Everything should have rape in it. I wish my pizza did...

My post is probably harsher than intended.
My thought is :

- By speaking a lot about rape or depicting it often in different media, there is a risk (I fear) that the mentality about it would be trivialized as 'the kind of things that happens, if you're in that case, deal with it you're not the first and certainly not the last'. Exactly the same kind of perception we have about war : "that happens all the time"

- By not speaking about rape, the major risk is that victims won't feel comfortable (that's an euphemism) to talk about it and seek help.

I feel like western societies oscillates between those two stances, and I don't think making games or stories about that "just because" will improve how people react to it. Making a story or a game actually trying to tackle the issue would have little entertainment value.

There is this show (relatively recent ... 2004 or something) which talks about strip-teasers ( yay ! strip-teasers ! ) who are white females who are downright kidnapped in eastern europe/russia and, well, enslaved to "fuel" clubs here and there. The thing is, while there is a lot of nudity, the whole story is griping and really weighs on the mind. I don't remember the name and only caught one or two episodes, but this is actually a show that was a great testimony of what happens in our backyards, but it wasn't 'entertaining'.

Point is, in my opinion, the whole "we know this is a serious issue but let's try to have fun with it for once" is really not a good idea. Rather the worst kind of disservice.

I don't think Alien/Aliens/Alien 3 would have been nearly so memorably horrifying without the icky overtones, nor would the FEAR series been (on that note, while I think the FEAR series' gameplay got worse with each installment the story got more interesting---shame that the sequel storylines and the FEAR 1 expansions seem to take place in mutually exclusive continuities).

I think the FEAR series handled the issue of rape with pretty serious gravitas, on that note---Alma was royally pissed off in FEAR 1 with VERY good reason, FEAR 2 had her raping Beckett at the end (presumably both out of trauma-induced insanity and also the strange psychic connection between the two), and FEAR 3 had Alma about to give birth to a new child with psychic powers that dwarfed even hers.

Basically the entire series POSSIBLY could have existed without rape, but several characters' motivations and actions would make less sense.

I don't know if it's a thoughtful treatise on the issue but it at least takes how horrific it is pretty seriously.

Platoon had a hortifying scene of a soldier raping a ten year old vietnamese girl off camara.

And Straw Dogs and Man Bites Dog.

I can't add much to opinions most folks gave you already.

Suggest you check this:
http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/category/movies/

Tom Chick is a huge horror fan, I don't even like horror but I often like his reviews. And I'm pretty sure it's a topic that has peeked throgh on occasion. Right now the latest movie review is for Everly, which is right on topic for you.

Keep reading, I think I recall he did a series on horror classics recently Thirty Years of Horror or Golden Age of Horror. That should give you a good idea how you match up or not.

I think Freddy Krueger never explicitly raped anyone in the original movie. He just slaughtered lots of children, which is much less contentious.

I was referring to HIS MOTHER! :P She was raped by a group of inmates at an asylum and bore Freddie.

Yeah they should. Would Wreck it Ralph have been better if it had a 20 minute rape scene?

Extreme example? perhaps. The point is all artists censor themselves to get the effect they want rather than just throwing everything into the pot. Mortal Kombat doesn't do rape either (well not the ones I've played) and I don't see how that self censorship hurt the games.

Watch out. This thread is just a bait for tvtroping.

Ah, yes. Forgot about that, though I think that wasn't established until Nightmare on Elm Street 3, was it? So the original film still basically works without that part of his backstory.

I'm going to get out of this thread but before I do, anyone notice that a certain someone who keeps pleading for GOG to pick up a kickstarter about shooting homosexuals in turn said NO, that horror stories shouldn't have rape in them.

Boggles the mind. :P

In all truth Horror does trivialise these things. No-one ever offered HP Lovecraft as deep, serious literature. But you know what. With the exception of torture it's the same with comedy. We laugh at murder, we laugh at insanity, we don't laugh at rape. That's just how society treats these things. Kind Hearts and Coronets would not be funny if it was about rape instead of murder. As it is the film is hilarious.

Hint: Actually, it does. Be glad you don't know what the pizza baker did with those innocent, virgin wads of dough. And let's not even talk about the "special sauce".

Fun fact: Sami Rami now regrets the tree rape scene.
Nightmare on Elm St; Actually they cut out the rape stuff almost enterly. Just called Freddy a child murder.

Rosmarys Baby..... You might have point there. It never bothered me 'cus 1 It's show as a dream sequence, 2 the horror part isn't that she is being raped but who she is being raped by, 3 Like you said it's actually relavent to the plot and themes rather than just "Here's a rape scene! That scary right!" 4 The scene is not exploitative and best of all, very short. Still, best counter argument I've seen so far.