Tel-Chai Nation

If the following interview with comics writer Peter David makes sense, it would seem that the TV series Veronica Mars has pulled a major offense against rape victims, but definitely against women, with one of its seasons:

RT: Speaking of that, have you been watching "Veronica Mars" this season?

PD: I met Kristen Bell at a Wizard Con. Very sweet girl. I have to admit I haven't been thrilled about the ongoing thread of the first half of the season, because it was twelve episodes filled with rape. Oh. My. God.

RT: And then it turned out half the girls were faking their rape.

PD: It's a relentlessly unpleasant subject to begin with and then it's falsified as well. It's like that old joke about the two old women needing in the lobby of a hotel, and they start discussing the hotel and the food there. The first says the food is just terrible and the other one agrees and adds that the portions are so small.

Considering that they are trying to increase viewership, I think half a season worth of rape wasn't the way to go. I really wish that they had come up with anything else. Why couldn't they do something where the college newspaper she was working on was wiped out by a fire and she was investigating the arson, or something like that if they wanted to do something other than murder.

This smacks of stereotyping, but what's really outraging is that at least half the girls in the series, probably all of them, are filing false rape complaints. Years ago, I watched a soap opera where this crap was pulled - a high school student fakes a rape charge - and thinking back on that, it makes me blow my stack. Now, along comes a TV show where it's not just one, but several girls who're doing it? What smut. Mainly because not only does it avoid the more serious issues in that rape is a very serious matter, it perpetuates a crude stereotype as well. It's true that there are some cases in real life of idiots who file false complaints, but in showbiz, it can be a very dangerous business to tread that kind of a line. This is how some people (males?) end up thinking that women are "the root of all evil", because they supposedly tell atrocious lies such as what Veronica Mars is featuring.

If any form of showbiz cannot or will not deal seriously with these issues, if all they can do is back away from them after supposedly confronting them, then they shouldn't tackle them at all.

Labels: misogyny, sexual violence, showbiz