RAPE-REVENGE & RAPE-RESPONSE: NARRATIVES OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE & JUSTICE IN THE TV MOVIE
BY JENNIFER WALLIS
“Years ago, girls didn’t get murdered like they do today. It’s all that women’s lib stuff.” The Bait (1973)
The rape-revenge genre, typified by such films as I Spit on Your Grave (1978) and Ms.45 (1981), is one that has been amply covered by cult film critics in recent years.1 Usually beginning with a graphic depiction of rape, the films follow their female protagonists as they personally—and violently—wreak their revenge, “[rejecting] the legal process as a means of redress for the victim.”2 Alongside these well-known examples, rape-revenge narratives also occur in a number of TV movies throughout the 1970s and 1980s. As Alexandra Heller-Nicholas has noted, many of these made for TV ventures coincided with their bigger-budget counterparts.3 The rape-revenge TV movie differed in several respects, however, largely by virtue of its intended audience. Unlike the cinematic rape-revenge film, generally marketed to the young male viewer, the TV movie was from its early days geared toward a predominantly female audience, reflected in its evening scheduling that capitalized upon housewives’ free time.4
Promotional ad for a rerun of Revenge for a Rape.
The 1970s are often identified as the golden age of TV movies, as networks invested more heavily in the genre and sought content tied into contemporary issues. Screened as one-off events, TV movies were an arena where social problems were presented with a sense of urgency, and throughout the 1970s there was a plethora of issues to choose from.5 A renewed focus on crime during the 1960s and 1970s coincided with second wave feminism; rape was high on the agenda as feminist groups publicly attacked rape myths, and established rape crisis centers. The law came under increasing scrutiny, with individual cases highlighting the inadequacy of rape laws and the pervasiveness of victim-blaming within the legal system. In 1977, the overturning of a man’s conviction for raping a hitchhiker prompted protests when the court ruled that any woman accepting a lift in such a way should expect sexual advances.6 The trial of Inez Garcia in 1974, who shot and killed a man involved in her rape, also attracted protest when her charge of second-degree murder was announced; the dramatization The People vs. Inez Garcia aired in 1977, the same year that she was acquitted of all charges. Discussions about rape were readily incorporated into TV programming, with television becoming a campaign space via documentaries such as The Rape Victims (1977) and political campaigns that included the testimony of rape survivors (a method used by New York Governor Malcolm Wilson in 1974).7
Whilst legal developments and media attention suggested positive changes, the 1970s were nevertheless a period of transition as the courts, police, media, and the public came to grips with new terminology and conceptions surrounding sexual assault. In many TV movies dealing with the issue, the messages about rape that are presented correspond with what Maria Bevacqua terms the ‘public agenda’ model of rape, in which rape is a matter of law and psychology to be controlled with tougher laws, an act committed by strangers, and something that threatens the safety of “our” women—and thus the American nation as a whole.8
The TV movie that comes closest to the typical rape-revenge format is 1976’s Revenge for a Rape, in which a couple’s vacation in the mountains becomes a nightmare when the woman is raped by a group of local hunters and subsequently miscarries the baby she and her husband were expecting. Rather than the victim enacting revenge, the film is told through the eyes of her husband who seeks out the rapists. The plot quickly descends into a generic chase thriller, with the rape an act that is little more than a rationale for the ensuing action. Unbeknownst to the husband is that he’s chasing the wrong guys, his wife having identified a different group of men. Revenge for a Rape explicitly declares that a woman’s identification of a suspect is unreliable, whilst critiquing the vigilantism of her husband. It’s notable that this film, as the TV movie closest to the rape-revenge model, places the action in a rural area—hunting season is presented as a frenzy of primitive impulses, with an apathetic sheriff declaring that the period brings “nothing but trouble.” Seeking personal revenge is presented in an equally irrational light, with the husband’s pursuit of the hunters fuelled by a furious rage at the death of his unborn child (more so than his wife’s suffering).
