HAA's Rape Storylines

[I love music]

I never saw the other two stories so I can't comment on them, but while Dani's story was initially very good it was poorly handled in some ways. The mediation sessions were done well, with some superb acting from both Tammin Sursok and Sam Atwell, but it was ridiculous that there were only two such sessions and then, hey presto, Dani starts to get her life back together... It would have been more realistic if they'd had dozens of sessions or Dani had had lots of counselling sessions even if they didn't show them all on screen.

It was also very disturbing to read messages on Channel 5's official H&A website (can't remember what it was called) saying things like "Dani should just get over it". I was so concerned that I wrote my first fanfic based on Dani's emotional trauma.

I did like Kane and thought he was genuinely sorry and I could understand how and why he and Kirsty bonded through their being shipwrecked together. But they did spoil things in the later episodes when he was saving people's lives on an almost weekly basis to make him into some kind of hero and portraying Dani as selfish.

[Eve Jacobson]

The Dani rape story was appalling. I do not think Tammin understood it all, and that may have been just as much the fact they had to be circumspect in the writing as anything else. I do know what its like, and went through trauma counseling for a long time. No one I know from that time acted like Dani, and of those who saw the Dani story everyone felt it was a travesty. If you are going to do a story about rape you have to use the word rape and you have to do it properly. Its good doing the perpetrator shows remorse and changes thing, but if you dont get the victim thing right its not educational and is demeaning to the victim. It has a devastating effect upon peoples lives in so many ways, but I felt as the way Dani was portrayed trivialised it and made it seem like rape victims should shut up and get on with it.

I would rather they not do it all than pussy foot around the issue.

[petetown]

I dont think H&A have a lot of choice when it comes to "wimping out" - especially in previous years when they were bound by the G classification and timeslot...

Words like rape, suicide, condom etc were not aloud for the fear kids would ask too many questions. Also storylines with drugs, weapons, violence, suicide etc. were all shyed away from. Blame Network 7 not H&A...

I think with H&A now being given a PG rating permanently (according to the article on the front page re: the martha eps anyway)... maybe they will be able to push the boundaries a bit more

[Taz]

I would not Blame Network Seven, as its the censors, who are independent of the networks, who make the rules to which the networks must adhere. I believe it used to be the case that everything in that slot had to be a G rating but now it does not. The networks don't define what makes a G or PG or an M rating.

[petetown]

Sorry - I thought the networks censored themselves...

Nevertheless - in Greg Haddrick's (ex Script Producer of H&A) book Top Shelf all about writing soaps, he lists the exact guidelines of the network for the G classification as they were at the time of writing (2001)...

If anyone is interested I will type it out in full but in summary it bascially says that any "themes" e.g. (drugs, violence, suicide, sex etc) must be fully justified in terms of story and suitable for children and that any camerawork, music or writing must not seem menacing or distressing to children... Basically children should be able to watch the show unaccompanied...

[emmasi]

I reckon if the Australian Idol judges can say "sh*t" uncencored, tell the contestants to "**** off" - cencored, but it doesn't take a genius to work that one out... and affectionately use un-PC terms such as "wog," all in one 7.30 timeslot... the cencors should get off H&A's back! That is on channel ten though, and they run Futurama at 7pm... which isn't overly appropriate to these poor little children who's minds are apparently caving in from all the bad words that grown ups use. But hey, that's a cartoon, so it MUST be okay to sit your kid in front of it... never mind that it's one the most delightfully filthy PG shows there is

[tanya]

Shouldn't i use the word "attacked" or "forced upon"... how dare anyone say the word rape on HAA!

For a show that has shown a rape storyline so many times how stupid is it that they dont actually use the word ever! I think it actually trivialises the whole rape issue and to think that the show could actually use the storyline as a platform to highlight the rape issue... they could actually give a good insight to viewers about this whole issue. But by not even using the word they make the storyline less effective and also cause a whole lot of misunderstandings!

Victims of rape actually suffer in silence for years, some can be so embarassed, scared or just want to put the whole experience out of mind... and highlighting this issue properly on HAA could help these real life victims get the courage to speak up against their perpetrators or even just deal with the issue out in the open!

HAA has done this storyline so many times... with Carly, Chloe, Dani and recently with Rachel yet everytime they have not done full justice to the issue of Rape! Also what i find really annoying is that they nearly always show the rapist as remorseful... which i find nothing wrong with... but they always have to be people that have done something bad once and they really didn't mean to... it was just a bad phase in their lives!

Also Nearly always the rapist is shown to be misunderstood and nearly always it is a friend/relative of the rape victim that realises that the rapist is actually a good person... when they get trapped/lost with them during some sort of natural disaster... and during these couple of hours/days they suddenly realise what a great person the rapist is and fall in love with their friend/relatives "attacker"!

I just dont get what HAA is trying to show... i know it is a soap and therefore the storylines have to be highly dramatised to keep the viewer hooked... but wouldn't a viewer be interested to see how a rape victim deals with whats happened to them... like many who feel violated, shame, embarassment, discontentment with life or even to show them get justice for the crime by fighting a case against the actual rapist.

Instead they nearly always show more about the rapist's remorse, and even that is not handled correctly... firstly not all rapist's are remorseful and they will do it again and secondly if they are to be shown as remorseful... they are entitled to another chance but does it have to be right under the nose of the victim?! Can Henk/Kane/Jonah not have stayed away and started a new life without falling in love with someone so close to the person they raped?!

Also everytime they end up showing the rape victim as becoming obssessed with the rapist or unhinged or acting oddly... for which there is a reason... but you always end up becoming annoyed with the rape victim and after a while you just dont care about the whole damn thing!

