What We Never See About Sexual Trauma Onscreen

In Jessica M. Thompson’s The Light of the Moon, a woman rediscovers intimacy with her boyfriend after she is raped while walking home. The film is naturalistic, showing the small details that often come with the aftermath of a rape—the hospital trip to gather evidence, the hesitancy to get close to anyone, and the fear of returning to the circumstances in which she was attacked. Though he first struggles to understand her and what she went through, the two regain their physicality, and he is able to help her slowly get past the assault.

This is far from the only film telling the story of a woman recovering with the help of a man in her life. So where are the stories of women, whether connected platonically or romantically, where one helps the other through the aftermath of sexual assault?

In film, seemingly the only being a woman can seek comfort in is a kind, understanding man that helps her through her problems. Because cinema must protect the idea of the “good man”, this man that is above the cyclical patriarchal cruelty, and with every monstrous rapist there must be a foil, that will guide a “damaged” woman through. This trope exists to hide that rape is a seduction game for men, a tool in a game of object and desire to get what they want.

To always present this nice man as a contrast is to say that as long as a man has not personally raped a woman, he is absolved of sin, and is a savior and protector who is immortalized. This idea must always exist because cinema does not believe in rape as a culture, but as singular acts, when the power structures of society have aligned to allow it to go on. Without the man who comforts a battered woman, who reignites her sexuality and brings her back into the realm of comfort, this culture is exposed for the men, and some women of privilege, who uphold it for their own protection. These kind, nurturing men are not the rule, but cinema projects them as such, as history has always been patriarchal, and cinema is history itself.

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We have not reached a point of being able to show male violence against women in mainstream cinema without later absolving the patriarchy. Rape culture does not exist within the Hollywood consciousness, nor does it exist in the patriarchal world arthouse canon. A rapist is always a man who is seen as evil by all of society, and isn’t someone known by the victim. This tactic is at the core of the neoliberal value system, claiming it depicts these narratives, while only acknowledging that the problem of sexual assault exists, not that there is a broader societal failing that allows it to continue. It’s a masked attack on a street at night, snatched while walking home alone, never a partner or a colleague or any familiar face.

Cinema wants us to believe that the only men that would do such a thing are already pariahs, when in reality so many of them are ingrained in society and uplifted. Look at how men like Harvey Weinstein, Adam Donaghey, and Roman Polanski have been able to operate so long through paid off secrets and exchanges of power; the story of the hidden abuser cannot be told until the film industry ends its tradition of building rapport on sexual favors and abuse. The history of cinema is inextricably entwined with this history of the white patriarchal system’s domination, and this history is what limits it.

Finding comfort in men often serves to bring women back to their role as a sexual being at the service of the male will, consistently portraying an active desire to return to stable heterosexual normalcy. Rarely do we see a fear of men develop, a part of trauma that is all too commonplace in reality, but is rarely awarded screen time. We never get these flashbacks, jumps at a movement so similar to one before trauma, or heartbeats pulsing as a scratchy cheek comes closer.

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No, we get the internalization, always the idea of women thinking of themselves as “damaged goods” after, when that’s always the easiest patriarchal reading of a woman assaulted. This internalization is projected as a reminder that it’ll never be the same for these women, but not in how they interact with the world, but with how the world interacts with them. Cinema awards the men in these women’s lives more internal complexity than them, giving a narrative to these relationships instead of personal growth.

Ida Lupino’s Outrage portrays a rare moment in which PTSD manifests naturally, where our protagonist has a man come near and attempt to kiss her, and she flashes back to her trauma, hitting him in fear. Her relived memory of the incident sparked by the forced intimacy with this strange man is raw and painful, and in a film that isn’t allowed to use the word rape due to Hayes Code restrictions, is still able to show how rape warps women’s perceptions of the world around them, and how memories of trauma always return.

When we see solidarity between women after sexual trauma, it always comes as violence. Virginie Despentes’ Baise-Moi is a radical contradiction of the ‘rape revenge’ subgenre in how it shows these women take charge of their bodies within their anger. They operate with a brashness usually only awarded to men, on a violent rampage after they are both raped. They do not have a target, or a plan, which makes it differ from the genre, that shows direct revenge as a consequence for an attack. It also differs in the way they reclaim sexuality, having rough, often blended with violence, sexual relations with countless men afterwards in which they hold the power in the encounter.

