¶ … Handmaid's Tale' creatively and chillingly hypothesizes about the rational result of a world in which draconian laws and convictions/beliefs about women and their bodies prevail. The women in the movie, have become completely subservient to men and to the needs of men. Even their bodies, have turned into playthings for men to use and abuse as they deem fit. In the 'The Handmaid's Tale', a handmaid cannot reject the advances of her "master." And in the sanctified act of sex the man did not need to consider the women's consent, pleasure, or comfort. No foreplay is needed, either… just orgasm or ejaculation (Muir). The Commander is hitched to a cold and bitter woman, who is ironically named as Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway).
Serena Joy longs to have children, not for the purposes of self-interest or personal satisfaction, but rather to "keep up with the Joneses." She states in the movie that all the rich neighbors are having babies and showing off their newborn children at entertaining afternoon garden parties. In the movie, Kate, the handmaid, endeavors to know how her own biological daughter has turned out and at she is also in a State-authorized sexual slavery with her employer, the Commander. Lamentably, the Commander is a sterile man, which implies Kate will eventually be blamed for her inability to conceive a child.
She could be regarded as "un-woman" for her failure to conceive and punished by being sent to a work camp (Muir). Watching the movie and comprehending the story behind it, the depiction in my opinion does not constitute an act of rape because Kate consents to having a sexual relationship with the commander, in spite of the fact that he is sterile and that her failure to conceive will be blamed on her because she is the weaker sex and a handmaid.
The avid fans of the movie 'Alien' do know that the creature in the movie was created by Swiss artist H.R. Giger. O'Bannon had earlier worked with Giger on a failed endeavor at a pre-David Lynch adaptation of a Dune movie. Giger's sexually explicit artwork had stuck with O'Bannon though the film did not get much success, and the dark art helped fuel his revenge scripting when composing the narrative of his new movie Alien. Once the film had passed the initial stages, O'Bannon recommended Giger to producer Ridley Scott, and in the wake of seeing Giger's Necronomicon -- an art collection filled with a lot of sexual innuendo- Scott concluded that he needed to have Giger create the main Alien. By then, Scott was in complete agreement with O'Bannon's man-rape plot (Dietle).
The act of bringing Giger on board ended up being the choice that shaped the entire film, that later became a franchise and one of the most easily recognized pictures in film history. Giger not only designed and created the main alien in the movie he also designed the derelict spaceship, its commander, and the alien's landscape. Furthermore, each and every bit of the movie was stacked with space vaginas and galactic penises. All of the sexual imagery in the movie is intentional. Case in point, when the human crew was "invading" the alien's spaceship, in effect the humans represent sperms creeping into the ship.
The scene after this is that of Kane (played by John Hurt) as he penetrates into the spaceship's "womb" to find an endless scene of eggs, which in the sperm analogy above makes a ton of biological sense. Kane then comes into contact with one of these many eggs, which hatches and releases a little alien. At this point of the movie, it obvious that the director of Alien, Ridley Scott is in effect smashing the movie's audience in the face with a sex-education book (Dietle).
As the little alien bursts out, it attaches itself to Kane's face and jams its galactic penis down his throat, all the while choking Kane in a display of rape that is so clear and evident that we are shocked the alien is not yelling at Kane to squeal like a pig as it does its act. The life cycle of the alien was designed in such a way to match that of numerous parasitic wasps, within it is a penis and vagina merged in such way so as to drive its seed (sperm) down the throat of its victims (Kane in this particular case). We discover that once the alien is attached to the face, it cannot be stopped before it has deposited its seed, or it will kill its victim. Which you may realize is actually the...
And after that comes the undesirable pregnancy with the attacker's child. Notably, the audience is spared of a lot of detail and they get off rather easy -- the normal gestation period of women takes nine months and it entails a lot of hormonal, surges, bloating and puking that on the overall makes women miserable. However, Kane's man pregnancy is a lot easier and brings about a sore throat and just simple spaghetti craving. The "sore throat" comes as an aftereffect of the alien jamming its penis down Kane's throat, which he luckily does not recollect (Dietle).
The entire film proceeds with this kind of narrative, with every scene concentrating on the strong female leadership of Ripley, while every man gets raped and killed by the aliens. The film is credited for making the first genuine female action hero Ripley, a Sigourney Weaver idea, even though ironically the character was changed from a man to a woman in a revise of the script just to make things all the more fascinating. The only other female character in the original 'Alien' movie is an ever-talking mess; she is raped to death off-screen by the tail of an alien (Dietle).
