Producers demand rape scenes and sex industry friendly story lines (e.g. a stripper girlfriend) are added to scripts. It's all part of a pattern.
I was happy to see 2 more seasons of @modernfamily added on @Netflix. Problematic in different ways (e.g. homophobia, horrible adoption jokes)
but it was still funny enough to enjoy (sometimes you just want to chill & be entertained). But the producers have apparently decided to up the ante.
More positive/normalising references to the sex industry (prostitution/stripping), and especially very inappropriate lines for the young actors.
"Quick, the girls are coming to their senses" <- Manny to Luke when they're trying to seduce two girls.
NOT. FUCKING. FUNNY. @ModernFam I'd like to say, use your platform to raise awareness of consent among your viewers.
But hey, I'm not in the Matrix. I know this is not an accident. I know producers, directors, writers - mostly male for a reason - want this.
And it makes sense. It's smart. When maintaining male supremacy is your goal, it's brilliant.
Keeping the production/direction/screenwriting etc. in the hands of men keeps women from having jobs to support themselves. That's one.
It ensures the workfloor and climate remain the realm of masculinity and male entitlement. They control the space, the money, everything.
This makes it easier for those who are sexual predators to prey on the women and girls on set.
Sexual harassment ensures the women brave enough to work in that environment can't get all uppity and aspire to positions of power.
It breaks down their confidence and reminds them they are supposed to be subservient and powerless. Sex objects, no more.
The stories shared by women who work/have worked in Hollywood are clear: women are given the choice to accept this or get out.
Basically, with possibly a few exceptions, the women and girls who do stay are sufficiently traumatised to stay quiet and "play their part".
Many women tell the same story: if I didn't comply I knew my career in this business was over.
So already this toxic male supremacist climate forces women and girls into subservience and silences any dissent.
Secondly, ensuring most aspects of creating a movie or television show are run by men means they are made entirely through the male gaze.
Viewers - already primed into believing gender stereotypes since they were born - are brainwashed some more into thinking women are stupid,
vapid, hysterical, sexy, nerdy, old, ugly, irrelevant, or any other misogynistic trope you can think of. They're rarely shown as full human beings.
Both male and female viewers are reminded that women's looks are the most important, and of the strict rules for fuckability.
The normalisation and social acceptability of sexual violence are widely and innocuously promoted.
In the case of comedies like @ModernFam they're dressed up as jokes. You're such a feminist killjoy if you don't laugh hahahaha
Well, I don't. I give my TV the finger if you really want to know.
But as I said, I'm not in the Matrix. Even so, we're all influenced by this marketing of male supremacy.
Every time a producer asks a writer to add a rape scene or some jokes about prostitution, they know it helps them maintain their power.
They hold up a mirror to us and decide what we see.
Thirdly, there are the actresses and actors who have to act out these scenes and story lines, and all the witnesses on set.
There are the writers - including or maybe especially women - who are forced to rewrite their script to include rape scenes and misogynistic jokes.
This is a major mindfuck.
They have little agency or choice in doing this. Often the choice is: go along with it or get out.
Meanwhile actresses have to act out degrading scenes, submit to sexualisation, feigned rape or actual rape as in the case of Maria Schneider.
This is a poignant example of how actresses can be abused and violated *during* the shooting of a scene.
It only became widely knows Schneider was in fact raped by Marlon Brando in this film. She was unaware this scene was in the script.
Director Bertolucci and Brando had discussed the idea unbeknownst to Schneider. She was only told right before they would film it.
She didn't have the wherewithall at the time to call her agent or her lawyer. In any case, that would probably have got her fired and ostracised.
Of course the reason she wasn't told was precisely that: to ambush her. Bertolucci didn't want her to act. He wanted her to actually be raped.
He said later: "I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress. I wanted her to react humiliated." This is what Schneider looked like at the time. 
This was conspiracy to rape by two powerful men. And it happened to a young actress WHILE she was working, playing a scene.
Brando told Schneider, who was very angry: "Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie."
It wasn't though. This was her life, her body, her mind. She was there. She was not just an image on the screen.
And this is the third way in which powerful men in Hollywood keep women in their place.
Men's sense of power is reinforced by the roles they play: heroes, men with jobs, men who are represented as strong, smart and brave.
Men who are linked to 'love interests' - sometimes decades younger than they are - usually white, thin and beautiful.
They get to treat their female counterparts like they're treated off screen: as sex objects and accessories.
Their sense of male entitlement reinforced not only by celebrity but by the parts they play and their character's lines and behaviour.
The inverse applies to women - and girls. The bodily and mental experiences they have in their roles are real.
When they play a rape scene, they are physically experiencing that scene. Their body is there. It is not a fiction even if it is being filmed.
The violence, the degrading language, their own ceding bodies, the fading 'nos'... they're all things she experiences in real life.
I've read many testimonies of women who felt degraded and violated after playing rape scenes. Especially now perversion and extreme violence become more mainstream.
It's one of the reasons I don't watch crime shows like SVU anymore. The sexual violence was becoming wallpaper in my home.
Despite the supposedly ethical goal of awareness-raising it made me very uncomfortable. I think partly because I could feel the actresses' discomfort.
And partly because I don't want to get used to extreme sexual violence. I don't want to become numb.
Sometimes I wish I could take the blue pill and just enjoy watching sitcoms and romcoms and crime shows.
But I'm here and I see what's happening and I can't unsee it now. It's fucked up but it's not me, it's men.
It's systemic and it's aimed at me and all women. To subjugate and silence us.
We are #NotShuttingUp📢
We are #NotShuttingUp📢
I'll leave you with the chilling words of Maria Schneider:
"Thankfully, there was just one take."
"Thankfully, there was just one take."
