The Lolita Effect by Gigi Durham

Author:Gigi Durham [Durham, Gigi]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2019-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

All of this adds up to the fourth myth of the Lolita Effect: that violence against women is sexy. Images of violence against women are pervasive: on billboards, in magazines, on television. A magazine ad for the upscale Dolce and Gabbana clothing line features a man having sex with a woman, while other men stand around watching. The scene implies a gang rape. The models in the ad are beautiful, and they look intense and turned on. The woman does not appear to be afraid. The gang rape is implicitly justified.

An ad for Cesare Paciotti shoes shows a man stepping on a beautiful, red-lipsticked woman’s face.

An ad for Radeon gaming software depicts a topless young woman with the product’s name branded on her back: the brand is red and raw.

When I show these images in my classes, the students say they are “sexy.” I ask them to imagine a puppy, or a little boy, in these situations: they are shocked. The images of violence are arousing only when the violence is aimed at girls.

The debates about sex and violence in the media have always hinged on the issue of causality: the media, it is widely argued, don’t cause people to go out and perpetrate violence.

That’s true. Audiences don’t watch something in the media and then run out and imitate it immediately. Media influences are far more subtle and gradual than any simplistic “imitation theory” could explain.

While the media may not cause our behaviors, they are culture mythmakers: they supply us, socially, with ideas and scripts that seep into our consciousness over time, especially when the myths are constantly recirculated in various forms. They accentuate certain aspects of social life and underplay others. They are a part of a larger culture in which these myths are already at work, making it possible for the myths to find fertile ground in which to take root and flourish. They can reinforce certain social patterns and trends, and invalidate others. They can gradually and insidiously shape our ways of thinking, our notions of what is normal and what is deviant, and our acceptance of behaviors and ideas that we see normalized on television, in films, and in other forms of popular culture. The myths are sugarcoated: they are aesthetically appealing, emotionally addictive, and framed as cutting-edge and subversive. But violence against women is neither edgy nor subversive: the violent abuse of women has been around for a long time. It’s important to recognize that media-generated sexual violence against girls highlights and perpetuates a well-established system of brutalization.

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