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Patty Jenkins also brings female solidarity to her story of violent rape revenge in Monster. The thriller isn’t just notable for the romantic relationship between the two women, as it is based on the real life of serial killer Aileen Wournos. When Aileen is raped, she seeks comfort from her girlfriend afterwards, and the two women grow closer even without sharing precisely what happened. Of course, after the self defense killing of her violent rapist, she embarks on a killing spree of any man that comes near her as an outlet for her trauma, and this mars the relationship between the couple.

In general, this relishing of a violent lashing out after a sexually traumatic experience is part of the fetishistic nature of cyclical violence. It places women on the same plane, stating that they can be cruel too, that they can hurt just like men can, but never get to deal the first blow. This revenge is sweet when it comes, it’s justice served for once, but what comes before it is never directly dealt with. It’s an eroticization of the crazed woman, a violent vengeance that is framed as equal to the rape that comes before. Retaliation is painted as gory glory, gleaming blood splatters in a fight back that never feels quite equal.

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On the contemporary side, there’s Revenge, praised by many critics as feminist for simply having a female director and cutting midway through the rape scene to show a closed door instead, despite the film’s core values not differing from the typical rape revenge. Though the protagonist eventually brutally kills her captors, the survivalist Western allows them to maim her brutally throughout the runtime, and the film takes great delight in showing her bleeding and in pain. While her captors do receive brutal deaths, they are cut away soon after and are shown with no less respect than the girl they raped and left for dead.

Of course, confrontation can be avoided together, and instead the women’s arc that is portrayed is one of denial. This denial comes in the form of the beginning of Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. Michele (Isabelle Huppert) is raped, and proceeds to throw away her damaged dress, sweep away the broken glass of smashed vase, shower away any evidence, and go about with the rest of her day. The attack shakes her, but she hopes to just forget instead. It is similar in All Good, also showing a woman who tries to pretend none of it had happened to her.

This refusal to confront one’s own trauma is one of the most realistic approaches, and though it is not the healthiest, this is a realistic way many react, hoping to rid themselves of any reminders, begging to move on. Perhaps it is dangerous when we see men depicting women’s trauma in this way. If not careful they can make light of it, by not showing the lingering effects, or worse, use this denial to absolve a predator for the sake of narrative.

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Pedro Almodovar’s Talk To Her is a particularly egregious example of the latter, focusing on a comatose woman, who is raped, and impregnated by her rapist. He is persecuted for this when she is found pregnant, and she miscarries, which wakes her from the coma. The rapist is then credited as saving her life, and she has no memory of the incident. Here, the forgetting is not a coping mechanism, but a plot device to morally absolve an ethically void male character. It is an easy way out for many filmmakers to claim a female character deals with her trauma this way, allowing the shock of the rape to be used while avoiding the difficulties in writing trauma, recovery, and justice.

Women are seen finding solidarity and comfort through other struggles, so why are we never allowed to help each other past sexual trauma? in Jean-Claude Brisseau’s Céline, a nurse who has in the past struggled with depression and suicide attempts rescues a younger girl who has tried to take her own life. And the two learn from one another, and develop a relationship based on mutual healing, and learning to coexist with their world, even when cruel. Margaret Betts’ Novitiate shows two young nuns in training find physical comfort together, as they’ve realized their connection with god cannot make up for their loneliness. “Please, please, please comfort me”, one says to convent-mate, and fingers grasp at whatever they can as they kiss, longing for physical affection to console them from their isolation.

In Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs, a young woman comforts her best friend and helps her cope with PTSD induced hallucinations after being tortured by a cult as a child. While the two are subjected to unparalleled physical brutality throughout the film (but notably never anything sexual), in their understanding of trauma they share models of what we should be seeing when it comes to solidarity. It is only in these extremes removed from society that we see these tender comforts.

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We are allowed to see women comfort each other, and form these transformative, life-changing relationships, but we never get a show of solidarity as they unpack the sexual trauma that haunts them, an experience many sexual assault survivors repeat with every subsequent romantic entanglement. We never get women re-entering the world of sex and romance after rape to be with another women. It’s almost as if rape has been made a commodity of heterosexual pain, one that can only be shared with the men in one’s life, while it is almost overwhelmingly the opposite. We can see women comfort each other in their troubles, and we can see the aftermath of sexual assault, but we are not afforded the representation of both.

The closest we get to showing any explicit solidarity and comfort between women is found on the small screen, with Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You as the most recent entry in this neocanon of realistically depicted experiences. In Les Revenants, while Julie (Céline Sallette) is stabbed multiple times in the abdomen to the point of miscarrying and near death instead of being raped when she encounters a mysterious man in a highway tunnel while walking alone at night, the psychological and physical effect is much the same. She distances herself from her girlfriend, and the two drift apart for years before re-entering one another’s lives, and sharing a moment of intimacy in which Julie talks about the psychological marks the incident has left on her. And her fear of sexual intimacy after the attack is shown when her partner tries to lift her shirt to expose where she has heavy scarring.

