For those of you who read my film book, you are already aware that Hollywood presents an absolutely false view of domestic abuse. Film after film shows the abuse occurring to middle-aged, married white women, with the abuser being their slightly older husbands. In fact, that is the only abuse allowed to be shown on film. But that version is the least statistically likely scenario for abuse. White women are the least likely race to be abused. White males are least likely to be abusers. Middle-aged males are the least likely age group to abuse, and middle-aged women are least likely to be abused. Married people are far, far less likely to be abused or engage in abuse. Middle class people also are much less likely to be involved in abuse than poor people. Basically, the by far most likely portrait of abuse is a poor, single, young black male abusing his black girlfriend. And the by far lease likely portrait of an abuse is a middle-aged, middle class married white man beating his wife.
What's more, men aren't the only abusers. According to DOJ, women account for about 30% of abusers, and women are far more likely, as a percentage, to kill their spouse while abusing them. Yet, you'll never see the reality on screen because that would be an attack on blacks or women and the identity politics left will not allow it.
Well, now there's an even bigger CDC study and it found that 40% of the victims of severe violence as domestic abuse (beaten, burned, choked, kicked, slammed with a heavy object, or hit with a fist) are men. These numbers have been consistent for several years.
So why does this matter?
Well, feminists use abuse as a crutch... like black racists use "racism." They use it to claim that males are inherently dangerous (particularly middle class white males), and from this stem all their demands for any number of "protections," with those "protections" being legal as well as things like special privileges, demands for re-education, differing legal standards, etc. If, as it now turns out, women are just as likely to be abusive, then the whole idea that abuse is a gender issue goes away and the very argument feminists use to support their positions vanishes. In other words, if men are no worse than women, then women have no valid basis to claim a need for protection.
It will be interesting to see if this changes the view of abuse and what effect it will have on feminists. If they are forced to admit that women are just as abusive as men, and that blacks are the worst abusers, and that lesbians are equally bad, then the feminist left has a problem. Not only does it's only accepted-as-valid weapon vanish, but they will be causing a schism with other identity politics groups.
Interesting.
Thoughts?
37 comments:
OT: Not to toot my own horn, but Part 3 of Monsterpiece Theater is up at the film site. LINK
Andrew, where you see malice, I see economics. Married middle aged white woman have a heck of a lot more disposal income than single young black women.
Its also worth keeping in mind that there a lot of movies and even tv shows floating around in which at some point a black guy bounces a woman off a wall. Think 'What's Love Got to Do With it?', 'The Color Purple', 'Precious' and countless Tyler Perry movies. Most black shows of movies which revolve around or prominently feature criminals have a scene or two of a guy abusing a woman.
Also, generally speaking, one can't successfully deflect someone's concerns by telling them that someone else has it worse.
'Yes, your upper class white neighborhood has seen five shootings in six months, which is far more than you are used to, but that poor black neighborhood across town has seen fifty in the same timeframe, so I don't want to hear your complaints! You don't understand how good you have it!' are words no chief of police has ever uttered during a townhall meeting :) .
Anthony, the difference is there are few if any minority-centric films where the main theme of the story is on domestic abuse. The Lifetime network used to be wall-to-wall with movies all about middle-class white women trying to escape their abusive husbands and no one believes them, so much so that it became a joke. By contrast, the abuse shown in the films you list portray it as an unpleasant part of life, but not something worthy of particular attention. While I would disagree, simplistic leftists would accuse similar portrayals of abuse in a white-centric film of normalizing or glamorizing domestic abuse.
As an aside on criminals abusing women in particular, that is the cinematic puppy-kicking. It's shorthand for, this is a bad dude. There is no implication that he could be your boyfriend or husband (or even you). Conversely, movies about white abuse are all about spotting "warning signs" of abuse. Your husband yelled at you over dinner on Monday, you could be buried in the garden by Saturday.
Tryanmax,
Domestic abuse was a big deal in 'The Colour Purple' and 'What's Love Got to Do With It' (haven't seen Precious, but that is supposed to be really rough). Ike's abuse of Tina wasn't secret before but as Ray Rice can attest, people respond more much strongly to concrete visuals than abstract knowledge and its hard to overstate how much that movie defined Ike Turner as an abusive thug in the eyes of many people.
Never watched the Lifetime network, but if that is what they were cranking out, its probably because its what was finding ratings. Sounds like the abuse movies are very formulaic movies, but as an action movie fan I am in no position to throw stones :) .
I always got the impression domestic abuse movies were kind of like horror movies for women. You watch it to scare yourself a little with something you worry about some of the time but its watchable because its not your reality. I imagine if someone is getting beat up at home, that decreases the appeal of domestic abuse movies. It would be like leaving a bad place and then watching a video of said place.
A movie overstating the risks of something is pretty much par for the course. Terrorists usually kill fewer Americans than drunk drivers and deer always kill more people than sharks, but they are less scary, so they tend to get neglected by Hollywood.
I admit, I haven't seen What's Love Got to Do With It, so I should've excluded that. The Color Purple seemed like everybody was beating everybody up, though I may just be remembering the book better.
