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Post by ucfeminist on Jun 22, 2006 1:17:05 GMT -5
Our society is grossly fascinated with sex crimes and women's corpses. From the ficticious CSI and Law & Order SVU to "true" crime shows like Forensic Files and Body of Evidence, women's bodies are realistically violated, dissected and violated once again as we gawk.
The funny thing is, we expect the rape or murder will be "solved" by the end of the program, and indeed resolution of some kind is always implied. This has always bothered me because all of the forensic technology and court trials in the world cannot stop these crimes from happening. Nothing is ever "solved" in this frightening world of violence against women.
In fact, I can't shake the feeling that these shows and our viewing of them is making the issue of violence against women even worse by undercutting the reality of women's compromising situations, while reinforcing the objectification of women's bodies (even if it's in corpse form).
For example, Dick Wolf produced a new show last season called Conviction (much like SVU) and in the midst of a rape case the two most powerful prosecutors in the office ripped each other's clothes off in a matter of seconds in a sex scene that was rapelike.
What do these contradictatory messages mean?
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