Is it so hard for HAA to do justice to a rape storyline... like they have with other issues such as bullimia, OCD etc. where you felt for the character going through their issues and you actually were interested in their journey and how they overcame everything. Also at the same time they gave a great insight to these very real and sensitive issues.

Sorry about the rant... maybe i've got the issues... lol!

you've made such a good point, with all the issues that they deal with, why can't they use the word!! but just to say that michael DIDN'T actually rape tasha and he really was a victim of mama rose. i can't understand how girls in the show can fall for those who REALLY raped someone, ie. cassie and henk, who i find a totally gross couple anyway! but the worst was surely kirsty and kane! don't get me wrong, i actually liked them together, they did have good chemistry and i wanted things to work with them...it was just when i took a step back that it always came back to me that he raped HER SISTER. unlike the cassie-rachel situation, this was her own sister, no matter how you feel, how could you be with someone who'd done that to a member of your own family. btw. did she try to fight her feelings at all? i don't seem to recall her doing so, but i'm not sure?

[tanya]

I really have to disagree about Tasha. Even though she put herself in a bad situation by staying with the Believers, she genuinely believed that they were good, honest people and that she could trust them to take care of her. Her only crime was being naive. I don't think she "got over it like it was nothing" at all. She didn't know that she'd been raped until she found out that she was pregnant with a child that couldn't have been Robbie's. The baby WAS the story, and her resulting depression and irratic behavior lingered on for a long time. She even tried to kill Josh for god's sake! I think the effects were more than dealt with there, both by Tasha and Robbie, whose lives were completely changed. Even if they could forgive Jonah for what he did, and the horrific circumstances in which he did it, they'd still be in the difficult situation of raising a child that they didn't plan for, and that isn't biologically related to the father (Robbie). It was a massive story, and that one, along with Cassie's abuse from her uncle, were both handled really well, I thought.

I didn't see Dani's rape storyline, I only saw Kane's return, and I already hated Dani by that stage so I was more willing to side with Kane. Not that he was right to rape her... obviously... but that there would have been unfortunate circumstances, like with Jonah. I sitll don't know the full story there at all - I don't even know if he DID rape her - all I know is that I loved Kane as a character, and hate Dani, so... it's hard to care about Dani one way or the other, and hard not to believe that Kane wasn't the typical misoginist bad guy that might go about attacking women for fun.

I think it's dangerous to assume that people who do bad things are automatically bad people. Some of them are, some can't be reasoned with. They do what they do because they like it and have no intention of changing. But then you get a character like Henk, who WAS like that to a degree, and when he saw where that path lead, he wanted to change and save himself as well as any more potential victims. It's TV. It's there to explore the deeper emotions that people in the real world won't discuss in day to day life, but are there none the less. If they were portraying rapists with no other motive than sexual gratification, how boring would that be? You'd turn your nose up at them and call them cartoon villains. I would anyway... The thing with fictional characters is, you're allowed to feel sorry for them when they do the wrong thing, because there aren't any *real* victims to focus on... it's all hypothetical. I mean, the actors portraying these so called evil and cruel people... they have to find a place in themselves where that person exists, and be able to bring it out convincingly, and for that to happen, these nice normal people have to get in touch with something dark and disturbing that resides in almost everyone. You may not have ever wanted to rape someone, but you've probably been mad enough to want to kill them, or hurt them in some other way... You don't do that, because you have other factors grounding you, but some people don't. They just get caught up in that one emotion of hatred or control or loss of control... and they lose any will to fight off the darkness in them, and that's when good people do bad things. I don't mind that shows like Home and Away are exploring that side of things, because in the real world you only ever hear the story from the victim's perspective, which is of course important and completely valid, but it's not the only perspective, and I think it's good that fiction gives us the opportunity to see it from all concievable angles, and to realise that just because something seems like a good idea at the time, doesn't mean you won't regret doing it later. It'd educational, really, just not in a way that most people like to think about.

michael (ex jonah) didn't rape tasha! that was revealed when he came back!

[Formerly Known as FKAJ]

Whether Michael raped Tasha or not is always going to be ambiguous. All we know is that he wasn't Ella's father, so either another Believer did it or Robbie really was the father. I don't believe that's completely ruled out. But we're not going to find that out either because Michael told Martha not to tell Tasha.

In any case, Michael was as much a victim of Mumma Rose's brainwashing as Tasha was. Even if he did rape her I'm not going to hold it against him.

My problem with the reformed rapist/girlfriend-beater storyline is when they don't stay reformed. Macca blew his attempt at redemption the last time he hit Cassie. Henk blew his when he acted on his feelings for Cassie, or even before that when he ignored Rachel's request and showed up at the wedding. Maybe Kane's story went too far the other way, but that's how I see it.

Believe it or not, the writers of Neighbours seemed to have no problem with the word rape 15 years ago: Episode 2000, when Julie tells Philip what she learned about her father. But they didn't use it when Izzy lied to Karl about Gus or during Rebecca's storyline with Richard.

One question: how did they handle Ailsa's storyline where she found out that Shauna was her daughter?

[tanya]

no no, there is no ambiguity about michael raping tasha-he didn't BECAUSE when he and martha were trapped in the mineshaft, and she said that tasha recalled him going into her tent, he said 'i did go in there but i didn't do anything.' !!! believe me, i'm a major michael fan and watched his episodes a zillion times online, like the geek i am, and he definitely says that he 'didn't do anything' - check it out.

macca, definitely! although he redeemed himself by giving himself up to the police, i think. and i agree with you about henk-although cassie is old enough, morally the whole thing was wrong!!