We rarely hear discussions of rape in today’s media, and when rape does appear in the media, the discussions do not address the key issue: that rape is a serious act of violence against women, and it must be ended. I am focusing on a CNN video from March 31, 2010. The video addresses a videogame that was once available on amazon.com, called “RapeLay”. The object of the videogame is for players to find, corner, and rape women. Players can chose different methods of assault, and they can even get women pregnant and then force them to have abortions (See Article). The CNN video refers to these animated figures as “women”, although they look more like young teenage girls. The videogame was quickly banned from Amazon.com, but apparently it is still available for free download on many websites, and the intense media coverage of this game is largely responsible for it’s availability on the web. While the game itself is disgusting and unacceptable, the way that CNN discussed the game is also extremely disheartening. The entire discussion of the RapeLay game was centered on the idea that parents need to be on the look out for it, to make sure their kids do not play this game. The coverage includes zero discussion of violence against women. This CNN video shows that the media’s portrayals and discussions of rape are extremely skewed and fail to discuss the systemic issues of violence against women in our society. CNN’s portrayal of this videogame sheds light on the fact that discussions of violence against women continue to be stifled in the public sphere, which is consistent with Cynthia Enloe’s argument in her chapter, “Whom Do You Take Seriously?”.
I believe that CNN’s discussion of RapeLay focused on the wrong issues, because the video clip is all about how parents should monitor their children, and it fails to address the issues of violence against women that are present in the videogame. When I began watching the video, I expected the newscasters to address the idea that this game is degrading to women and reflects the violence against women that is present in today’s society. However, the entire story was framed in a way that completely ignored the idea that rape is the central focus of the game. For example, the opening line for the CNN video includes the male newscaster stating “What you are about to see is very disturbing. But parents, we have got to warn you about this videogame, because your kids could get their hands on it! It depicts rape.” It disturbs me that this is framed in terms of parents making sure their children don’t find this game. Of course, I agree that the discussion of parents making an effort to make sure their children do not get a hold of this game should definitely be included in the video segment. However, I think it is despicable that the main focus of the video is not about how degrading the videogame is to women, or about how rape is a serious crime. Cynthia Enloe has an explanation for this phenomenon: the CNN video does not discuss the issue of raping women because our society does not accept the discussion of certain women’s issues in the public sphere.
Enloe explains that a historical way to silence women’s issues has been to keep them out of the public sphere, and making an intense differentiation between the public and private spheres helps with this silencing. I argue that CNN chose to discuss the implications that this videogame has on parents monitoring their children instead of discussing rape as an issue in society because our media culture is afraid to bring rape into the public sphere. For example, at one point in the video, I was excited because I thought the male broadcaster was about to make a point about the issue of rape in the videogame. Instead, to my dismay, he said “this awakens a lot of parents to any violent video games, even if it’s not to this degree. What does this do to our kids, when they are playing the war games, and it’s just graphic violence, over and over again?” I expected him to discuss how this game awakens parents to violence against women, but instead he equated the rape videogame to other videogames that include war and other violence. Again, I believe that CNN used this tactic to guide their discussion because rape is not something that can be discussed in our public sphere, and news on television is about as public as a sphere can get.
After the male broadcaster spoke for a while, a woman named Cheryl was brought into the discussion via webcam. Because she is a woman, I thought that she might bring up a discussion of violence against women. However, her avoidance of the subject was even worse than the male broadcaster’s. Cheryl is apparently the co-founder of the Center for Mental Health and Media, and given this background I definitely expected her to comment on the psychological effects that a videogame like this could have on young girls who could potentially be exposed to it. To my great surprise, in her dialogue with the male broadcaster, Cheryl seemed to give an excuse for the videogame, suggesting that it wouldn’t be that damaging to children who are exposed to it. The male broadcaster asked Cheryl what the effects of this game could have on children, and Cheryl responded that the characters are “very crudely drawn, there is no genitalia shown”. I was infuriated by this response. Cheryl is implicitly suggesting that the game will not tell boys that it is okay to sexually assault girls and that the game willnot terrify young girls, simply because no genitalia is shown. She even goes on to say that it is normal for younger kids (especially boys) to play violent videogames, and she states that violence in our society is decreasing, not increasing. I was completely astounded that Cheryl did not mention the message that this videogame can and will send to children about violence against females. She completely ignored the fact that the violence in the game only targets women, and she essentially equated it to other violent games that involve war.
Similar to the reason that the overall CNN video did not discuss rape, Cheryl did not discuss violence against women because, according to Enloe, women who speak out about violence have historically been disrespected in society. Therefore, it is likely that Cheryl did not delve into a discussion of rape or violence against women because she felt that discussing the topic in such a public sphere would cause her to no longer be a “respectful woman”. Enloe explains that “in many societies, in many eras it has been deemed improper for any “respectable” woman to speak at a public meeting” (Enloe 75), let alone speak about rape in a public setting. Enloe also mentions that, historically, women have not only been disrespected for speaking in public about sensitive issues, but they have also been labeled as “prudish” or as lesbians for speaking about certain topics pertaining to women’s rights (Enloe 78). The fear of having these labels imposed on herself prevented Cheryl from discussing violence against women in the video. Cheryl, like so many women, was silenced.
We know that speaking about women’s issues is largely kept out of the public sphere. This known fact raises a question: Why does this CNN video about the RapeLay videogame exist at all, then? Why did the videogame receive any media coverage, if it is about rape? Enloe provides us with the answer to this question. Although women’s issues are generally not discussed in public, Enloe states that “violence against women almost everywhere has been a topic kept out of the public arena or only sporadically and very selectively allowed into it in the form of a “scandal””(Enloe 73). While our media ignores most rape cases, the RapeLay videogame was brought into the public sphere because of its scandalous nature. Although violence against women is common in our society, videogames depicting this violence are rare, but they produce public interest. Because the videogame was a “scandal”, it was brought into the public arena and was given media coverage.
CNN’s video coverage of the RapeLay videogame serves as a prime example of Enloe’s idea that discussions of women’s issues are silenced in the public sphere. Instead of discussing the videogame in terms of how it is extremely degrading and frightening for women, the videogame is simply discussed in terms of how parents should monitor their children’s videogame use. Not only does the framework of this discussion completely ignore women’s issues, but the woman who participates in the discussion never mentions the effect that this game has on both girls and boys in terms of legitimizing violence against women. The media avoids discussions of violence against women because the topic has historically been silenced in the public sphere. Cheryl does not bring up the discussion, and nor does the male broadcaster, because women have historically been devalued for speaking about women’s issues publicly. According to Enloe, the only reason that this story even made it into the mainstream media is because it was scandalous, and people are attracted to scandalous stories. In the future, I sincerely hope that CNN handles stories like this one in a very different fashion. Clearly, the main issue with the RapeLay videogame was how it encourages violence towards women. CNN failed to discuss this issue, and instead framed the story in a way to avoid bringing a discussion of violence against women into the public sphere.
Enloe, Cynthia. The Curious Feminist. Univ. of California Press, 2004.
CNN Video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/03/31/pn.rapelay.parent.outrage.cnn?iref=videosearch
CNN Article: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-30/world/japan.video.game.rape_1_game-teenage-girl-japanese-government?_s=PM:WORLD
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