It's Always Gerald's Game
TW: discussions of rape, consent and
child abuse.
Spoilers: Gerald’s Game
It took me a
while to watch Gerald’s Game. I read
the book before I was old enough to fully understand the sexual themes yet it
affected me to the point that I avoided the film for a few months after it
appeared on Netflix. Fantastical elements aside, this adaptation presents an
important issue that is rarely reflected in media: the coercion, power and
abuse that takes place within relationships.
Gerald’s Game follows a married couple - Gerald and
Jessie – who take a trip to a remote cabin. Gerald instigates a sex game and
handcuffs Jessie to the bed before having a heart attack and leaving her
stranded. The narrative follows Jessie’s struggle to escape whilst trying to survive
dehydration, a starving wild dog, a sinister stalker and her memories of trauma.
Dialogues around
sexual violence focus on the issue of consent, often as a way of determining
victim credibility. The judicial system and society in general demand proof
that victims express non-consent to sexual activity through clear physical
resistance, and that this resistance is corroborated by visible injury or
witnesses (Estrich, 1987). More recent discussions around consent have suggested
that sexual violence is a miscommunication between men and women; this puts the
onus on victims to be ‘clearer’ and more assertive in order to avoid violence,
and also assumes that women always have the power and autonomy to be able to
say no (Coy, Kelly, Vera-Gray & Kanyeredzi, 2015). Such understandings overlook
key factors behind rape – power, control and gender inequality – and make it an
issue of sex rather than of violence.
Media
representations of rape victims tend to be in line with several stereotypes:
the resisting virgin, the sexualised party-girl, the malicious ‘false accuser’ and
the avenging rape-revenge heroine. These extreme tropes present problematic
images of women and perpetuate troubling myths about rape: that ‘real’ victims
are young, white and innocent; that ‘bad’ girls are asking for it or motivated
by revenge; that rape always involves physical force and is a crime of
opportunity and/or impulse, and that rape prevention should focus on victim
behaviour more than on perpetrators or wider, societal factors.
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| Poster for rape-revenge classic I Spit on Your Grave (1978) |
Representation
matters. The media has a huge influence on public understanding of the causes,
realities and impact of crimes such as rape (Projanksy, 2001). Belief in rape
myths contributes to the poor treatment of victims, reduced reporting rates for
sexual violence and social acceptance of violence against women (Jordan, 2004).
Therefore, it is important that the media include more progressive depictions
of victimisation, which challenge rather than perpetuate these myths and
stereotypes.
‘Real’ Rape
Sexual
violence is often shown as extremely violent and committed by strangers. Gerald’s Game presents a form of sexual
violence that is common yet rarely discussed: intimate partner rape. Rape in
marriage was not considered a crime in the UK until 1991 (1989 in Scotland) and
almost 30 years later, very few men who rape their spouses face investigation
or charges. Jessie and Gerald’s marriage is shown as reasonably happy despite
their problems with intimacy, which makes the escalation to violence quite
shocking. They are also an older couple (the actors were 45 and 60
respectively). These elements of intimate partner violence – the apparent
‘normality’ of relationships and that it can affect any age - rarely appear in
media.
At first,
Gerald’s suggestion of a sex game seems like an attempt to repair their
marriage. Yet the activity is all on his terms with little regard for Jessie’s
wants: he brings the cuffs to the cabin without her knowledge and takes Viagra without
asking if she is interested in sex, showing that her consent is irrelevant to
his plans. He tells her that the cuffs are the ‘real deal’ and will not break,
which seems unnecessary for consensual sexual activity.
It is upsetting
to see such a visible indicator of non-consent as a woman chained to a bed, but
the handcuffs are only part of Gerald’s domination over Jessie. After he cuffs
her, she makes her feelings very clear through what she says (“that really
hurt”, “I don’t like this”, “stop”, “uncuff me” and “no”), how she says it, her
avoidant eye contact and escalating body language, all of which Gerald wilfully.
This is not an issue of miscommunication, as he deliberately justifies and thus
dismisses each element of her resistance as part of ‘the game’ - his rape
fantasy. When she resists and breaks through his fantasy, he uses guilt and
emotional manipulation to maintain control; he is angry, petulant and accuses her
of not wanting to rebuild the relationship. He also refuses to uncuff her and retains
his power and control even after his death.
None of this
should be unfamiliar. Rape isn’t a black and white, hold-them-down-screaming
act of impulse. It is insidious, often planned and carefully executed by
perpetrators. It is the deliberate misreading or ignoring of communication,
both verbal and physical, and the exploitation of social norms. It is
foot-in-the-door coercion; if she lets me do this, she will let me do that or
at least not be in a position to stop it. If she lets me do this, then no one
will believe that she didn’t let me do that or that she didn’t want it. It is control
over the other person through emotional manipulation and exploitation of power
(such as through gender, age or social status), more so than through physical
force or violence.
During the
film, we learn that Jessie was sexually abused as a child by her father
(another common yet under-represented form of male violence). This experience
is similarly nuanced; her father manipulates her trust and anxieties to
separate her from her family during a beach trip. His nickname for her –
‘Mouse’ – highlights her shy and obedient nature which he exploits. Her
objectifies her and minimises her existence other than through his ownership as
her father.
From the
‘real rape’ perspective that is inherent in rape myths, Jessie’s experience
would not be seen as violent: she is married to the perpetrator, she consented
to go to the cabin and bought lingerie for the occasion, and she allowed
herself to be cuffed to the bed. Similarly, her childhood abuse is shown as
distressingly mundane and she defines it as less damaging than the subsequent
silencing. Yet these experiences are also clearly depicted as non-consensual,
degrading and abusive.
