Open ed : rape culture, sexual violence , and how pop culture plays a part.
Articles/ Statistics : Sexual Violence is Preventable | CDC, Glamorizing Sexual Assault in Television & Film Needs to Stop — Day One (dayoneny.org), Rape Culture – Women’s & Gender Center (marshall.edu)
Rape culture is an environment where rape and sexual violence is normalized and excused in the media (pop culture.) If you look at the facts, this must be true because millions of people experience sexual violence every year, stated by the CDCs website. They also point out the number of cases is most likely underestimated because many cases go unreported. Furthermore, one can conclude that rape culture is prevalent. You may ask,” what does pop culture have to do with rape culture?”
Pop culture uses television and media to objectify women and glamorize sexual violence. There are countless examples of this. The game of thrones for example, is filled with rape in its plot lines to create a more dramatic /entertaining plot line. In fact, popular culture portrays sexual violence and the objectification of women in many popular television shows and movies. Popular culture especially uses comedies like Just Go With it, and Bad Teacher to normalize these societal issues regarding women. These comedies use a lot of language that deprecates women, usually including jokes throughout the scenes that slut shame or sexualize women. On a more serious note, there are also popular movies that portray sexual violence like Sixteen Candles, Back to the Future, and more new movies like Project x, Fifty shades of Grey, and horror movies like cabin in the woods, and Halloween. Despite the genre of film, all these movies have a common theme of using women to make the plot more interesting to watch either through sexual violence or objectifying them.
The problem is popular culture has a major influence on society, and these films help create a society that disregards women’s rights. Studies have shown the following, “media portrayals of sexual assault and rape have been shown to increase victim blaming and influence the way women, the general public, the police, the criminal justice system and in some cases, the way juries have perceived a female victim (Glamorizing Sexual Assault,1).” The problem is constantly exposing women in a sexualized demeanor and writing scripts that include sexual violence has been going on too long. I remember watching scary movies when I was young, there was always the sexualization of women or abuse going on. Then, I watched romantic movies in my pre-teens and early adolescence that were “classics”, however they romanticized narcissism and sexual violence. The media impacts our lives in several ways, we often go off of what we see. When many films are portraying this, and we are seeing it from childhood years to adolescence it has a major impact on us. In conclusion, until popular culture begins to respect women, we will continue to have problems in our society with female rights and respect.