In another scene that is disturbing, to say the least, Ash, the robot, stalks, corners and eventually locks Ripley in her own room, attempting to kill her. As Ripley is laid down, the camera pans the walls adorned with pornographic pictures of women. Though Ripley is vulnerable and Ash can kill her, the robot, instead, pushes down her throat a rolled up newspaper, reminiscent of the earlier act- meaning, implicit. As Parker, the savior crashes into the scene, bludgeoning Ash, the room is splattered with the semen-like blood of Ash, and android. The domination of males is reiterated here, too, even when faced with an alien. The detailed sexual in this film is nauseating at times, though the simili to commonality cannot be missed (Mubi.com).
A foundational idea that rose out of the 1970s women's activist movements is that rape is not an act that is brought about by sexual desire, instead it is downright a pure act of violence and, an instrument used to dominate and control women (Brownmiller, 1975). As opposed to this social constructionist argument, there has been a counter argument, by evolutionary psychologists making a case for an explanation of what rape is through the use of human evolution (Thornhill and Palmer, 2000). This argument was vigorously opposed by feminists who argued that who expressed the purposelessness of the idea of anyone having a natural predisposition to rape; an idea which removes blame from the violent perpetrator and allows no room for remedial actions to be taken. What both of these arguments need is a thorough evaluation of the way the mind and body are linked, and accordingly cannot be utilized as a part of contradicting arguments.
While feminists' arguments claim that the act of rape is one which is entirely brought about by a desire to control and that is also an expression of anger, there is no acknowledgement of the bodily realities that are in fact necessary for such acts of sex and violence to take place. The explanation by the evolutionary psychologists, on the other hand gives full responsibility of the act of rape to bodily urges that are assumed to be static and applicable to all situations without accounting for the effects or influence of specific environments (Gironda).
Susan Miller, in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men Women and Rape, argues that rape is most of the times an act of violence that is utilized by men to dominate women. The reason why this is commonly considered a feminist position is that, it would be against the feminist project to agree that rape is anchored on an evolutionarily-centered sexual drive or desire. Since, this would make rape to be perceived as a natural act leaving little room for remediation of the problem (Gironda).
Although Brown Miller tracks the issue of rape way back into prehistoric times, she is not interested in thinking about rape with regards to evolution. Her argument is essentially that males use rape to dominate women and not as a tool for reproduction, therefore rape is a tool of violence used to obtain control and power.…
Crime and Deviance Crimes and increasing criminal activities have become a major concern for the security enforcement agencies. They seek help from technology as well as social and psychological theories to prevent crimes and deal with them. The first priority of security agencies is to prevent crimes and the second priority is to control them by punishing the criminals so that they become an example for the society. This paper
32) The overall diagnostic and symptomatic patterns described by these points indicate that BPD is a serious disorder and is "...classified as a major personality disorder involving dramatic, emotional, or erratic behavior; intense, unstable moods and relationships; chronic anger; and substance abuse." (Boucher, 1999, p. 33) There are a number of criteria which, in line with DSM-IV, are used to identify and characterize this disorder. The first of these criteria refers
Gift giving creates a bond between the giver and the receiver. Mauss felt that to reject a gift, was to reject the social bond attached to it. Likewise, to fail to reciprocate is viewed as a dishonorable act in some cultures. Gift giving is a means to create social cohesion among the group. What Distinctive contributions did Weber make to social theory? Weber used his work to attempt to understand the
child neglect is described as the failure of a parent or a custodian liable for the child's care to make sufficient food, clothing, protection, supervision, and/or medical care available for the child. In the United States, child neglect is the most commonly recognized type of child mistreatment and abuse. The theoretical definition of child neglect by Polansky is generally acknowledged which states child neglect as "a condition in which
Controversies Over Women's Access Birth Control This study focuses on the article titled "Controversies over Women's Access to Birth Control" as written by Marcia Clemmitt. The author reviews different perspectives to close down the issue of dispensing birth control. It begins with an example of a pharmacist who refused to dispense his professional duty due to moral and religious practices. He viewed birth control as an immoral vice. The author explores
Criminological Theories and Their Application Character History Nikita Voronov was born in Omsk, Russia in 1977 to a 17-year-old mother named Natasha Voronov. She had gotten pregnant with him after dating a man for one month, another Russian male who was working in the mining area at the time. Once Natasha became pregnant she never saw the father of her child again who fled the town. Desiring a better life for her