‘Real’ Rapists
Gerald’s Game shows us a rare kind of monster: the
‘real’ rapist. In reality, sexual violence rarely involves strangers or people
who are mentally ill or ‘deviant’: whether we want to accept it or not, rapists
are people we know. They are trusted friends, family members and partners and subsequently
in the best position to coerce and control. The ‘stranger-danger’ myth is
damaging as it redirects our vigilance to threat outside our homes and
relationships.
Gerald and
Jessie seem like a fairly typical couple yet their interactions are rife with
micro-aggressions and misogyny. Gerald regularly demeans Jessie’s feelings or
opinions, blames her for his sexual impotency and suggests that she is the
reason they did not have children. He makes sexist jokes with clients (“what is
a woman? A life-support system for a cunt”) and berates her response. He shows
little compassion for the starving dog they encounter and there is suggestion
that the extravagance of their trip – the paid-off gardener and house keeper, the
Kobe steak in the fridge – are arranged by him as part of his coercion. He is a
callous, entitled man with little value for his partner or for women in general
- which are many of the elements which underlie sexual violence – yet he is not
shown as a monster.
We see that Jessie’s
father also used emotional manipulation. He uses guilt to get her to sit on his
lap (“I just miss my little girl”) and uses the eclipse as an opportunity to
abuse her. He expresses shame and remorse as a means of ensuring her silence,
and exploits the fractured relationship she has with her mother to isolate her
from her family. Victims of abuse are often asked why they did not speak out sooner
and this is a good example of the strategies that perpetrators use to ensure
their silence or reduce their victims’ credibility.
A ‘Real’ Victim
Gerald’s Game could have easily been a nasty,
exploitative depiction of men’s control over women but Stephen King and Mike Flanagan
give us a complex and inspiring victim-survivor[1] in Jessie. Initially, she
acts in accordance with the gender stereotypes that we expect from women in film;
she is submissive to Gerald, speaks quietly and unassertively, smiles, wears
pale dresses, is kind to animals. She tells him that she bought the lingerie
for his benefit, suggesting that his sexual needs are priority. Her initial
resistance to the handcuffs is in line with the way that women are often socialised
to resist: she reacts with politeness, laughing off the situation and appealing
to his empathy.
When her
requests are ignored, she becomes more determined and uses verbal, emotional
and physical force. After his death, she kicks into survival mode and her
resourceful manifests as an assertive version of herself who identifies the
elements within her immediate control: the phone, the water, the shelf, using
the tag from her dress as a straw. Jessie is capable despite her limited options
yet still expresses fear and distress; she isn’t reduced to a cold, detached
heroine or a crying, pliant victim. Gerald blames her for what his death (for feeding the dog, not playing along) and tells her that she married a man like her father, which is a common way that society blames victims of abuse, yet she retains her resolves to escape. Her character is allowed both emotional and
rational responses to her predicament, which culminates in her tearing open her
hand to slip through the cuffs. Although she imagines and talks to people who are not there, Jessie has not ‘lost her mind’ as Gerald tells her; these dissociative
moments are her way of remaining grounded enough to process and problem-solve
the situation.
In the
aftermath of her escape, we see Jessie as recovering but still affected by
nightmares and missing memories. She sets up a foundation and uses her
experience to support other survivors. She is no longer silenced - she has the
final narration - and communes with her younger self with love and compassion. We see her reject the victim-blaming messages and put responsibility back on her husband and father: "his shackles were silence, and his were comfort". In the final scenes, she confronts a representation of her abusers (the ‘man
made of moonlight’) with defiance before walking confidently into her future: “you’re
so much smaller than I remember”. This complex version of Jessie – as a wounded
victim and healing survivor – expresses the duality of victimisation and
recovery. It is a more hopeful message than the black and white stereotypes we
are used to seeing and expect to see.
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| "You're so much smaller than I remember" |
Gerald’s Game is an upsetting but incredibly powerful
exploration of the subtle realities of coercion and violence. It is refreshing
to see a woman who has experienced multiple victimisations in her life[2], yet is a resourceful
fighter rather than reduced to a damaged cog in the cycle of abuse (see The Kid’s Aren’t Alright). Even though
the story is named after Gerald – perhaps as an illustration that consent and
rape are predominantly determined, defined and practiced by men - Jessie defeats
her abusers and emerges victorious. Horror is most effective when it forces us
to relate to it on some level and while Gerald’s
Game depicts sexual violence in uncomfortably realistic terms, it also shows
us the resourceful, hopeful woman who survives it.
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References
Coy, M., Kelly, L., Vera-Gray, F. &
Kanyeredzi, A. (2015) From ‘no means no’
to ‘an enthusiastic yes’: Changing the Discourse on Sexual Consent Through Sex
and Relationships Education.
Estrich, S.
(1987) Real Rape, Harvard University
Press: London, UK
Jordan, J. (2004) The Word of a Woman? Police, Rape and Belief. Palgrave Macmillan: UK.
Projanksy, S
(2001) Watching Rape: Film and Television
in Postfeminist Culture, New York University Press: USA.
Randall, M.
& Haskell, L. (1995) Sexual Violence in Women’s Lives, Violence Against Women, 1, 1,
6-31.
[1] 62% of children who
are abused also report being abused as adults (Randall & Haskell, 1995).
Therefore, it is especially important to see positive depictions of people who
have experienced repeated victimisation.
[2] I use the term
victim-survivor here as Jessie reflects many of the different ways that women
cope with and resist sexual violence and characteristics that are often
attached to victims and/or survivors.
