Westworld isn’t your typical amusement park. Intended for rich vacationers, the futuristic park — which is looked after by robotic “hosts” — allows its visitors to live out their fantasies through artificial consciousness. No matter how illicit the fantasy may be, there are no consequences for the park’s guests, allowing for any wish to be indulged. “Westworld” — which is based on the 1973 Michael Crichton movie of the same name — features an all-star cast that includes Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins and Golden Globe winner Ed Harris.
To the writers of the show, there are three roles for women: rape victim, whore, or harridan boss. When men take the trip to Westworld, they need to fuck and they need to commit assault and murder, and they need a shrew to work the magic behind the curtain.
The Rape Victim
Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is one of the robot hosts of Westworld. She gets raped about 20 minutes into the show, because we need to know that Ed Harris’s Man in Black is a bad, bad man. LIGHTBULB! Let’s have him rape someone! Sure, later on he scalps another host/robot to solidify his badness, but the rape-as-plot-device ensures the viewer knows we are dealing with a bad seed. Also, he wears black. I think scalping and the black clothes would have been enough, but what do I know? Why is the Man in Black such a raping dick? Because he’s trying to find the deeper level in the game. This is what happens to #GamerGate guys in the future. The Man in Black is trying to find the truth in artificial intelligence journalism. With rape.
The Second Rape Victim
Is having sex with a corpse you just shot technically rape? Maybe. The dead body cannot tell you they want some tea. At best, it’s still necrophilia. After some bad guys shoot up a farm and kill the man and wife, this conversation goes down:
“Too bad you killed the old woman before the rest of us could have a go with her.”
“She’s still warm, so no one would judge it.”
At least this guy has standards. In the dark, all warm vaginas are warm vaginas.
The Whore
Like Game of Thrones, Westworld loves a good brothel scene because it means showing a lot of bewbs. We don’t know much about Westworld’s favorite hooker, Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton). She seems sassy! With an accent.
The Harridan Boss
Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Theresa Cullen, a sort of CTO and asshole slayer. Cullen is the Mussolini of Westworld; she makes the rapes happen on time.
I genuinely like this character because you can tell she has been dealing with young dude-bros her whole life and she has the confidence and the position to put them in their place. It would have been nice if we could counterbalance Theresa with a non-cliche character, but you go to television* with the story you have, not the story a female audience wants.
*It’s not television. It’s HBO.
When to Tap Out
I stopped watching Game of Thrones in season 4 when I could not longer stomach the treatment of women in that world. We get it! Ramsay Bolton is horrible! Do I need to see him eat a woman’s baby while assaulting her? Between Game of Thrones or Outlander, I’ve had it with rapey television. Women can find danger that doesn’t involve sexual violation. Implied violence is not better.
“(Co-creator) Lisa (Joy) was very passionate about not showing gratuitous violence against women and I think the reason why it’s in the show is to push us to take a look at ourselves and humanity and why this sort of thing is an epidemic that people get pleasure out of,” Evan Rachel Wood.
Does a campy show on HBO think it’s original in trying to tackle our rape culture? Joy’s premise is that you need to show violence against women in order to expose it. But rape is about power, not pleasure. It’s about the removal of power from the victim. When you constantly show women as victims, with rape lurking around every corner, you are participating in rape culture. You are not solving it.
Have you been watching Westworld? What are your feelings about it?
