Gang Rape in AHS Season Premiere: Is it Art or Insensitive?

By Uloop Contributor on October 13, 2013
photo via tumblr

photo via tumblr

I was literally one hour late to finding out that the season premiere of the new season of American Horror Story, "Bitchcraft," was showing Wednesday night. While anxiously writhing and waiting until the weekend to watch it with my boyfriend, I did a bit of research, a kind of teaser, on what the theme was and who would be coming back.

I saw a list of names of the familiar powerhouse female actresses in the show and was completely elated to see again the bewitching Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Jamie Brewer(!), Lily Rabe, Frances Conroy and Taissa Farmiga, as well as new casts like Kathy Bates, Gabourey Sidibe, Angela Bassett and Emma Roberts (surprisingly enjoyed her performance.) So yes, I'll admit I was happy about a major female cast (and the delightful inclusion of Evan Peters, a favorite actor. I was hoping Zachary Quinto would come back – I still do.)

My initial reaction to seeing the word "witch" was, to be honest, curious but almost unimpressed. But the creators of AHS are mad geniuses so I didn't get turned off at all. However, it just seemed like it would be so obvious what kind of show this would be  witchcraft, magic and Wiccan rituals (having studied too much as a teenager, I thought it would be regurgitating everything with which I was already familiar.) But alas, after watching the episode, they evidently took a different approach to showing what witches are like in the insane universe of AHS and so I was pleasantly surprised by its unique approach and modern vs. classic witchcraft parallels and introduction of some intense voodoo . . . but I was also left bitter about one certain aspect of this episode.

Not to say that I haven't been scarred by this show numerous times in a slightly sadomasochistic way (as a sucker for horror films and gore), I didn't expect the creators to address sexual assault the way they did in a certain scene during a Frat party involving roofies and Emma Robert's character, a sexualized and highly temperamental movie star.

photo via eonline.com

photo via eonline.com

I'm not trying to say that scenes and themes of the show that have shock value are necessarily bad, but for a season to have an atmosphere with women empowerment, whether diabolical or virtuous and the lines that blur between them, I couldn't understand why the creators would illustrate rape the way they did and not expect some repercussions. I get it, it was kind of a vagina dentata metaphor (what with Zoe's "condition" and then a dazed post-assault-Madison epically flipping over the frat bus in vengeance, of which we know we're going to see a lot of in this show – "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." We see where the creators are going with this, which is pretty awesome. It is empowering.)

But rape is actually something that any person can be extremely sensitive to, more than you would think. There probably won't be any more controversial issues that Murphy and Falchuk can serve raw on a silver platter to their audiences any more than after this season, but personally, I think this time it was actually questionable.When something is created, the intention of the creator during the process is usually highly regarded by the audience but oftentimes you will see something controversial and the majority will read differently or just plainly, like seemingly racist video games, that one Vogue magazine with LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen, among others, or an editorial depicting the suicides of famous female writers. In this case, I understood the intention, but the way it was executed was rather impulsive. Sure, it wasn't shown "explicitly" but it was all there right before our eyes. The drooling and grinning faces of all the assaulters, close-up and heaving, was too sickening. It was as if the viewer could have been experiencing it, and for an actual victim to suddenly have that shoved into their face, visually and mentally, it's like opening old wounds. I know AHS has done "rape" scenes before, attempted and consensual, and then an actual one between Thredson and Lana Winters, but maybe this was too soon for an introductory episode.

Am I wrong in questioning this? Am I being too sensitive to something that's just part of a really great but also really offensive show? Is it art or is it insensitivity? I know they weren't glamorizing rape or the torture and maltreatment of black slaves so don't get me wrong about their abilities as storytellers, its impressive. (I'm sensing an empowerment of not just women but of black people, a vengeance of slavery, perhaps? Minorities is a significant theme – female, black, near extinction of witches – an unshackling of that antiquated and dehumanized "Other." God, I love this show. So yes, I understand why it was what it was, gang-rape being several overpowering one. The vengeance she took was sort of a fantasy come true, of watching heinous wrongdoers fleeing the scene and then getting what was coming to them (she's a telekinetic tempestuous witch after all, they were doomed from the start.) But still, the way it was shot and done, it was so blatant. Were they not aware of how totally wrong this could be?

Did they not think about the fact that one out of six women in the US are rape victims, as well as one in four women in their college years? Plus, 50% of cases of sexual assault aren't even reported to the police as well as there being an ignorant unawareness to the issue of rape, potentially making the number of rape victims higher. Almost everyone knows at least one person who has been raped, and personally, I know more than one. The point is that there's a lot more rape victims out there than you would think.

photo via Pinterest

photo via Pinterest

Objectively, it worked in stirring emotions and really getting that shock value (overrated or not), but it could have been done more implicitly and still have had the same effect. Yes, it made me excruciatingly angry at the frat boys involved and got me yelling at the screen, crying for some seriously hellish witchcraft to be performed (à la Willow on Warren in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) so there's merit in that. But we as viewers weren't watching this from a safe distance as American Horror Story normally gives to us, but through a voyeuristic lens with which we could not separate ourselves from when watching the scene, sort of dragging you in by the ankles, forcing you to sit there and take it without consent.

Maybe that's what's so great about the show, they don't ask for your permission and they break all the rules! So I could just be complaining like some pretentious patron at a high-class restaurant whose steak was just a little too rare and bloody and is now throwing a hissy fit at the waiter and the maitre d'.

So what do you think? Was it too much, even for the American Horror Story? Or was it worth it? Or does it even matter?

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