Trigger Warning: The following content includes subjects such as sexual violence, rape, and assault.
One fine day, American writer, Gail Simone observed that Green Lantern’s girlfriend being killed and stuffed into a fridge had become a cold-dead motivation for the superhero’s revenge plot. Watching a female character being used so ‘cool-ly’, Simone went on to make a list of over 100 such similar characters. All were killed or assaulted because the male leads had no other reasonable motivation for character development.
She went on to coin a new storytelling trope called Fridging (Women in refrigerators). Fridging is a trope where female characters are harmed (maim, assault, rape, death) to serve as plot devices that motivate the male characters or further events.
Recently, the movie Officer on Duty (2025) provoked a similar line of thought. It’s an overused and exhausted trope to use sexual assault as a motivator, but here we are. Earlier, the movie Maharaja (2024) also triggered a similar conversation in movie-discussion groups. One such post that I had come across on Gangs of Cinepur:
With Maharaja, there was at least the excuse of having an engaging storytelling format, and a good-thriller plotline, and I happen to share names with their most important character (kuppathotti Lakshmi). But Officer on Duty just irked me for its insensitive and tone-deaf portrayed assault scenes.
Neither of the movies horrified me but left me rather indifferent to the rape scene(s).
And THAT is where the problem lies.
In this article we look into this habitual trend of inserting rape scenes, the harmful impact it has on viewers, and hopefully explore the idea of responsible representation.
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Good Men Don’t Rape
Men are dominant, powerful beings. Women are passive, powerless objects of male sexual desires. We’ve had media establish these stereotypes so many times that we could probably play a drinking game out of it.
Whenever the need to showcase the Good vs Bad Man trope has come about, it’s almost always done with the Bad Man assaulting the woman and the Good Man saving her.
Instead of investing in proper plot and character development, many writers opt for this 5-second hack to tell the audience who’s good and bad.
One of the best examples, I can think of, for this template is Leo.
Image Source: Videsaur
In the initial few minutes of the movie, we are introduced to a psychopathic thief who robs and rapes his victims. With the kind of importance given to showcasing the “bad man”, one would think that he’s a crucial character in the plot. Barely a few minutes into the movie though, the dude’s shot dead.
His character does not have any particular relevance thereafter, but within his screen time, we’re given scenes of robbery, rape, and harassment. The harassment scenes, in particular, tag along with voyeuristic zoom-in shots of the scared woman and a cautious Vijay who will soon jump into action to save the ‘Damayanti in Distress’.
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Now the question is, wouldn’t the psychopath be considered a terrible person if he was simply robbing houses or holding someone hostage at gunpoint? Was dedicated screentime of the thief tracing his gun across her lips and other suggestive scenes really necessary?
All of these shots are placed for a simple dramatic high that would make Mr. Good Man look virtuous in comparison to a rapist and provide justification for his violence. (Because saving a hyena and adopting it aren’t good enough!)
Now back to my viewing experience of Officer on Duty.
I did not feel any empathy. I wasn’t particularly feeling my stomach tie into knots knowing that a female character in the movie was being assaulted by a criminal.
One of the reasons for this was the absolutely senseless portrayal of sexual assault in Officer on Duty. To give you an idea, here’s a gist of the conversations Inspector Hari Shankar has with the victims:
“Who stole your chain?”
“I dunno.”
“Kallam parayaruth.”
“Oh okay. I was drugged, raped, and robbed.”
Case solved.
According to an article by Camilla Nelson, “Using rape as metaphor displaces the actual, violent and traumatic act of rape.” She notes the deeply disturbing and misogynistic pattern in which rape victims continue to be cast as “collateral damage” or “plot devices” to propel the hero’s journey.
The majority of these movies are tone-deaf about the victim and their experiences. Even when they are being subjected to one of the worst crimes, we are shown the scene from the perpetrator’s lustful gaze or through the hero’s (saviour’s) emotions.
It’s no rocket science to understand how this translates further in a country with a fucked-up attitude on sex, sexuality, and consent. Hurting or killing women to motivate the hero’s action is in most cases lazy writing, but in our social context, it also happens to be dangerous.
Also read: Malayalam Movie Tropes From The 90s
Body over Bones
Under a subreddit discussing the portrayal of abusive episodes, a user posed this question,
“If your character was male, would you sodomize him in the scene? Or would you just beat him within the inch of his life?”
Women are hurt just as much when they are beaten to a pulp, yet the form of torture chosen for them is sexual assault. Why is that?
Apart from the obvious power dominance that plays out in rape scenes, an unusual response that I read under this thread was that a writer “couldn’t imagine hitting a woman”.
Since they’ve been taught “not to hit girls”, they switch from physical punches to sexual assault when the script demands for infliction of pain. It’s really problematic when an entire generation can picture a rape scene with ease when it comes to threatening a female character.
And funnily, this is a trope that’s generously been used by both Bad and Good guys equally. Heroes often establish their power by saying,
“Verum oru penn aan”
“Ninne okke nilaky nirthaan eniky 9 maasam mathi”
“Penn aayi poyi allenki a) chavitti konene b) bhitti’l itt orachene c) kayyum kaalum odichene”
Image Source: The Kochi Post
The only difference here is that Good Guys say it but refrain from acting on it. Essentially conveys the message that the hero is capable of such acts too but will resort to verbal violence because he’s a civilised person taught not to hit women.
