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P1na: "Should"? No. I see no reason for that.

"May, provided it makes sense in context"? Sure. I see no reason for removing that.
I think people might have taken my rant as "Rape should never be brought up in Horror in any way". I can't say I'd be sad about that as rape is just depressing to read/hear about and I read/watch/play horror for fun. However my actual point was that I can't stand it being used a spectacle the same way a monster, murder or chase sequence might be. For the same reason stated above.
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Johnmourby: I think people might have taken my rant as "Rape should never be brought up in Horror in any way". I can't say I'd be sad about that as rape is just depressing to read/hear about and I read/watch/play horror for fun. However my actual point was that I can't stand it being used a spectacle the same way a monster, murder or chase sequence might be. For the same reason stated above.
To each their own. I don't like watching monsters dismembering people as entertainment, so I don't. I suggest you do the same.
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Johnmourby: If I may site present, Look at the best horror games; Amnesia, Alien vs Predator, Resident Evil, System shock 2, Doom 3, Thief, Alone in the Dark. Would any of these games have been made better by long, gruesome rape scenes?
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Geralt_of_Rivia: Fun fact: The above game is full of alien creatures that rape your mouth and even impregnate you. ;-)
And yet people take their kids to see the AvP films. I think in Alien while it's technically rape it's so far removed from reality it doesn't really count.
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tinyE:
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Johnmourby: Are you talking about me :/ Unless I have a Tyler Durham that I don't know about in my brain I'm sure I've asked for any games involving shooting homosexuals.
NO NO NO!!!! XD God I am so sorry if it came off that way. Absolutely not! :D
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Johnmourby: I think people might have taken my rant as "Rape should never be brought up in Horror in any way". I can't say I'd be sad about that as rape is just depressing to read/hear about and I read/watch/play horror for fun. However my actual point was that I can't stand it being used a spectacle the same way a monster, murder or chase sequence might be. For the same reason stated above.
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P1na: To each their own. I don't like watching monsters dismembering people as entertainment, so I don't. I suggest you do the same.
Well if enough people are going to tell me that they find rape in horror fun, then I might accept it (That won't stop me grumbling about it). But No-one has quite said that yet. Maybe because no-one wants to say "I enjoy rape scenes".
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Johnmourby: I never called for censorship. Saying horror shouldn't contain rape is no-more censorship than saying FPS games shouldn't have platforming. That's not calling for governments to ban Mirrors Edge. It's saying, I don't like this and I think we would be better of without it.
Well, I disagree about the implications of "shouldn't" in the thread title with regard to the context, but that's a tangent that wouldn't be very productive to discuss, so let's change the subject to "Would we better off without rape in horror movies?".

And my answer stays the same: No, we wouldn't be better off. Because for all the crap some people do with this subject, there are also movies that treat it in ways that do it justice. Even in the horror genre.

I think your entire approach to this topic is too categorical. You're talking about "horror" and "rape" in a very abstract, generalized sense, and neglect that every movie is an individual work of art that may or may not use a topic in a way that may or may not resonate with parts of its audience.You end up with a conclusion that "rape shouldn't be used in horror movies" because you designed tailor-made definitions of these concepts in a way that leads to this conclusion. However, since your tailor-made definitions only reflect one narrow angle of a broad spectrum, they aren't particularly relevant to reality and individual movies. Imho.

In a way, your argumentation reminds me a bit of a discussion I had with someone over "Deadgirl". He strongly disliked the movie - which is fine, it certainly doesn't appeal to everyone. But then he also claimed that such movies shouldn't be made. He wanted to enjoy a gore-laden zombie killfest and was confronted with a zombie flick that dared to focus on social commentary instead. Like you, he used tailor-made definitions ("zombie movies are meant to be funny through excessive gore, they are not meant to make people think") to bolster his argument, instead of just saying "I didn't like this particular movie, could you explain to me why you did?"

Anyway. I could tell you about two movies which are categorized as "horror", which do contain rape, and of which I think that they definitely would not be "better off" without it. However, to be honest, based on your replies in this in this thread I'm not sure whether you're actually interested in that, it looks a bit like you're more interested in "fighting" opinions different from your own than trying to understand them. So I'm not sure whether I'd just waste my time. But _if_ you're interested, then I can give you some examples.
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P1na: To each their own. I don't like watching monsters dismembering people as entertainment, so I don't. I suggest you do the same.
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Johnmourby: Well if enough people are going to tell me that they find rape in horror fun, then I might accept it (That won't stop me grumbling about it). But No-one has quite said that yet. Maybe because no-one wants to say "I enjoy rape scenes".
Would your acceptance mean anything? Will I win the election with your acceptance?
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Johnmourby: And yet people take their kids to see the AvP films. I think in Alien while it's technically rape it's so far removed from reality it doesn't really count.
The original Alien features an actual, albeit mostly implied, rape scene. The last time we see Lambert, the alien approaches her with its tail slowly sliding up between her legs, followed by a series of painful screams. The implications are pretty clear.
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Johnmourby: Well if enough people are going to tell me that they find rape in horror fun, then I might accept it (That won't stop me grumbling about it). But No-one has quite said that yet. Maybe because no-one wants to say "I enjoy rape scenes".
Well, rape fantasy is a fucked up thing. It's understandable to fantasize about "having sex with that woman". Is it really necessary to add "and she won't enjoy it"?

