Rape Culture

Sunday, Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, were found guilty for the rape of a 16 year old girl after a party in Steubenville, Ohio. The evidence included a picture of the two boys with the girl's naked unconscious body on instagram and also video and text messages documenting the barbaric crime. 

CNN's coverage of the Steubenville rape was criticized as being too sympathetic towards the rapists, highlighting that the girl who was raped was "allegedly drunk" and that the two rapists had "bright futures." The article lamented the ruined lives of the rapists with absolutely no mention of how the victim's life is irrevocably damaged.

This story is all too often told, the men pitied and the woman shamed.

This is rape culture. This is what is perpetuated by the media, that women are at fault for rape, that the victim is to blame. Somehow, underneath it all, it is always sort of the woman's fault. She wasn't wearing enough. She had too much to drink. She was asking for it. They're just kids, right? Because boys will be boys, right? 

So instead, women and girls have to take responsibility for rape and sexual assault and protect themselves. Ask any young girl or woman and she will most likely tell you that she was taught at a very young age to walk in groups, stay away from strangers, never go out alone at night, cover up her body. 

If you're a girl, have you ever:
crossed the street just to avoid a strange man
made up a boyfriend in order to be left alone 
talked to no one on the phone while passing a group of men
walked home with keys in between your knuckles
taken the longer route somewhere to avoid strangers
felt uncomfortable walking alone 

This paranoia and fear is almost unconscious. We don't really think about it but the fact that these daily routines and precautions are ingrained in most women is seriously messed up. We can never assume that we are safe.

This is rape culture. Women are taught to be afraid and we are so used to feeling unsafe that we don't even see see that there is something seriously f*cked up with society. 

Why are girls as young as 11 years old taught to be scared to go out after 6 pm but teenage boys at age 16 and 17 were never taught what "NO" means? Why don't boys need to take take responsibility for rape? Why are girls taught to be ashamed of their bodies but boys take pride and receive praise for being sexually active?

Also, the sentence of these juvenile rapists is a minimum of 1 year?!? A few weeks ago a woman was sentenced to jail for 5 years for trying to send her son to a better school and these rapists only get 1 year??? What kind of society do we live in that rape and sexual crime is taken in such a casual manner?

Documentary Essay

The decision of choosing a topic for the documentary film assignment was not an easy one. My group members and I considered many other topics ranging from the homeless to the food industry. We finally decided upon music because it is a common interest among us all. We created a short film delving into the impact that internet has made on musicians and artists and how it has both helped and hindered their careers. Even after finishing the assignment, I am still very interested in the topic and I hope to keep learning about it and I do not regret choosing music. In my opinion, the freedom to select the topic made the whole process more enjoyable and fun.


The most enjoyable part of the film making process for me was the interviewing and how much I learned just by talking to people in the industry. For example, the most surprising thing was learning that many artists actually greatly appreciate the internet and attribute much of their success to internet advertising. Kip Berman of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart talked a lot about this topic and says that the internet has allowed his band's music to be distributed far and wide. Although artists cannot make much money, they are happy to share music and do what they love.

The biggest challenge was time management and also staying true to the theme. Not all of my group members had the same lunch as I do, actually none of them do! So, time was a major factor as we had to do most of the work during class. And then the second challenge was that it was hard picking quotes from our interviews to use because we had a lot of good substance that just did not really relate to the central theme of our film. We had to cut a lot of it out because it was not relevant.

We also worked really hard to not make the film boring or typical. We stayed away from voice-overs and still photos because we did not think that it meshed with our topic. Instead, we used a lot of music from the bands that we interviewed and made a beginning sequence of many classic artists such as my favorite, The Smiths. It was fun to do and fun to watch. And Kyra made a slide for our title, Caught in the Web, that we all designed.

If we could do the project over, I would want to have a clearer idea of where we are going before we interview. That way, we would have better quotes and more footage to choose from. Also, I would want to film more b-roll because I think it can really add more interest into the film. Our teacher, Mr. Mayo, gave a lot of feed back and help throughout the process. With his guidance, I think our project turned out well.