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April 5, 2009
Free Speech, Bad Arguments, and Violence Against Women
Yesterday, after feeling nauseated and violated after seeing another episode of Dollhouse (nauseated and violated is how I feel after watching any episode of Dollhouse), I picked up Heartbreak, Andrea Dworkin's memoir, a gift from a friend that I had somehow managed not to read for a few years.
I read it in two hours, and it was a perfect antidote to Dollhouse, because it also left me nauseated, because it gave me a portrait of someone who was TRULY trying to fight violence against women, and who wasn't using the fact that violence against women existed as an excuse to depict more of it.
Dworkin's work made me remember ways I have been violated, but it didn't replicate the violation and tell me it was edgy entertainment.
After I finished reading it, I did some on-line research, and I found this image, which to me is a pretty damn good analogy for Dollhouse.
In other words, I might have to respect, on both legal and logical grounds, a person's right to produce images depicting the profound degradation, exploitation and torment of women, even if such images make me feel nauseated and violated. But don't expect me to believe that you're significantly different if you're also producing similar images, even if you argue that your agenda is to call attention to the fact that such images are being created in the first place--as if any of us didn't really realize that already, except for people who don't WANT to know. You're still offering as entertainment images of women being sexually exploited. You're still offering as entertainment images of women in fear for their lives. Instead of offering solutions to the problem you claim you're exploring, you've become part of it.
Posted by holly at April 5, 2009 7:32 PM
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