But it appears safe to say that most people don't find it as troublesome as you do. I'd guess most people watch horror movies to be horrified, and rape scenes horrify them, so it works? I don't watch horror, so dunno. But I don't agree with your approach of "I don't personally like it, so it shouldn't be there"
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Johnmourby: I never called for censorship. Saying horror shouldn't contain rape is no-more censorship than saying FPS games shouldn't have platforming. That's not calling for governments to ban Mirrors Edge. It's saying, I don't like this and I think we would be better of without it.
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Psyringe: Well, I disagree about the implications of "shouldn't" in the thread title with regard to the context, but that's a tangent that wouldn't be very productive to discuss, so let's change the subject to "Would we better off without rape in horror movies?".

And my answer stays the same: No, we wouldn't be better off. Because for all the crap some people do with this subject, there are also movies that treat it in ways that do it justice. Even in the horror genre.

I think your entire approach to this topic is too categorical. You're talking about "horror" and "rape" in a very abstract, generalized sense, and neglect that every movie is an individual work of art that may or may not use a topic in a way that may or may not resonate with parts of its audience.You end up with a conclusion that "rape shouldn't be used in horror movies" because you designed tailor-made definitions of these concepts in a way that leads to this conclusion. However, since your tailor-made definitions only reflect one narrow angle of a broad spectrum, they aren't particularly relevant to reality and individual movies. Imho.

In a way, your argumentation reminds me a bit of a discussion I had with someone over "Deadgirl". He strongly disliked the movie - which is fine, it certainly doesn't appeal to everyone. But then he also claimed that such movies shouldn't be made. He wanted to enjoy a gore-laden zombie killfest and was confronted with a zombie flick that dared to focus on social commentary instead. Like you, he used tailor-made definitions ("zombie movies are meant to be funny through excessive gore, they are not meant to make people think") to bolster his argument, instead of just saying "I didn't like this particular movie, could you explain to me why you did?"

Anyway. I could tell you about two movies which are categorized as "horror", which do contain rape, and of which I think that they definitely would not be "better off" without it. However, to be honest, based on your replies in this in this thread I'm not sure whether you're actually interested in that, it looks a bit like you're more interested in "fighting" opinions different from your own than trying to understand them. So I'm not sure whether I'd just waste my time. But _if_ you're interested, then I can give you some examples.
Go for it.

I'll coness I have been fighting for my opinions because I have a short temper and I don't like to give up without a fight. I can't say that I feel like the other people on this tread have tried to understand me either. Mostly though it's because I haven't seen many argument that have swayed me.
But you'll recall that I gave TinyE his due for Rosemary's Baby. I'm stubborn, but I'm not immune to reason and conversation.
As long as this is about the films and not about how I'm stupid/pro-censorship/whatever.
You think there are horror films that are better for having rape in them? Tell me what they are and I will tell you if think they are good examples or not.
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P1na: I'd guess most people watch horror movies to be horrified, and rape scenes horrify them, so it works?
That's pretty much it. I haven't really seen any film where the subject is "trivialized". It's always treated as horrible and despicable. Sure, there are some films that throw it in just for shock value, but those tend to be pretty poor films in general; and even then, it's there to horrify and, obviously, shock people, not to play down its impact or awful nature.
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Johnmourby: Well if enough people are going to tell me that they find rape in horror fun, then I might accept it (That won't stop me grumbling about it). But No-one has quite said that yet. Maybe because no-one wants to say "I enjoy rape scenes".
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Gnostic: Would your acceptance mean anything? Will I win the election with your acceptance?
If you value my opinion so little why do you ask for it?. I don't want to call you a troll when you might genuinely be curious but you do realise that statement reads like "No one cares what you think so STFU"? On the off-chance my pessimistic side is right I'll say you obviously care 'cus you feel the need to put me down. If I'm wrong, all that matters is that I find out what people think about this subject. Why else would I ask?
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Johnmourby: Go for it.
Okay. :) (Fair warning: This post necessarily contains spoilers about the two movies.)

