Rape Myths Lite: ABC’s “The Middle”

/by

-by Dr. Alesha Durfee.

I recently watched a taped version of “The Middle” (an ABC sitcom) that originally aired on 1/9/14. “The Middle” is a fairly funny sitcom that both my teen kids and I watch. I was shocked when halfway through the episode I saw what I can only describe as “rape myths lite”.

In the “Sleepless in Orson” episode, a “bad boy” kisses Sue (the main teen girl character) without her permission – they are not dating, and she is upset, shocked, and angry. She yells at him….. .but of course each time he does it (it happens five times throughout the episode) she begins to think more fondly of him and to talk to her friend more and more about him. She transitions over the episode from being appalled and angry to anxiously looking for him out the window – not in fear, but because she wants him to force her to kiss him again. At the end she is actually pursing her lips and leaning in for a kiss.

A boy kisses a girl against her will on "The Middle"
The storyline is clearly drawn from stereotypes about schoolboys chasing girls around the schoolyard trying to kiss them – it’s done in a very comedic fashion. “The Middle” is a “family” comedy so the situation is presented as “just a kiss” where “no one got hurt” and “everyone laughed”. But that’s what makes this episode all the more troubling to me. It’s far easier to spot and dispel rape myths in stark contrast – when you have a documentary or a news story or anything that shows how harmful the actions were, where you can see the consequences of actions. If you ask a teenager if someone has the right to pressure someone else into sex, the majority of teens that I’ve met say “no”. They know the rhetoric, even if they don’t necessarily believe it or act on it.

But it’s the more insidious representations of rape myths – how Sue suddenly now likes a boy because he kissed her despite her protests – that is troubling to me. My teens laugh at Sue’s changing expression post-kiss (from appalled to intrigued/excited) and I worry about what they are taking from the episode. I can explain rape myths to them, but that only conjures up images of the documentary or the news story. Does that mean that they don’t see the messages conveyed about gender, sexuality, and bodily rights in this episode? And since (thankfully, hopefully) so far their world looks a lot more like “the Middle” than a documentary or news story, does that mean they don’t see the rape myths that are in their everyday world? Because ultimately what we find “funny” says a lot more about what we believe and our perspectives on the world than when we are asked for our (measured) responses. And I’m disappointed that this is what we as a society still finds funny.

Dr. Alesha Durfee is an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University’s School of Social Transformation. She can be reached at Alesha.Durfee@asu.edu.

When Famous Domestic Violence Offenders are Busted

/by

Earlier this week, pictures surfaced of celebrity chef Nigella Lawson being strangled in a restaurant in London by her husband, Charles Saatchi.

After the pictures hit the press, Saatchi “explained” his behavior by stating that:

“We were sitting outside a restaurant having an intense debate about the children, and I held Nigella’s neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasise my point,” he told the paper. “There was no grip, it was a playful tiff.”

Like many abusers, Mr. Saatchi engages in (1) denial, (2) obfuscation, and (3) minimization. This is a common technique among abusers, and has been supported in the academic literature.*
Of course, Mr. Saatchi is not the only famous abuser to be confronted about, and later denied, his actions against his victim. Ike Turner famously denied his abuse of singer Tina Turner in a 1993 interview with the L.A. Times:

Q: In the movie you are depicted as a physically and mentally abusive tyrant. Do you think of yourself as a violent guy?

A: No. The only time I ever punched Tina with my fist was the last fight we had. I hit her after she kneed me in the chest. Prior to that, our fights, or our little slaps, or whatever they were, were all just about attitude. Me and Tina never fought about other women or about her not keeping house or her not taking care of the kids. It was always because she was looking sad and wouldn’t tell me what was wrong with her. She would take that attitude with her on to the stage and that would really depress me. So after the show, I’d end up slapping her or something. But then we’d be OK. [emphasis added. ~crd]

There have been other famous celebrities publicly accused of domestic violence (I’m looking at you, Chris Brown, Charlie Sheen, Mike Tyson, and many others). Personally, I’m conflicted over the media attention. I’m glad to see this issue make the news, but to focus on only celebrity abusers sends the message that this is unusual behavior. Those of us who study domestic violence know that it is all too common.
~crd
*A Few Useful References:
Bograd, M. (1988). How battered women and abusive men account for domestic violence: Excuses, justifications, or explanations? In Hotaling, G., Finkelhor, D., Kirkpatrick, J., and Straus, M. (eds.), Coping With Family Violence: Research and Policy Perspectives,
Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 60–77.
Cantos, A., Neidig, P., and O’Leary, K. D. (1993). Men and women’s attributions of blame for domestic violence. Journal of Family Violence 8(4): 289–302.
Dutton, D. (1986). Wife assaulter’s explanations for assault: The neutralization of self-punishment. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 18(4): 381–390.
Henning, K., A.R. Jones & R. Holdford (2005). “‘I didn’t do it, but if I did I had a good reason.’ Minimization, denial, and attributions of blame among male and female domestic violence offenders. Journal of Family Violence, 20(3), 131-139.
Lila, M., J. Herrero, & E. Gracia (2008). “Evaluating attribution of responsibility and minimization by male batterers: Implications for batterer programs.” The Open Criminology Journal, 1, 4-11.