Five lessons from Ridley Scott’s latest masterpiece.
No Means No.
We all learn this lesson in kindergarten, and boys forget it immediately.
Let’s try to keep this in mind when dating, shall we?
When Jacques Le Gris forces himself into Marguerite’s home, he misses a variety of signals that she is not interested in the game he is playing. He gets down on his knees and confesses his love, but she looks embarrassed rather than pleased. She says, “please leave,” and he assumes she is referring to his squire rather than to him. He chases her to her bedroom and confuses her panic for arousal. He pins her to her bed and thinks she is shouting for help because she is a lady and that is what ladies do, but really, she is terrified out of her mind.
Dude. If you are not sure if she is into it, stop and make sure.
The film proves an object lesson as to why. Not only does Le Gris thoroughly embarrass himself when Marguerite dares publicly accuse him, he winds up with a sword through the center of his throat. Not so awesome.
Probably not worth the two minutes of pumping away atop a woman who’s clearly not into the entire experience and pretty much thinks you’re a monster.
That’s the best thing this film has to offer. The rape scene is not sexy, not appealing, and pretty much the worst commercial for rape there ever was. Jacques thinks he’s going to get something out of this, but in the end, what does he get? He hurts the woman he claims to love. He winds up dead.
Was that worth ignoring the words of a woman who very adamantly said no to his pathetic advances? Absolutely not.
Attraction is not a desire to be raped.
Marguerite once said that Jacques was hot. So what?
In a truly horrifying and completely accurate 14th-century recounting of a modern rape trial, Marguerite sits pale in front of a bunch of scary repressed clergymen who interrogate her with questions like, “do you orgasm when you have sex with your husband?”
At the end of that totally horrifying interrogation, Marguerite is asked about her former BFF’s confession that she once said Jacques was attractive. Like happens with a lot of modern rape victims, this information is used to imply that she couldn’t possibly have been raped by a guy she once claimed was attractive.
Hold up.
As Marguerite says, “No one could possibly enjoy rape.”
Rape, by definition, happens against a woman’s wishes.
Whether a woman was once attracted to her rapist is beside the point. Whether a woman ever fantasized about, flirted with, or even previously slept with the guy who raped her is completely irrelevant. She is not responsible for his actions. She is not responsible for encouraging him by, as in the film, smiling at him once or twice, or saying a few words in a friendly tone of voice.
We are all responsible both for our own emotions and for our own actions. The moment Jacques’ feelings for Marguerite crossed into actions, and he ignored her response to his actions, he was crossing her boundaries.
Even attractive-looking men can be rapists in the right circumstances.
She’s not a slut just because she looks sexy.
When Jean gets home from the war, Marguerite is there waiting for him in a hot new dress she’s had made just for the occasion. The new dress shows her breasts and looks way sexier and more figure-flattering than anything we’ve previously seen her in.
Marguerite, who tries hard to make her marriage to this lout work, smiles and welcomes her lord back to the manor that she’s been able to run much better in his absence.
Since he basically ruins everything, he scowls and immediately insists she take it off.
Dude. Don’t let this be you.
If your partner makes the effort to look hot just to please you, honor their efforts with some kindness, why don’t you? Don’t let your jealousy and evangelical bigotry get in the way of keeping your romance alive.
If this marriage were taking place in modern times, that would be the moment it ended — when Jean humiliated his wife by insisting she change, then took his mother’s side when she continued to berate his wife.
Your wife’s body is her own. If she wants to walk outside buck naked, that is her choice. The moment you start to allow your ego to get in the way of her freedom of self-expression, your marriage is doomed.
Honesty requires mutual respect and safety.
Jean pumps away atop Marguerite’s prone body, night after night, while she bites her lip and tries to smile. Afterwards, he rolls over and asks whether she experienced “the little death,” i.e. orgasm. She lies through her teeth.
Look, I get it. Men hate it when women lie about stuff like this.
