Unpop Culture

“The truth does not matter. There is only the power of men.” These words come from The Last Duel , Ridley Scott’s historical drama about the last sanctioned trial-by-combat in medieval France . This particular movie has been on my radar for a while, as it touches on topics I have spent years researching and writing about. My friend Jonathan Broxton describes the focus of the film thus: “the powerlessness, lack of agency, and mis-treatment [sic] of women throughout time.” The story, he says, helps us see “how comparatively little has changed over the course of the past several centuries in terms of how sexual assault is viewed differently by men and women.” As such, I am grateful for the opportunity for collective introspection provided by big-screen treatments of this subject. In spite of my excitement over The Last Duel , however, there is a problem. Two problems, actually. In attempting to address the debasement of women in society, the movie inadvertently debases its actresses....

Regular visitors to this blog are well aware of a particular thematic drum I keep beating: the sexual exploitation of our entertainers . It is a drum I will continue to beat. From time to time, however, it is helpful to zoom out and take in the larger picture. Now is one of those times. Over the years, I have highlighted dramas like Fifty Shades of Grey , television shows like Game of Thrones , and comedies like  Knocked Up  and  The 40 Year Old Virgin . I have also highlighted the experience of individual actors , including Jennifer Lawrence , Evangeline Lilly , and Margot Robbie . Reading these exposés might lead some to think of me as a pessimistic killjoy with a Pharisaic dedication to condemning anything and everything I can lock my sights on. My point, however, is not to condemn the filmmaking industry outright, nor to condemn all use of sexual themes in entertainment. (In fact, I have defended both on this blog, including here and here .) Nor has my point been ...

Early American slavery wasn’t a tragedy simply because it was a societal evil. That was bad enough. What made matters worse was that so many good people did nothing to stop it—probably in part because it is uncomfortable to confront such a pervasive and culturally-ingrained practice. And yet, the silence of good people, in order to avoid discomfort, spoke volumes to those enslaved—not only to their discomfort, but to their humiliation—and, in many cases, to their death. For too long, too many in society just didn’t care—or, at the very least, didn’t care enough. In light of that reality, read the following 2017 quote from Sarah Polley : The only thing that shocked most people in the film industry about the Harvey Weinstein story was that suddenly, for some reason, people seemed to care. That knowledge alone allowed a lot of us to breathe for the first time in ages. That is a heartbreaking statement. Whereas a majority of us were shocked by what Harvey Weinstein had done ...

It was quite a controversial piece, written by a political activist. This piece addressed the entertainment industry, and how women have been especially susceptible to abuse and degradation. To be honest, the hard-nosed emphasis on how women are at most risk of victimization came across to me as a bit sexist: as if women were somehow inferior to men. Initially, I wasn’t quite sure if I could get behind it. Now, if you think I’m describing a modern-day op-ed, you would actually be mistaken. I am referring, rather, to the words of the eighteenth-century abolitionist William Wilberforce in his mouthful-of-a-title book A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity . In section five of chapter four, Wilberforce addresses a problem in the performing arts in particular. Here’s how he begins this section (and I encourage you to read it in its entirety): It is an undenia...