Also read: Slap Culture in Malayalam TV and What it Promotes
It is this internalised sexism and male gaze that extends further in the case of rape scenes. The victim holds importance only because she is a body that would evoke emotions in the hero. The scene rarely has anything to do with the victim, and everything to do with defining a hero’s heroism or a villain’s villainism.
It just becomes tiring and disgustingly simplified when traumatic events like rape and assault become a mere plot device. To use these experiences as a jumping-off point for a guy to be a badass-Mr-Leo-Dass-is-a-badass is… just bad?
One Person’s Trauma, Another’s Turn On
A study by Neil Malamuth (Professor of psychology and communications studies at UCLA), found that “exposure to sexual violence — even if it is intended to help people see the horror of it — will be sexually arousing to a small but significant percentage of young male viewers. And we do know that such sexual arousal to violence is one of the contributing predictors of actual aggression against women.”
“Which male feels pleasure watching a woman cry while having sex!?” was my friend’s response when I asked him how he felt about rape scenes. As it turns out, there are quite many who find rape scenes a pleasurable watch. To an extent that a child’s name was the top trending search on Pornhub when her rape case was reported.
Portrayals of crimes carry significant implications for the viewers understanding and responsiveness toward such issues. While one section feeds off on rape fantasies and fetishes, another set of groups have become numb towards it with repeated exposure.
It’s this desensitisation that drives us to shrug off every new SA case as “Ith ellam divasam nadakunnath alle”
Are We What We Consume?
Here’s a concerning fact that I read while working on this article – Exposure to sexual violence in media is been linked to harmful attitudes toward rape.
It’s been studied that those repeatedly exposed to sexual violence are,
- emotionally desensitised
- lack sympathy towards rape victims
- less likely to see perpetrators as guilty
- have increased acceptance of degrading depictions of women.
Data also showed that young men exposed to sexual violence in films are more accepting of sexual aggression and interpersonal violence.
Now before you get on the “It’s just a movie” bandwagon, there’s this fascinating thing called media literacy.
Even in the sampoorna saksharatha state, many lack this concept.
And so, for them Arjun Reddy is not just Arjun Reddy,
Drishyam is not just Drishyam,
a Clockwork Orange is not just A Clockwork Orange.
These stories also deserve to be TOLD, but not GLORIFIED.
Art gets mimicked, which is why representation comes with a responsibility. (IYKYK, otherwise google up all the copycat crimes. It’ll give an interesting insight into our psyche)
“The difference comes down to why you’re telling this story, who you’re telling it through, and what you’re saying in the process.” – Michelle Lovretta
Rape as a topic is not off-limits but has to be mindfully approached. And not just to avoid harmful stereotypes, but also to ensure that your content is not a blaring trigger alert for those affected.
Watching disturbing content, even if dramatised, is proven to be upsetting and haunting for years to come. Some studies have shown that more than a quarter of college students continue to experience anxiety over distressing images they watched at a younger age.
These aspects need to be considered seriously while rape scenes continue to be a playground for screenwriters. Every time a writer uses rape and sexual violence as mere storytelling devices, they fail to engage with the character’s experience and negate the lived reality of many victims and survivors. Their story falls back as a backdrop for someone’s mass (patti show).
Television writer Michelle Lovretta once observed that “It (rape) is a fast-hitting combo of a lot of powerful inputs — titillation, taboo, character conflict, deep betrayal. In one scene, you could change the narrative arcs of a whole swath of your characters, and that kind of bomb can be pretty tempting for storytellers.”
It’s an attention-grabbing dramatic event that can be as ‘brutal, graphic, and hollow’ as one would want.
Some believe that showing rape scenes in its entire “rawness” is important for viewers to understand how terrible a crime it is. I remember watching an interview where a celebrity commented that movies need to explicitly depict violence. Referring to Monica Bellucci’s controversial 10-minute-long scene from Irreversible, he says that people need to watch these gruesome acts in order to think “This is horrible, it’s a crime and I’d never do that.”
But when the impact is quite the opposite and many get turned on by the crime, we really need to rethink what we are showcasing. And as Director Gaspar Noé said, such scenes are truly a “dark portrayal of testosterone” and if it’s seen as anything other than that, we’re doomed in a darker place.
I believe that writings on sexual assault and rape are done justice when the character is the focus of the story or their trauma is explored consciously rather than making it a plot device.
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A little bit of research and understanding on the topic can go a long way, especially when it’s a sensitive topic. A few portrayals which I believe have done justice to this are the movie Aruvi and series such as Unbelievable and Baby Reindeer. They shift the gaze to survivors and tell their stories with gravity while at the same time not limiting them to the one terrible experience they were subjected to.
One person’s trauma should never be placed as another’s moment of revelation or fetish. But then again, for many, “The nexus of sex and violence is the cinematic equivalent of a cheap sugar rush.” (Lovretta)
And sadly, until that is the case, female characters will continue to be placed as sugar candies in the fridge.
