On Sunday, the new season of AMC’s popular horror drama “The Walking Dead” premiered. Fans had been on the edge of their seats waiting to see which characters would meet their fates in the premiere.
One of the issues some had with the episode was its extended use of graphic violence. This complaint has been brought up with other shows — like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” — that also make a point of showing graphic violence onscreen. Another qualm many have with “Game of Thrones” is its usually unnecessary mistreatment of its female characters.
This relates to the issue of violence, particularly sexual violence, in the media and the question of whether it can lead to violence in real life.
I’m interested in these discussions. It’s the issue of sexual violence onscreen and in our media. Have we reached a point where we’ve become desensitized to every atrocity a team of writers can throw at us?
What I want to look at is sexual violence in television or film as opposed to just normal violence and the effect it can have on viewers.
Researchers have been looking at the increased blending of aggression and eroticism to see if it is making sexual violence seem more acceptable in real life. The lines between the two are increasingly being blurred in the media thanks to concepts like the rape myths, generally false attitudes and beliefs about what constitutes rape.
In an interview with Neil Malamuth, a University of California, Los Angeles media researcher, the Center for Media Literacy discovered while consumers of sexually violent material may never commit an aggressive act, material could affect some aspects of individuals’ relationships with women. Additionally, sexually violent material could contribute to an environment in which violence against women is more likely to occur.
Sexual violence rarely adds anything to the story. In fact, in many books, movies and TV shows — “Game of Thrones” being a good example — the rape of female characters is often only played out to further the storyline of a male character or galvanize
him into action.
Why is this so often the case? One could take a quick glance at the most recent statistics on the gender of writers in Hollywood today and notice a huge issue. In 2014, it was found that 80 percent of films had no female writers whatsoever. While television is more diverse, it’s still an issue because females are outnumbered 2 to 1 in staff writing roles.
This is not to say that men cannot write intelligently about female characters, but the fact remains we far too often are being presented our entertainment from the view of a man.
So, moving from that, it is somewhat easier to understand how we might see these unnecessary portrayals of sexual violence in our media, and in a broader scope, violence in general.
It is not a definitive fact that violence in the media will cause similar violence in real life. Studies will continue to be published that move the needle fractionally in both directions, but the steps we can take to prevent confusion of the two worlds can start with greater diversity in those who produce the content we can consume.
More women in the writer’s room isn’t going to ruin your favorite TV show, but it might help viewers better understand what is okay and what is clearly just fiction.