More typical of the genre is what I have termed the “rape-response” TV movie. Jacinda Read identifies such a variant of the rape-revenge film appearing in the 1980s, characterized by a legal focus that emphasized the futility of vigilante action.9 This trend is particularly evident in TV movies of the 1970s and early 1980s. Here, rape occurs in an urban or suburban landscape, where the act of rape is frequently depersonalized and its effects extended to the wider family or community. In Silent Witness (1985) for example, the victim’s family attempt to bribe her into silence, and the impact of jail sentences upon the rapists’ families is emphasized. These TV movies position the city as a threatening space for women, drawing upon contemporary discussions of street harassment and women’s use of public space. In The Bait (1973), a newsstand attendant seeks out the name of the “nice pretty girl” he’s just served, and the heroine of the film—cop Tracey (Donna Mills)—intervenes when a man flashes two young girls on a bus. More often, rape takes place in the home—as in The Sheriff (1971) or A Case of Rape (1974)—with the act of rape an attack on the sanctity of the American family.
The aftermath of rape in the rape-response movie is concerned less with personal trauma than the use of legal channels to punish the perpetrator. At a time when politicians were putting forward a “tough on crime” line, the rape-response TV movie is sometimes strident in its criticism of legal apparatus and procedures. Both Cry Rape (1973) and A Case of Rape were explicit in this regard. In the latter, screened on NBC in February 1974, victim Ellen (Elizabeth Montgomery) is subjected to humiliating medical examinations and legal processes are scrutinized. Juries are portrayed as ill-educated, as professionals buy their way out of jury service, and existing rape laws are described as not “mak[ing] much sense anymore.” Some films were more specific than others in their exploration of current rape law, especially those based on real cases. In 1978 the Rideout case was widely reported in the media, in which John Rideout had been taken to court by his wife Greta on a rape charge. The case was the first ever marital rape charge—laws surrounding rape between spouses were sketchy and varied between states (it was only in 1993 that marital rape became a crime in all fifty states).10 The subsequent dramatization, Rape and Marriage: The Rideout Case (1980), was notable in its attempt to present the case to viewers in much the same way as a court might present evidence to a jury: events were told from the perspective of both husband and wife, with no concrete conclusion forthcoming (this was a model also followed by 1984’s When She Says No).
Clockwise from above: Elizabeth Montgomery challenges the audience’s perceptions of sexual assault in A Case of Rape; Donna Mills fights off an attacker in The Bait; and Patty Duke takes on the system in The Violation of Sarah McDavid.
In its desire to present different sides of the story, the rape itself becomes almost incidental to Rape and Marriage and this is a theme that can be seen elsewhere. In The Violation of Sarah McDavid (1981), the act of rape is just one of several examples of “misbehavior” plaguing a high school, with teacher Sarah McDavid’s (Patty Duke) final public discussion of the incident used to illustrate the inadequate management of the school rather than her personal suffering. Similarly, The Sheriff uses the rape of a young black woman to expose the entrenched racism of a small town, with justice for the victim reliant upon the willingness of white townspeople to speak up against their white neighbors.
The Sheriff, like most of the other films under study here, also addresses popular rape myths and the issue of victim-blaming, with the fact that victim Janet (Brenda Sykes) wasn’t a virgin introduced as evidence in court. The idea that women could “invite” rape on account of their dress or actions appears repeatedly: in the lingering shots of Candra in The Awakening of Candra (1983), the questioning of Sarah McDavid’s regard for her personal safety (“What was she doing in there with the door unlocked?”),11 or Tracey’s comments when she fails to be attacked during a police sting in The Bait (“Guess I’m not as irresistible as I thought”).
The most direct deconstruction of rape myths, however, occurs in two unusual examples that portray male victims, It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy (1974) and The Rape of Richard Beck (1985). It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy employs, staggeringly, comedy to explore the issue at hand: Harry (Paul Sorvino) accepts a lift from a woman who drives him to a secluded spot before forcing him to have sex at gunpoint. The film is an unusual mixture of apparently serious commentary and slapstick humor, as officers roll their eyes in response to his claims of being raped by a woman, accompanied by a jaunty soundtrack. Whatever the film’s intentions (and they seem purposefully obtuse throughout), any good is undone by the final scene, in which the rape is incorporated into the couple’s role-playing fantasies—his wife, lying in bed, invites him to “get in the car.”
VHS artwork for the controversial and groundbreaking telefilm The Rape of Richard Beck, starring Richard Crenna.