First movie is the aforementioned Deadgirl (2008). It's a movie about two teenage boys, outsiders with no friends, who discover a naked zombie girl that's tied down on a table in an abandoned facility. One of the boys sees her as an object to fulfill his fantasies with; this includes repeatedly having sex with her although she fights against it. The other boy sees her as a person or at least as a creature he can empathize with, and he's torn between loyalty to his only friend, temptation, empathy with the girl, and his conscience.

Why do I think that the movie would not be better off without the rape scenes? Because the objectification of the girl is a huge topic in the movie, and rape scenes are the ones where this becomes most apparent. The movie deals with the question "How far would boys/men go if given the opportunity to do anything they might want to a defenseless girl, without fear of repercussions?". This obviously makes rape a topic. Excluding it from the movie would have left an artificial gap, because everyone knows that in real life there obviously _are_ men who _would_ rape the girl in such a situation.

I like this movie because I think it depicts an important topic in a surprisingly well-done way. I also like how it transcends the clichés that often limit the horror genre. In this movie, the zombie is not the dangerous monster - despite behaving more animalistic than human, she is the character that viewers tend to feel the most sympathy with. That was a welcome change to regular zombie movies (which I often find very boring, because most never even try to break out of the genre's very narrow formula).

Was this movie "fun"? No, of course not. But that was exactly why I consider it a good movie. It stays clear of the (imho) boring, mindless gore and cheap scares that a large part of the zombie film audience apparently considers "fun", and instead provoked thoughts and discussions about the human nature.

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The second movie is I Spit On Your Grave - the original from 1978, I haven't seen the 2010 remake. It's a "rape and revenge" movie with a very crude plot: A female writer is alone on vacation, gets raped by four men, and then kills them gruesomely one after the other.

This movie contains a 25-minute rape scene. (Edit: Some sources speak of 45 minutes; it depends on whether they talk about the original version or a cut one, and whether one sees the consecutive rapes as a single scene or not.) This caused _lots_ of controversy, which is understandable, because people automatically assume that there can be only one reason for such a scene, "shock value". And adding an extensive, detailed rape scene just for shock value would be - I agree with that - just another objectification of the victim.

However, if you actually _see_ the movie, you find out that it's quite different. The entire rape scene is filmed in a way that you identify with the victim, and it is not embellished with anything. It is a brutally realistic depiction of a rape how it happens every day at some place in this world. The male audience that went into the theaters because they thought it would be cool to watch "the rape movie" ... was treated with a 25-minute experience that let them feel the entire humiliation, brutality, and hopelessness of a very realistic rape from the victim's perspective; an experience that men very rarely try to empathize with, let alone for 25 minutes.

Was this movie "fun"? Hell no. It was _meant_ to be disturbing and unsettling. The director made this movie because he had experienced how a woman was raped and then everyone closed their eyes about it, and he wanted to rip those closed eyes open. And if just a few loudmouths who went into the movie because they thought watching a rape scene was "cool", ended up unsettled and disturbed, then it was certainly worth it.

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So, here we have two movies which are horror movies, which have rape scenes, and which would not have been better without those. (In fact, in case of "I Spit On Your Grave", the rape scene is probably the only thing that elevates an otherwise very forgettable movie over the exploitative "rape and revenge" dross.)

Did this help you to understand how the concepts of "horror" and "rape" - imho - can work together?
Post edited May 10, 2015 by Psyringe
Jesus Christ, was the downvote really needed? This forum is already becoming tiresome with the same conversations each day (The witcher 3 downgrade, CDPR scandals, galaxy, friend list, steam, etc) and while i understand the need to discuss those, i want more topics for discussions, if the op feel the need to discuss "rape in videogames" with the forum then let him, all the downvoting is teaching is if you want to make a controversial discussion it's better that you do it somewhere else.

As for the what is asked in the thread, no, i don't think that they should make any scene in the game showing a rape, i wouldn't feel confortable playing it and the shitstorm wouldn't be worth it (for the game or videogames in general).
If it is mentioned as a backstory then i'm ok with it and it serves to fuel the rage against the enemies or have sympathy for the characters.
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Gnostic: Would your acceptance mean anything? Will I win the election with your acceptance?
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Johnmourby: If you value my opinion so little why do you ask for it?. I don't want to call you a troll when you might genuinely be curious but you do realise that statement reads like "No one cares what you think so STFU"? On the off-chance my pessimistic side is right I'll say you obviously care 'cus you feel the need to put me down. If I'm wrong, all that matters is that I find out what people think about this subject. Why else would I ask?
I am sorry to ask. Please don't reply me.