When we played Baseball, some of the older boys would bring up their sexual conquests, real or imagined. There were those who would avidly remark about their discoveries with 'pussy' and girls they knew who were unfortunate enough to have 'a train run on them'. Being barely ten, and knowing about little more than Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories and The Wonderful World of Disney, these terms were unfamiliar to me. Innocently enough, I asked what these terms were. The older boys from Saint Clair Street were astounded and delighted that a good to excellent student such as myself knew nothing about these matters. At last it was apparent that they knew something that I did not know. While chuckling, they asked me probing questions to see whether or not I could figure out what they were talking about on my own.
The mysteries of 'pussy' were fairly easy to assimilate into my understanding. But the term 'running a train' on a girl seemed like something you would mention in a sex joke, but could not possibly bear any relationship to real life. I will not go into all the details of my discussion of this with my older brothers in Baseball. Once I got the concept that this term referred to overpowering a woman and reducing her to the level of human sexual spittoon, I was sure nobody in their right mind would ever humor such an idea and shelved it. But this term kept popping up like a shadow you cannot entirely escape. It reared its ugly head again in a film entitled STRAW DOGS (1971) directed by Sam Peckinpah and finally the term 'running a train' became graphically clear to me as described in Nathan McCall's bestselling memoir MAKES ME WANNA HOLLER (1995). It is a strange human practice that ranks up there with lynching defenseless black folks and storing their vital organs and body parts in Mason or pickle jars. I am sure that you have heard of other similar weird practices, so I won't go into that.
Needless to say, this movie is about a woman who becomes the victim of a gang rape. Though her prior behavior before the incident could have been considered flirtatious or as the fellows would say in my neighborhood a kind of 'teasing', it is of course ridiculous nonsense to even suggest that any woman asks to be publicly humiliated and brutalized and then jeeringly cast aside like a piece of trash. But it only goes to show how little is really known about the vagaries of human sexual motivation and human sexual response. I could go on and on about this, and I am sure you could too, but to what possible beneficial end? Let's just say that the complexities and various undertones and dimensions of this subject are given a fair and adequate representation.
Jodie Foster gives an excellent performance as waitress Sarah Tobias. Kelly McGillis, herself a victim of sexual assault, was also offered this role, but did not care to relive or put on display her own trauma. I personally believe she serves better playing the prosecuting attorney, Kathryn Murphy, demonstrating her strength of character and intelligence in obtaining justice for Sarah Tobias. Foster, being of somewhat smaller physical stature, conveys more vulnerability in the role. There were half a dozen other big name actresses considered for these two parts, including Kim Bassinger, Jennifer Beals for the Tobias role, and Geena Davis, Jane Fonda, and Ellen Barking for the Murphy role, but considering the fulsomeness of the subject it seems to me the casting of the principals pretty much shook out for the best. Some of the male leads deserve mention, such as Bernie Coulson in the role of Kenneth Joyce and Leo Rossi as Cliff "Scorpion" Albrect, but for once, this exercise in misogyny puts the emphasis on the wits and resourcefulness of the women.
This is not the kind of movie you'll be watching annually around Easter or Christmas. When I first viewed it, I found it made me somewhat ashamed to be a member of the male sex. Just as when I viewed Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004), it made me ashamed to be a member of the human race. Director Jonathan Kaplan handles the rape scene with clinical precision and ramps up the shock value so that it has a traumatizing effect on even the actors involved. It can be noted that after Jodie Foster won the Academy Award for this role, she found her career really took off and was back on track. But let's not forget that Cheryl Araujo, upon whom the character of Sarah Tobias was actually based, was ostracized by her community in New Bedford, Massachusetts. After fleeing for anonymity with her family to Miami, Florida, she died tragically in a car accident. That her life was in effect ruined by her experience with gang rape, should be something to give everyone pause.
The mysteries of 'pussy' were fairly easy to assimilate into my understanding. But the term 'running a train' on a girl seemed like something you would mention in a sex joke, but could not possibly bear any relationship to real life. I will not go into all the details of my discussion of this with my older brothers in Baseball. Once I got the concept that this term referred to overpowering a woman and reducing her to the level of human sexual spittoon, I was sure nobody in their right mind would ever humor such an idea and shelved it. But this term kept popping up like a shadow you cannot entirely escape. It reared its ugly head again in a film entitled STRAW DOGS (1971) directed by Sam Peckinpah and finally the term 'running a train' became graphically clear to me as described in Nathan McCall's bestselling memoir MAKES ME WANNA HOLLER (1995). It is a strange human practice that ranks up there with lynching defenseless black folks and storing their vital organs and body parts in Mason or pickle jars. I am sure that you have heard of other similar weird practices, so I won't go into that.
Needless to say, this movie is about a woman who becomes the victim of a gang rape. Though her prior behavior before the incident could have been considered flirtatious or as the fellows would say in my neighborhood a kind of 'teasing', it is of course ridiculous nonsense to even suggest that any woman asks to be publicly humiliated and brutalized and then jeeringly cast aside like a piece of trash. But it only goes to show how little is really known about the vagaries of human sexual motivation and human sexual response. I could go on and on about this, and I am sure you could too, but to what possible beneficial end? Let's just say that the complexities and various undertones and dimensions of this subject are given a fair and adequate representation.
Jodie Foster gives an excellent performance as waitress Sarah Tobias. Kelly McGillis, herself a victim of sexual assault, was also offered this role, but did not care to relive or put on display her own trauma. I personally believe she serves better playing the prosecuting attorney, Kathryn Murphy, demonstrating her strength of character and intelligence in obtaining justice for Sarah Tobias. Foster, being of somewhat smaller physical stature, conveys more vulnerability in the role. There were half a dozen other big name actresses considered for these two parts, including Kim Bassinger, Jennifer Beals for the Tobias role, and Geena Davis, Jane Fonda, and Ellen Barking for the Murphy role, but considering the fulsomeness of the subject it seems to me the casting of the principals pretty much shook out for the best. Some of the male leads deserve mention, such as Bernie Coulson in the role of Kenneth Joyce and Leo Rossi as Cliff "Scorpion" Albrect, but for once, this exercise in misogyny puts the emphasis on the wits and resourcefulness of the women.
This is not the kind of movie you'll be watching annually around Easter or Christmas. When I first viewed it, I found it made me somewhat ashamed to be a member of the male sex. Just as when I viewed Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004), it made me ashamed to be a member of the human race. Director Jonathan Kaplan handles the rape scene with clinical precision and ramps up the shock value so that it has a traumatizing effect on even the actors involved. It can be noted that after Jodie Foster won the Academy Award for this role, she found her career really took off and was back on track. But let's not forget that Cheryl Araujo, upon whom the character of Sarah Tobias was actually based, was ostracized by her community in New Bedford, Massachusetts. After fleeing for anonymity with her family to Miami, Florida, she died tragically in a car accident. That her life was in effect ruined by her experience with gang rape, should be something to give everyone pause.