This rediscovered intimacy between romantic partners is rarer still with two women, and Julie being a lesbian is not insignificant here. While many gripe about how lesbian characters are always given a background in which they were raped in the past, how often do we actually see lesbian and bisexual women onscreen dealing with their sexual trauma, or having it be known? Jenny Schecter from The L Word is the most visible example of the supposed trope, with her revealed backstory of childhood sexual abuse, but her story is not a common one. While we are statistically more likely to suffer sexual abuse, especially with corrective rape as a factor, lesbians aren’t awarded the same trauma recovery narratives as our heterosexual counterparts.

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A common misconception is that these storylines would perpetuate the harmful myth that all lesbians must have been raped by a man in the past to turn them. But by actively erasing lived realities to avoid narrative twisting for a clearly ridiculous line of reasoning we are avoiding the truth. Those of us who live our lives without romantic ties to men, as well as other women who love women, should be able to see those like us cope with abuse at the hands of men that so many of us have experienced. But any form of relationship between women is constantly discarded to instead uphold the image of the anti-rapist, an average man that would never do such a horrible thing.

Showing women comforted by their male romantic partners, reacting with violence as a means of revenge, or trying their best to pretend the assault never happened aren’t bad ways to depict rape victims’ recovery per say. However, the prevalence of these, and the staunch avoidance of showing comfort between women without any of the above lays cinema’s lingering discomfort with women’s trauma and solidarity bare before us.

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However, it still doesn’t break with one of the main pillars of the limited depictions of women going through their sexual trauma realistically (no, The Last House on the Left and I Spit On Your Grave don’t count), where the women we see are always thin, white, heterosexual women. The ideal of the pale, traditionally delicate woman who is abused is still upheld by almost all, even the most progressive depictions, and shows how far we have to come in the realm of television towards accurately and respectfully depicting the lived experiences of sexual assault survivors.

BUT WAIT

Nearly six months into this essay’s time in the depths of my drive, having gone untouched as many publications didn’t seem to want to touch it with a ten foot pole, I stumbled upon a film that breaks these unfortunate cinematic rules of the road. Martha Coolidge’s 1976 documentary reenactment of her own assault Not a Pretty Picture received limited theatrical showings in major cities in its day, and very rarely appears in arthouse repertory screenings today.

Actress Michelle Manenti plays Martha at sixteen, and her connection to the material is not lost. She was date raped at the same age, and the two women converse about their experiences, and how they react to intimacy now, as well as their own view of the event. Coolidge takes on a maternal role as we see her directing the scene of the event, pausing from time to time to ensure her actors, who had known each other for years, were comfortable. As James Carrington’s pretty-boy character grows violent, she freezes, staring at her actress with a look of fear, wanting to cry out and stop the event, but keeps telling herself it’s just the script she has written.

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While the reenactment elements are incredibly done, and a scene where Martha’s roommate (who is in love with her, in a kinder way than men) defies cinema’s refusal to allow women’s solidarity, Not a Pretty Picture is so hard-hitting for its conversation pieces. The end features the two women discussing their relationships, about struggling to get through intimacy with men without crying, and Martha admits she has not been able to bring herself to have a long-term relationship since her assault over a decade before.

It’s a sobering confession, that this film is an act of processing all these years later, and as much as we see her try to protect Michelle, this film is her own act of healing. The two women are finally able to talk about what happened to them, and find comfort in the similarities of how they have dealt, and the differences in how they reacted in the moment.

So why not consider this film in the body of the essay? Well, it has drifted into obscurity, and not without precedent. Despite the woman at the heart of it having gone on to direct films as iconic as Valley Girl, it’s not something that hides what it is. This is a story about women discussing sexual assault bluntly, and it isn’t made to appeal beyond an audience looking for film history or feminist cinema research, no matter how watchable the craft is.

Few people would sit down to watch Not a Pretty Picture in a theater on an ordinary day outside the oddity of a rare repertory screening, so despite being accessible to all via Vimeo, the film has slipped through the cracks. The cinema we do uplift that depicts these subjects of sexual trauma is made palatable, using tropes to distance from the root of the issue and avoiding radicalization, some of these rape revenge films even made titillating for an audience of aggressors. We need to allow film history to accept the truth, to make space to show women’s experiences accurately, instead of this misrepresentation of women’s trauma as existing in a vacuum.