‘Rape’ as character in Veronica Mars.
"If you like rape, you'll love Veronica Mars!"(Belknap, 2006, Episode 39) 'They' say you should start off an essay with a bang - something that'll grab the reader. I've been steered away from beginning with a quote in the past, but I think this one packs an appropriate punch.1
What's more - it's true. Veronica Mars, the story of titular heroine Veronica and her weekly encounters with the seedy, noirish underbelly of (fictional)Neptune, California has a truly epic 'rape-count'. A cursory examination of the series' timeline(MarsInvestigations.net, 2007, /timeline.php) reveals at least fourteen characters to be victims of rape(or similar sexual assault - always non-consensual). "Rape ... appeared to be the norm in Neptune."(Thomas et al, 2006, p. 75)
One could, right off the bat, criticise my attempts to explore 'rape' as a character, perhaps insisting that 'rape' is better discussed as a theme - and rather an ugly one at that. Veronica Mars is a complex show, with many themes including "The Broken System ... Innate 'Rightness' ... 'Revenge"(paraphrased from Thomas et al, 2006, p. 141-145). A quick crowd-source via Google(apologies) with the search term "veronica mars main themes" reveals too many bloggers and reviewers to count who also believe that the class divide, institutional bureaucracy and loss are major themes in the show. Amy Berner ranks "Daddy Dualities" as pretty important, too(Thomas et al, 2006, p. 59).2
I'd also posit that family, death, feminism, love, hate, the assimilation of pop culture terms into everyday speech patterns, race, politics and entitlement are some other pretty good summations of the show's main themes. And for those who think 'rape' should be classed as a theme and not a character - I would instead suggest that 'the effects of rape', or 'coping with rape' are both much better examples of the thematic thrust3 of Veronica Mars than simply 'rape', which may be too much of a 'catch-all' to indicate the subtle nuances with which the show deftly handles the 'rape' character.
Obviously, 'Rape'4 is not a character in the traditional sense of the term. It doesn't have a physical body with which to interact with other characters, it never speaks a single line of dialogue and other characters never refer to it as anything other than a concept or action someone has taken. However, it does bear other, less obvious hallmarks of characterisation.
The mark of a good character is often said to be that they should be 'well-rounded' - "Develop your characters ... to prevent them from being flat and stereotypical"(Ballon, 2005, p.58). I believe that 'Rape' is one of the most well-developed characters in the entire series, moving through an interesting and varied 'arc'.
We are introduced to 'Rape' almost as soon as we meet Veronica. The heroine's line "You want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I."(Thomas et al, 2004, 'Pilot') moves us into a flashback showing us a rather stereotypical view of rape - a young, attractive woman consuming a drink laced with GHB at a party and waking up the next morning with no underwear and no recollection of what happened. This is our baseline for the 'Rape' character - from here we see other forms of rape as the show progresses through three seasons. Before the show(as a whole) draws to a close, we witness incestual rape, paedophilic rape, anal rape, faked rape, premeditated ritual rape, collaborative rape, 'accidental' rape, homosexual rape and implied rape.5
Each time 'Rape' appears in the show, it is in a different yet still clearly recognisable form - growing and changing ever so slightly each time. In season one we see only a few cases, but as the character continues to grow in importance we eventually came upon an official 'rape epidemic' in season three, as Veronica's college campus becomes the site of a spate of sex attacks.
I am aware that this argument (that the development of 'Rape' makes it a character in it's own right) could still be seen as evidence for 'rape' as theme(a heavily explored theme) rather than a character. However, I would counter by saying that I see 'Rape' as Veronica's main antagonist throughout the show's run. And a theme can't be an antagonist.
First, let's clearly establish that Veronica is the protagonist of the show, which shouldn't be too hard. After all, her name is right in the title. She also conforms to Linda Aronson's rule that "Whoever speaks in voiceover is the protagonist"(Aronson, 2000, p.63) since, well, Veronica VO's a lot - "I like it when our voiceovers reveal Veronica's attitude"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.34).
"The protagonist is the one whose life is being made difficult"(Aronson, 2000, p. 62) - again, Veronica fits the bill. For a bleak (and slightly homophobic) assessment of how 'difficult' Veronica's life is, Lani Diane Rich writes "Basically, this babe is some black eyeliner and two angry lesbian poems away from taking a dive off the Coronado Bridge herself"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.12).
So why is 'Rape' the antagonist? "The person ... making it difficult for them is the antagonist"(Aronson, 2000, p.62) - I'd say that 'Rape' is the primary 'difficulty-maker' in Veronica's life. "The season one plot arc ... Who killed Lily Kane?"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.24) is all about Veronica coping with the loss of her innocence, something made very literal by her rape(which not only took her virginity, but did so very quickly after Lily(Veronica's best friend)'s death). Veronica's rape is vital to the show. Creator Rob Thomas: "Had it been excised from the pilot, Veronica's motivations would have become fuzzy. The pilot wouldn't have made sense"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.6). 'Rape' returns to haunt Veronica continually through-out the show's run, through direct attacks on Veronica herself, or on those close too her. 'Rape' even follows her on trips away from her regular life(in season two's "The Rapes of Graff".)
Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of other antagonists in Veronica's life: Logan Echolls, Sheriff Lamb, and Vice-Principal Clemens to name just three of the many antagonists she encounters in the pilot episode alone. The thing is that through the course of the show... she defeats them all. In fact, she spend so much of her life fighting the various enemies and injustices that crop up in 60 hours worth of television that even Rob Thomas, her creator, remarks "Do I know when Veronica has time to do her homework? Not really."(Thomas et al, 2006, p.94)
The problem is that when the premise of your show is that your heroine has "near-fantastical detecting skills"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.102), it's hard to show her failing against any other human opponent for any considerable length of time without making her look like a chump.
And yet, "if a character is 100 percent invulnerable, he or she is closed off, complete, dead"(Horton, 1999, p.31). Veronica needs an opponent that can be a believable threat to her without watering down her detective skills. ‘Rape’ is something that Veronica can't fight with her superior cunning - both times she herself has been a victim of rape/attempted rape happened whilst she was unknowingly intoxicated and unable to act.
Another reason that 'Rape' is a fantastic antagonist(or 'fantagonist') for Veronica? Well ... she's a woman.
I'm not saying that if Veronica Mars was 'Vernon Mars' then rape wouldn't have figured into the equation. But it's unlikely - "Male rape is a taboo subject; it happens but it is concealed by the victims who are too ashamed to speak out and by a society that is not prepared to listen"(Mezey, 2000, p.V).6
The use of 'Rape' as main antagonist serves to subvert that which makes Veronica so very unique. In the words of Samantha Bornemann, "the teen girl is the hook"(Thomas et al, 2006, p.192). Veronica's femininity is at the heart of the show, and so that femininity must be attacked. And 'Rape' is the perfect attacker - "The threat of rape... is a constitutive and sustained moment in the production of the distinctly feminine body"(Cahill, 2001, p.161).7
So there it is. 'Rape' in Veronica Mars is, in my opinion, a fully-formed character that grows and develops along with Veronica herself, providing not only an enemy for her to fight, but the series' main antagonist and the cause of a majority of conflict on the show. It's a great antagonist because it's not something that Veronica can use her prodigious talents to handle, and because it strikes at the very core of what Veronica Mars is about - feminine power.8
1 - I should probably clarify that I in no way view non-consensual sex in anything approaching a flippant manner. Rape is "a most detestable crime"(Hale, 1736; quoted in Taylor, 1987, p. 75). That said, 'rape' is the main topic of this essay - so that word is going to get used a lot, and may get robbed of it's gravitas as we move forward, especially considering that I'm discussing it in the context of a television show. This is unfortunate.↑
2 - At this point, I'd love to have a different word for 'theme'. My brain, after several cycles dedicated to the issue, is coming up blank. As is thesaurus dot com. Looks like we'll need to keep on trucking whilst I beat this word mercilessly into the ground. Apologies.↑
3 - Check me out, coming up with a new way to say 'themes' after all!↑
4 - From here on, I shall capitalize the word when referring to the character of 'Rape', as opposed to the act of rape, which shall go unmolested. Ironically.↑
5 - Seriously - there's a lot of rape in this show.↑
6 - Indeed, there are at least 3 victims of male rape in the show, one of whom(abused as a child) becomes as mass-murderer as a result. "Evidence has also come to the fore that sexual abuse of children has grave consequences both immediately and in the long-term"(Hoghugi, 1997, p.1) - can't get much 'grave'-er than mass murder!↑
7 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, another show revolving around a larger-than-life teen girl, also resorted to using rape to provide a more damaging assault on the slayer where vampires, demons and even gods had failed. Buffy's rape, however, is seen as partially her fault - "I was more upset by Buffy's cold-hearted treatment of [her rapist] prior to the assault"(Billson, 2005, 113). This, of course, is dangerous thinking for a mainstream television show to perpetuate, especially given that "rape is still in many ways tolerated in our society"(Gavey, 2004, p.17).↑
8 - Veronica Mars is available on DVD from Amazon, Play and all the other great websites that sell DVDs. I'd recommend it, muchly. It's not all about rape. Just... mostly.↑
References
Aronson, Linda - Scriptwriting Updated: New and Conventional Ways of Writing for the Screen(New South Wales, AUS:Allen & Unwin, 2000)
Ballon, Rachel - Blueprint for Screenwriting: A Complete Writer’s Guide to Story Structure and Character Development(Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005)
Belknap, Matt - Never Not Funny(Los Angeles, CA:AST Radio, 2007)
Billson, Anne - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Critical Reading of the Series(British Film Institue, 2005)
Cahill, Ann - Rethinking Rape(Ithaca,NY:Cornell University Press, 2001)
Gavey, Nicola - Just Sex? The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape(Hove:Routledge, 2004)
Hoghugi, M - Working with Sexually Abusive Adolescents(SAGE Publications, 1997)
Horton, Andrew - Writing the Character-Centred Screenplay, 2nd Ed.(Brekley, CA: University of California Press, 1999)
Mezey, Gillen - Male Victims of Sexual Assault, 2nd Ed.(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Projansky, Sarah - Watching Rape Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture(New York:New Yourk University Press, 2001)
Taylor, J - Rape and Women’s Credibilty: Problems of Recantations and False Accusations Echoed in the Cases of Cathleen Crowell and Gary Dotson(Harvard Women’s Law Journal 10, 1987)
Thomas, Rob et al. - Veronica Mars(Los Angeles, CA:UPN, 2004)
Thomas, Rob et al. - Neptune Noir: Unathorized Investigations into Veronica Mars(Dallas,TX:BenBella Books, 2006)
Various - MarsInvestigations.net(http://www.MarsInvestigations.net, 2007)