Is rape horror deal braker?

Last House on the Left 2009

Today there was a posting on Jezebel concerning the latest 70’s horror regurgitation Last House on the Left.  It was entitled  Horrifying Last House On The Left Rape Scene Merits Only R Rating, which sums up the topic and overall theme of the post. 

The original film was similarly received upon its release, having crossed the elusive line of human sensibilities.  It was deemed too twisted (which I suppose means too many young girls are needlessly degraded. Fine.) and promptly forgotten in the shadow of its equally gory, but perhaps more gender neutral, offspring, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the Thirteenth(though this is debatable). Or perhaps it was the film’s lack of sequel exploiting possibilities – any and all interesting characters having been killed off by the end of the movie. Wait…

But what, I wonder, made audiences shield their moral eye from this film in particular. The critics have all gotten stuck on the inclusion of a very graphic and allegedly “excruciating to watch” rape scene (which, I admit, I have not seen) – a gritty cinematic re-creation that seems to pose an irritating obstacle for many silver screen button-pushers.  To some, it may seem like an ignorant question (and certainly an offensive one to many), but why does the unconsentual plunging of a penis into the body pose more of a moral threat than the same intrusion with a knife or an ax or a hook (without getting into any symbolic comparisons please)?  Is it the element of sexual deviance that remains so unwaveringly taboo, while senseless, gruesome, as-much-of-the-inside-outside-as-possible murder has become somehow unshocking and more often than not hailed by the wide-eyed horror buffs (my being one of them). The idea that one person is fulfilled in some twisted sense and the other has been irrevocably robbed is true of both.   Perhaps it is the topic of male/female power dynamics, the act and all it encompasses standing as an eternal reminder of the subordination we can’t seem to shake. But many would find the same act performed on a man just as horrific, if not more.  So what then?  Is it the ability to bring a person to such a degree of degradation and humiliation that so offends? Of course. But a person can be degraded to this extent in more ways than one. I admit that all of the arguments under the sun including the latter are valid. No matter the reason, one topic has emerged as an infinite source of entertainment while the other remains with the morally unspeakable.  In response to some of the film’s criticisms, it has been suggested that the only difference is simply the audience’s lack of desensitization to the “realities” of rape due to its limited graphic portrayal.  If this is the case, is this another line we will inevitably cross? Geez. I may be merely pointing out the obvious, but the whole thing left me spinning in circles.

Original post: http://jezebel.com/5169334/horrifying-last-house-on-the-left-rape-scene-merits-only-r-rating