Kane and Cassandra Cain. Don’t worry, though, they’re pretty new to the game, so they have time. Same goes with Team Arrow, although Mia (who may be retconned?) did have some serious trauma with her history in the skin trade, but she was still able to fight crime, despite having AIDS. Even Kyle Rayner of the Green Lanterns was drugged and raped and the whole island of Themyscira is made of the souls of women who were mistreated by men in their past lives. A lot of DC references, but Marvel’s not innocent here. Ms. Marvel, the lady Hawkeye and Mockingbird have also been raped.

Kyle Rayner feels used… We’re guessing he saw the Green Lantern film too.

As you can see, rape is a prevalent trope in comics, and it affects both male and female characters with almost equal frequency (which is odd, but nice to see something is at least equal among men and women, right?). The problem with these instances is that the rapes scarcely affect the character in the long run, or at all. None of these characters dwell or angst about what happened to them. This sometimes stems from the fact that comics are serials with multiple authors over time, and depending on who is currently penning the book, he or she will concentrate on certain aspects of the character’s persona. But more often than not, it’s because these characters are viewed as weak, and not in the “I can’t carry a box that weighs more than 40lbs” weak. But in the sense that they don’t carry their own title and their existence is in virtue of the fact that they support the main hero, They are not seen as characters in their own right, so they can go through the wringer, the grinder and be served as Sunday dinner, just so the villain can “get at” the lead. None of the victims need to overcome the pain or trauma they just went through, because the pain and trauma that occurred on the previous pages wasn’t about them, but their (frequently male) cohorts and how he has been able to overcome the horrible things that just occurred to his beloved.

This is why it gets put down as “Women in Refrigerators” or “Stuffed in the Fridge” (as it may happen to men). The raping, murdering, etc. happens, but it has little to do with the character it happened to and everything to do with those who care about said character. Or it’s just to have something controversial happen to keep the books selling, but after the conclusion of the arc, it is never addressed again and no real healing occurs, either for the victim or the reader. And that is why there is a problem with rape as it is often depicted.

Though, those characters that are “strong”–Kyle Rayner, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson–either don’t remember the event or just never bring it up again. Either way, weird. You’d think a man like Bruce Wayne, with so many emotional issues, would have a serious problem with Talia Al Ghul taking advantage of him, but apparently not! Although, I have a serious qualm with that whole scenario in and of itself, as it stems from a pretty good story (Son of the Demon), where Bruce may actually have found his one true love. And while I’m no fan of Talia (and a Cat x Bat ‘shipper to the end!), it was nice to see The Detective happy with a woman. For once. As for Dick Grayson, maybe he is so jaded by all his romantic trysts that he finds it all old hat and doesn’t care that he’s been raped–twice. I don’t know the reasons why these issues are never addressed, but I definitely find it curious. Why have a rape scenario if you’re not going to address it?

Batman: A Victim of Rape. Yes. BATMAN.

Before writing this article, I looked up the statistics for rape. According to the US Department of Justice, by way of Wikipedia, 1 in 6 women are either victims of rape or have been nearly/partially raped. In the US. That’s just under 17%, and I’m not certain if that is adjusted to include the number of rapes that go unreported. Either way, it’s a more frequent occurrence than how many women develop breast cancer in their lifetime (1 in 8), and that has a whole month dedicated to it, and it means we all know someone who is dealing with that trauma, whether we are aware of it or not. Which means, every writer of comic books knows–or, possibly, is–someone who has been raped or nearly raped, which gets me to thinking, as statistics are wont to do: if you know someone who is suffering, be it deeply or something that only crosses her mind when there is a trigger present, wouldn’t you want to create characters that actually deal with their pain rather than ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen?

Which brings me back to A Song of Ice and Fire. By virtue of the fact that it has one author, George R. R. Martin, and, potentially, a definitive beginning and end, all of the events that happen in the novels occur with purpose. Additionally, is written from 3rd person multi-perspective, meaning the reader gets to view the events from a variety of different view points. Some of these characters are women, and some of those women go through the wringer, grinder and are (nearly) served up as Sunday dinner and some of them do the wringing, grinding and serving. It’s a wild world in Westeros, but the pain is palatable. They aren’t just victims, even if we sometimes think of them that way. Despite all her faults, Sansa is aiming to survive and live through her experiences just as much as the beguiling Cersei, come hell or high water. If you can give even your most loathsome character that trait, then even if everyone around her views her as pathetic, she still has a lot of grit to her. That’s right, I said it: Sansa has grit. It doesn’t matter how much she internalizes all her fears and emotional trauma, she’s still managing through those books better than her brother Bran made it through the pilot episode of Game of Thrones. (But I don’t want to give too much away about just yet, as I still want to do an article on the awesome women of Westeros.)

Basically, what I’m saying is not to not write rape scenarios, but if you’re going to do something like that, at least understand the repercussions and ramifications such and action will cause. Not just to those who love the victim, but to the victim, too. Let them deal with the pain, on the page. Research your characters thoroughly and show us how they deal with it on the page so that those who have been hurt might be able to learn how to do deal with it, too. It’s a serious issue and one that affects more people than I’d like to think possible, and therefore should be addressed with delicacy and care. It’s not something that should be used just to sell books.

This would be a hard one to forget for numerous reasons.

As a reader and fan of fiction, I like to imagine that writers have a great duty in being stewards to the collective consciousness, by bringing humanity to a fuller understanding of each other, rather than just being purveyors of all that is wrong with the world and insight further fear or misunderstanding. So, if you’re going to abuse your characters, at least know how it will affect the character going through the experience, and not just those around her.