It's a fair point that the Lifetime movie stuff was churned out for a receptive audience, and I think the horror movie analogy is somewhat apt. The only difference is, there isn't a political faction working to convince the public of a hooded ax murderer epidemic.
P.S. - RE: The Color Purple, I'm too young to recall firsthand, but I seem to have picked up through osmosis--or maybe my American Lit prof--that the film was harshly criticized at the time of its release for its depictions of black males as abusive.
This plays into other myths that have been perpetuated. That all or most men are violent dogs while most women are gentle angels. Watching my kids grow up, I can see how this myth can develop; my son is much more physical and aggressive than my daughter. For a long time I heard how husbands were more likely to cheat than their wives and reasoning why this occurs. Except new research has indicated that the rate of being unfaithful is about the same.
Men on average are bigger and stronger than women but growing up we were always taught "you don't hit girls." This rule is very strong and carries through into adulthood. Women often realize this and will brutally attack men knowing that they usually won't fight back - up until he breaks. It doesn't justify it but I suspect it is common and I suspect that is what happened to the Rice couple (she basically admitted it).
Hi folks! Sorry I haven't been around. It's been the hectic end of a hectic week, but things are calming down.
And of all things, I ended up at Costco today and somebody slipped an 8 foot tall teddy bear into my cart. Some people!! (The real trick was getting it home.)
Anthony, I see politics, not malice. I think they single out middle class white males because they are the only group not in the left's little rainbow of racial/gender anger. I think that's also why they ignore other groups.
I terms of showing other groups, while I agree that you will occasionally see a pimp or a gangbanger smack some woman, the difference is this. Those things are only tiny moments in the film and they are done by known bad characters to show how vile they are. The abuse films are all about abuse and the wife's revenge or escape, and the white male is almost always shown to be an upstanding respected member of the community according to the outside world. And that is because the message in the one is "gee, this character is evil" and the message in the other is "this is a huge secret and it's everyone and it can happen to anyone!!"
Let me add too, that according to this study, less than 10 million people reported any kind of "abuse" which includes things no one rational considers abuse. That's less than 1/3 of one percent. Consider that the next time feminists try to tell you that 40% of all women will be raped and 11 in 10 will be abused by their spouses.
This is all about creating an issue that generates political support, not telling the truth to fix a problem.
Andrew - Are you sure that isn't an actual real 8ft bear pretending to be a teddy bear to avoid hunting season? Maybe it could actually be a real bear with a teddy bear suit on. That could account for it just appearing in your cart and would better bolster that "somebody's" story.
Andrew - What might change the WASP Middle-class male as abuser politics is when more and more same-sex partners openly report spousal/partner abuse. More than likely there will be the same percentages.
Bev, I can't rule that out! LOL But the way we folded this thing to get it into my car, it couldn't be real. But it did take two of us to carry it into the house (we're hiding at my parents' house until Christmas). I would estimate it's about 120 pounds.
Here is the bear. LINK. It was actually only $198 because it would be crazy to pay $297 for a bear, right?
//looks around nervously
It's super cute. And it's super soft! And it's 3 feet talker than the girl getting it! LOL! Our little girl is going to LOOOOOVE this! :D
tryanmax, I agree with that. I think the thug slapping his girl scene is basically puppy kicking to show the audience how truly rotten this character is. He's not just a thief and a murder... he smack women too!!! He's eeeeevil!
Anthony, I always got the impression domestic abuse movies were kind of like horror movies for women. You watch it to scare yourself a little with something you worry about some of the time but its watchable because its not your reality.
I think this is right, but what bothers me is that so many women then drink the KoolAid and go away with the idea that this going on everywhere yada yada yada.
So it's a bit like the hillbilly rapist horror movies in that regard. People watch it, get freaked out about it, believe it's true even if this particular incident is fiction and then are thankful it's not them. But the stereotype sticks and soon these same people are bemoaning the dangers of "that which lays beyond the suburbs."
Sorry, more about the bear...
LINK
This is a really cool gallery of bear pictures! :)
tryanmax, I don't recall the abuse criticism specifically, but at that time there was a tremendous push to eliminate all negative portrayals of blacks. That's when liberals were pushing to make all criminals in films whites and really the only roles left for blacks were the wise old judge or the mystic.
Koshcat, To add that to idea as myth, this last year was the first time that as many girls ended up in juvenile detention as boys.
Also, as the new father of a 10 girl and a 12 year old girl, I can tell you that all the talk about girls being sweet, sugar and spice and all the other stuff while boys are violent, dirty and aggressive is just not true. Girls are just as bad as the boys in any category you can imagine. What's more, girls can be exceedingly evil to each other.
Bev, The gay issue will be interesting. I understand that lesbians in particular are prone to abuse.
...Girls are just as bad as the boys in any category you can imagine. What's more, girls can be exceedingly evil to each other.
Andrew and Koshcat - This is the byproduct of feminism. When I was young, It was rare that young girls would resort to violence against another girl or a boy. But we...I mean, "they" were masters at psychological torture! You'd be amazed what tears could get you out of.