The Rape of Richard Beck makes its stance much clearer. This is perhaps unsurprising: director Karen Arthur also directed A Bunny’s Tale (1985), based on Gloria Steinem’s investigation into the working conditions in Playboy clubs. Beck is an officer reassigned from homicide to sex crimes as punishment for making a deal with a prisoner, and is a stereotypical misogynist. Speaking to a terrified rape victim cowering naked inside a phone booth, he barks “You can’t stay [here] all day. What if somebody wants to make a call?” and later jokes to his fellow officers about how “hot” he got dragging her to the police car. Beck’s rape takes place within the “underground city tour” attraction that he visits as part of his unofficial “safaris” (opportunities for unchecked police brutality), and the rape (carried out by two men) is portrayed as an act of power and control rather than sexual desire. After the incident, numerous rape myths are explicated: he was somewhere he shouldn’t have been (“You’ve been asking for it,” says a colleague), and the fact that he gave up his gun to his attackers rather than putting up a fight, fuels rumors that he was in the habit of voluntarily engaging in casual sex. Beck’s experience forces a change in him, as he begins to work more sympathetically with sexual assault victims and give lectures to officers in training. Despite the number of TV movies addressing rape at a time when the issue was being publicly discussed by the growing women’s movement, it is striking that one of those most effective in its critique of rape myths and official responses has a man at the center of its narrative.
The Rape of Richard Beck is an unusual example, yet illustrative of a central feature of the TV movie in which women are rarely independent instigators of retribution or change. Rape is frequently presented as an act that has as much of an impact, if not more, on husbands and families: Ellen’s husband in A Case of Rape says that “It was done to both of us,” while 1981’s The Other Victim makes the experience of the victim’s husband its primary concern. As a crime with an impact beyond the emotional and physical suffering of the victim, rape becomes symbolic of national breakdown (as Sarah McDavid pulls herself up from the classroom floor after her attack, it’s no accident that the shot also contains a sorry-looking American flag). As a format with strict time constraints, though, the TV movie’s structure also militated against any in-depth analysis of complex issues like rape. Further, it was a genre that tended to reflect conservative right wing ideologies; as a consequence, it rarely gave its female stars center stage as agents in the fight against rape. Instead, it emphasized the legal options for seeking redress. At the same time, these legal avenues were portrayed in an unsatisfactory light: women are frequently seen being “coached” by lawyers or activists, particularly in Rape and Marriage where the influence of a local women’s group is akin to brainwashing. If women were not to be encouraged to take matters into their own hands, neither should they place their faith in the courts or other advisors. This seemingly conflicted message, though, well reflected the contemporary climate and active debates about rape that were being played out in the public arena during the 1970s and 1980s.
1See especially A. Heller-Nicholas, Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study and J. Read, The New Avengers.
2A. Young, The Scene of Violence: Cinema, Crime, Affect, p.50.
3Heller-Nicholas, Rape-Revenge Films, p.65.
4Though the 1970s saw TV stations seeking to expand their audiences, women remained a central component of the TV movie audience. G. Edgerton, Journal of Popular Film and Television 19 (1991).
5S. Hilgartner and C.L. Bosk, “The Rise and Fall of Social Problems: A Public Arenas Model”, American Journal of Sociology 94; L.J. Schulze, “Getting Physical: Text/Context/Reading and the Made-for-Television Movie”, Cinema Journal 25, p.37.
6M. Bevacqua, Rape on the Public Agenda, p.131.
7Ibid., pp.119–20, p.126.
8Ibid., p.134.
9Read, The New Avengers, pp.206–10.
10Another notable example of a movie based on a real case was Silent Witness (1985), which drew upon the 1983 Big Dan’s case (also dramatized in 1988 feature film The Accused), in which a woman was raped by a group of men in a Massachusetts bar.
11Many TV movies mirror the ‘women in peril’ thriller discussed by Peter Hutchings, in which rape victims are either independent women or taking part in activities outside the home. In A Case of Rape, the rape takes place inside the home after the victim has returned from an evening class. P. Hutchings, “ ‘I’m the Girl He Wants to Kill’: The ‘Women in Peril’ Thriller in 1970s British Film and Television’”, Visual Culture in Britain 10.