Chapter the Tenth: In Which My Nose Itches.
So I've been busy of late sitting around writing papers. Yesterday would have been a good day for a blog post, it being a day off, but I had to read about 300 pages of
Sister Carrie and 75 of a book on radical women in Lawrence, MA.
Why a day off, you ask?
Smith has this holiday called Rally Day. It is a rather interesting holiday in terms of it being not for anything in particular save glorification of Smith. I believe it was originally for George Washington's birthday, but over the years, that has changed. Most of us view it as a day that involves sleeping in. This year I took the advantage of being able to drink like a fish the night before and crash all of that day. I'm fairly certain that the group I was with was not the only one partakin' of the bacon.
Where the hell did that come from?
The reason I like to drink at Smith is the fact that it feels much safer than elsewhere. Maybe that's the people I'm with, but I can walk home across campus at 3 AM almost sober again, and not have a panic moment. Perhaps this is something that encourages bad habits, but I'm all for a relatively safe space for women.
Rape came up today at the dinner table in a discussion about
Boys Don't Cry. J, a senior and a film minor, who I've seen hold her own entirely, admitted that she cannot watch rape scenes in movies. She said that someone thought she'd been raped because she wouldn't watch the scenes...and that she told him, 'No, it's because I'm a woman and face it every day.' I don't have as much of an issue with watching films with rape scenes...I should point out that I don't like sexual scenes of any sort in movies, consensual or not. Sex makes me embarrassed. Rape scenes make me ill.
It's more the fact that I feel this obligation to watch everything filmed out of respect for the filmmaker and actors and crew. I feel if someone put effort into a film, I'm going to watch it. That doesn't mean I'll like it, but I'll watch it. I think that by watching a rape scene, if it's done in a non-erotic manner, I gain a greater resolve to fight the issue in reality. If it's done in an erotic manner, which should NOT occur, I gain a greater resolve to keep filmmakers from repeating this mistake.
I wonder if this means something's wrong with me.
And now, I'm going to go watch
Kill Bill V. 1. Seriously. You know where to send the hate mail.
