by Amerra Bukhari"I had turned a monster into art." “GRAB HER BY THE P***Y!” is what you probably heard on the radio and watched on the television, spoken by our president, Donald Trump. He uttered those words in a trailer with an entertainment news reporter, Billy Bush. The recording of what he said was leaked during Trump is campaigning though few months later he was elected as our 45th president. Now my question is how could we vote for someone who holds such disrespect toward women? I question the women who voted for him, how could they bring themselves to the voting booth and color in the circle next to his name? Maybe they didn’t see that it was a big deal or they chose to ignore that he is promoting a rape culture. Emilie Buchwald, author of Transforming a Rape Culture described rape culture as “a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women… condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.” Rape culture stems from rape, where aggression and violence toward women and has become the standard. It is the society’s beliefs that also encourage the furthering of rape culture. Trump is an influential person, whatever he says and/or does is picked up by people, who think it is ok to say such things and later act on it. The recording of what Trump said in the trailer was played during a performance called Seeing Rape, held in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay – College of Criminal Justice. The performance was broken down into ten plays written by 16 John Jay students and acted out by New York City actors. The plays were written as part of a course called Seeing Rape taught by Professors Shonna Trinch and Barbra Cassidy, where students studied how rape is viewed in society, law, politics, literature, poetry, war, religion and education. The plays were called: The Movement, A Modern Romance, The Girl, Cycles End, The Blind Reflection, An Ordinary Day, La familia de Papa, Unintended, Colorful Markers and Jubilee. The mini plays performed showed the ugly side of our society; how screwed up their mentality toward rape/sexual assault can be. Along with the fabulous performances, I want to point out the language used in the plays, which I observed was a bit too vulgar for the crowd. There was a lot of cursing and sexual innuendos made. For instance, in one of the plays called The Modern Romance, four girls were talking about their Tinder dates gone wrong and a topic of men on Tinder. One girl said “salty corn flakes”, after her friend said that men like to make anything sexual. Which was supposed to mean the “men’s fluid” being used in the cereal. I heard people sitting next to me gasp and laugh at the same time. Majority of the attendees were college students but there were aged people and young children. I heard a little girl in the theater and I was pretty shocked because why would someone bring their young children to a play that has such vulgar language and knew it was inappropriate event for children? What I am saying is, the parents knew about the topic of this performance and expected some sort of vulgarity, it would have been sensible to not bring a young child. I am not going to tell parents where to and not to bring their young children but if that little girl was a child of mine, she would not be sitting there. I personally did not find the language to be appalling because I hear it being used around me; was not fazed at all. Another example of vulgar language used was during the play Colorful Markers, where two male friends meet up and one of them describes the high school party he attended. In short, it was about a gang rape of a drunk girl; where several boys wrote, and drew all over her body using markers. For instance, they drew penises all over, wrote “slut, bitch, whore” and other “colorful” words. The part that got to me was when one of the boy started inserting the marker inside her vagina. Now for the older and young people sitting in the theater, it must have been very uncomfortable because a friend of mine told me that he saw someone walk out when the two men on stage started describing the rape of the vulnerable girl. Lastly, my point in bring up the language used in the plays was because there were people from different generations in attendance, maybe they are not used to hearing this sort of language in their home, people they associate with, work place, and most importantly they do not use this type of language. Aside from the vulgar language, I want to add a few comments. First of all, I want to applaud the actors and playwrights for their hard work. They took a sensitive issue and showed it to the audience through real life instances, it felt very real and personal to me. The idea of seeing and not seeing rape in our society is a big problem because some people do not fully know what counts as rape, maybe they know and choose to ignore and do what they want and some keep quiet about it they fear retaliation. I personally feel that media plays a big part in spreading rape and promoting a rape culture, they might show something in a humorous way but this is not something that should be joked about. Preventing rape is what everyone should talk about, for example this performance was a way of showing and telling and getting the message of knowing what rape is, to people of all ages.
2 Comments
John McDonnell
5/15/2017 11:23:39 pm
The writer's opinion or outlook on a regrettably harsh comments. Are unchangeable and unforgiving. Why? Because of taught biased. Encouraged by the institution that instills the very essence of our future leaders of tomorrow. Example has anyone ever said or agreed with a certain belief or opinion solely to be accepted? We all have. If making mistakes and being in the public eye means that young future leaders believe that a mans comments long ago make him a rape condoner. If that's truly what you believe . remember that when someone close to you is condemned and ridiculed for past deeds spoken in a locker room or a living room. So be careful when judging others with a closed mind. People love stirring the pot. But don't do it themselves (. A.k.a coward's) they always have others carry out there beliefs and opinions and make our young mind's think it's there own. Always be involved but be cautious and diligent about who and what you are getting involved in. Food for thought. Peace to all
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