And when I started working, I hated working with all-women teams. I concur, women can and are exceedingly evil to each other. At the time, I chalked it up to few women in team sports.. They just didn't know how to work in groups and teams without every issue being to the death because they had never played team sports. Men had the ability to fight in the boardroom or basketball court, and back-slap at the bar. Women, not so much.
But now, the no team sports excuse no longer applies. Girls have reached full parity in the violence department and it's shocking to me.
For whatever reason, this conversation brings Agatha Christie to mind. Christie is considered a feminist icon, for good reason. Not only did she introduce a slew of women detectives to the popular literary canon, she also introduced a broad swathe of female villains. Unlike many of the feminists who followed her, Christie understood that in order for women to be regarded as equal to men, they needed to be seen as equal in every facet, in vice as well as virtue.
OT News Flash: Speaker of the House - Looks like Paul Ryan is officially in; John Boehner is officially out.
/end news flash; now back to your regularly scheduled comments...
Bev, That is a feminism created problem. On the one hand, it tells us that girls are perfect and any suggestion to the contrary is sexism. That stops people from addressing problems. At the same time, it tells girls that they need to emulate the worst characteristics of boys to be equal. It's like giving the weak-minded a green light to misbehave.
tryanmax, That problem with feminism and other -isms is that it generally only wants to accept the good, while attacking anyone who suggests there can be bad. That's the perfect way to unbalance someone... tell them they can do no wrong.
Bev, My condolences to Rep. Ryan.
Bev-
Several years ago I read a Sports Illustrated article on the successful women's soccer coach at North Carolina. At the time he took the job, he was already coaching the men's team. He stated that coaching the two teams couldn't be more different. Men may get into fights, even fist fights, at practice but at game time generally all is forgotten and the team and will to win is the most important. For women, if they got into a scuffle it would carry through into the games to the point that a girl would rather refuse to pass the ball to the b**** and lose the game then to forget about it and focus on winning.
He didn't make this a men are better, yadda, yadda just that women are different and it required an entirely different approach. He had to be acutely aware of the personality interactions and often intervened early rather than assume the ladies would take care of it.
It is a stereotype but it seems that women tend to be more individually competitive where men seem to be more team or clan oriented competitive.
Tryanmax - That is true. Some woman have taken the call for "equality" to lower themselves to the level of men. It don't mean that the mean men are a lower order of human...but..:-D. The sexual revolution is the perfect example of how women have lowered themselves. We actually have given up our power, but giving up the main power that we can hold over men. Plays have been written on this subject for thousands of years...see Lysistrata Ironically, it has only reinforced woman as only the sum of our sexuality and not our brains and native capabilities.
Koshcat - That is interesting. That is so typically "woman-like". I admit, we...er...THEY do hold grudges. I was fortunate. I had only brothers and played a quasi-team sport (tennis), so I have mostly understood that "competition" on the field or in the 'boardroom" isn't to the death. I have the extra added bonus of having a family that loved to argue about issues, but we always "let it go" in life-long mantra to agree to disagree.. I run into trouble when I open my mouth around people who do not have this ability. I have said too much....
Re Lifetime movies
One of my main problems with them, or at least the advertisements of them I saw, was that the abusive husband was usually someone who prompts you to ask not "Why are you staying with him?" but "Why did you start dating him to begin with?"
Seriously, these guys seemed to have had more red flags than a Soviet May Day parade. They might as well have worn a t-shirt saying "I like my wimin black n' blue!"
Kit - That's funny because that is exactly what I thought when i watched "Bridezilla". Why on earth would these men actually marry these crazy women? Yes, I admit it! I watched "Bridezilla"...don't judge me.
Interesting. Women are ery territorial especially in roommate situations. I admit, I am the worst. But to my credit I realized it long ago which is why I chose to do whatever I needed to do to never need another female roomate ever again as along as I lived.
Boy, am I going to catch hell at our next super-secret women's club meet up in the "Ladies Room" at the restaurant the next time I attend...I have said too much. All I can say is you thought the Illuminati were bad...watch out for those "Ladies Room" meetings. Why do you think we all go in pairs? Again...I have said too much.
Ok, I seem to have accidentally deleted the comment Bev replied to. Irrational things happen when you watch the GOP Debate moderated by CNBC.
Here it is, roughly.
Bev,
HEre is are two tweets for you by a lady who goes by the name "Kite Brite".
LINK
LINK
Okay...I was wondering, but more importantly.I am impressed that you actually watched the debates. Bravo! I can only surmise that your mental health is much more sound than mine. As I have said before, there is not enough vodka in the world for me to watch them right now.
I only watched snippets.
The CNBC moderators were awful.
Rubio was great, though.
I heard some of the debate on the radio. The questions were just the worst. Based on that, I think all the candidates did an excellent job responding to absolute asininity.
BTW, through channels that I can't divulge, I was able to obtain a sampling of questions that one of the major networks is preparing for the general debates.
For the Republican candidate: "You have stated on several previous occasions that you would make a better president than your opponent. That person is on stage with you now. Will you take this opportunity to publicly apologize for those statements?"
For the Democratic candidate: "You have also made statements that you would be a better president than your opponent. Tell us more."
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