But what’s she going to say?
It’s clear throughout the film that Jean’s violence is just beneath the surface. That violence explodes when Marguerite tells Jean about Jacques’ rape. Jean wraps his hand around her throat and starts casually choking her as he asks her, “is this true?” She is already dying as she tries to answer him, “yes.”
Are you seriously trying to tell me that she owes this man the truth?
Heck no.
Women do not owe the truth about our bodies and lives to men who harm us or threaten to harm us. We are not going to be able to tell the truth about what we think and feel to men we just do not feel safe with.
A relationship is built on mutual honesty, yes, but ask yourself with — when you ask the question, are you ready to hear the answer?
The worst things men do to women are about masculinity. So are the best.
Jean violently fucks his wife, chokes her, screams petulantly at her, berates and humiliates her, all to establish his masculinity in the eyes of a crowd that cannot stop laughing at him.
Jacques is finally moved to go ahead and rape Marguerite after Jean humiliates him by insisting in front of the royal court that Jacques call him “sir,” in deference to Jean’s service in a war from which Jacques conveniently stayed home.
Even Jean’s mother relates a rape that took place years ago that seems to have been basically a matter of happenstance. She doesn’t mention who raped her, probably figuring that it doesn’t really matter. In their world, rape is mostly just sort of a thing that happens to women. The “who” doesn’t usually matter. The “why” is usually basically the same — men get pissed off at one another, then take it out on the bodies of women. Rape, back then, was a property crime, a crime against the property of other men.
As opposed to now, when rape is a crime that is basically unprosecutable, basically impossible to prove, basically never goes to trial or even results in punishment for anyone save the victims.
Marguerite stares down the possibility of being “stripped, lashed, then burned alive” with dignity and ferocity. In the end, her husband prevails. She survives her ordeal. She lives to raise her daughter. The real Marguerite became, briefly, a national heroine.
Imagine how many women died because they were raped and they refused to stay silent. Imagine how many Marguerites were stripped and whipped and burned at the stake. Imagine how many versions of this story sprawl across history and ended very, very differently.
Imagine how many Marguerites were strangled by their husbands. Imagine how many Marguerites were abandoned by their communities. Imagine how lucky this Marguerite had to be, how rare, for this duel to even take place.
This movie also confirms that real masculinity, righteous masculinity, sometimes means sticking a damn sword through the throat of your former friend because he raped your wife.
Real masculinity is believing your partner when she says she was raped. It’s trusting the word of the most honest person in the room, even if that person is a woman. It’s risking your life because somebody vulnerable was violated. It’s risking your reputation because somebody was harmed in your house.
Jacques spends most of the film getting laid and getting drunk. He has threesomes and he hangs out with the duke and he basically lives such a bro fantasy that he thinks he can do whatever he likes with impunity. That goes really well for him, right up until he dies with steel buried in his throat.
Jean wins because he has god on his side, maybe. Maybe he wins because while Jacques has been sitting on his rear end getting soft, Jean has been fighting in shitty wars getting strong.
Maybe the real Jean was just as much of a horrible person as he is depicted here. Yet the real Jean was also enough of a decent man to believe his wife when she said she had been raped. He took her word and he took her side. He risked upsetting the entire governing power structure of his country. Hell, he took his case to the freaking king to make sure that justice was served for her.
Even if he was a horrible person otherwise, that courage alone is redemptive.
The men I choose to keep in my life are men with that kind of courage inside them. They are men who believe women, even when sometimes proof is impossible. They are men who do not filter what we say and do through a special sexist set of ideas. My men are people who stand up for me in ways my society prevents me from standing up for myself.
If they did not, they would not be my men.
Consider how far you would be willing to go to fight for the women you love. Would you joust a former friend? Would you fight to the death?
These days, all you’re likely to be called upon to risk is your reputation.
These days, for most men, it seems that even that is too much.
These are the lessons the 14th century has to give. May you take them to heart.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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