The Rape Culture and Violence Legitimization Model: Application to Disney’s Maleficent

ABSTRACT

In the United States, rape culture is a prevalent phenomenon that has contributed to desensitization to scenes in popular media that might have been considered unacceptable in the past. This paper explores the proposal of a model (Rape Culture and Violence Legitimization Model, RCVL) to understand the factors that prompt a society’s focus and often acceptance of rape culture. A component of RCVL is then applied to the Disney Movie, Maleficent, to explore one facet of the proposed model. Future applications are discussed to continue societal change directed toward these important issues both inside and outside the social work classroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Rape culture
• patriarchy
• sexual violence
• disney’s Maleficent
• model building

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Attachment A: Assignment Descriptions

Service Learning Project

Service Learning Hours:

Completion of 15 hours of service learning at an approved social welfare service agency. Hours must be completed during the course. Credit will not be given if service-learning hours are completed at a site that is not approved by your instructor. Hours are due when paper is submitted.

Service Learning Reflective Paper:

Students will complete a reflective paper on their service learning experience. The paper will integrate the learning concepts, terms and understanding of the social problem and impact of Social Services on client systems. Specifically, students will process their activities and observations, be able to identify and discuss the service and client component of the agency structure, and identify intervention approaches. Research and discussion of specific social problem will be included in this paper. Minimum of a 6-page double-spaced paper required.

Learning Reflective Paper Detailed Instructions: Sections of the Paper • Introduction Paragraph indicating the name of the agency, your supervisor’s name, the dates and times of the observation, and a general comment or two on the mission or vision of the agency.

Objective Description Provide some additional detail regarding the agency’s mission, vision, purpose, clients served, etc. This first section should also include an objective detailed summary description of what you did at your agency. Take notes at the agency for future reflection. If you find yourself simply saying “more of the same,” you are not being sufficiently specific and may not have paid enough attention to what was going on at the agency. Grading criteria for this section includes the amount of significant detail and the degree of objectivity.

Personal Awareness This section should be a self-reflective response to your visit, including your feelings, thoughts, judgments, and what you learned about yourself and your assumptions from your experience. Think about your reactions and your attitudes toward the people you encountered. What made you feel comfortable/uncomfortable? What surprised and/or challenged you? Also, discuss ways in which your experience influenced your understanding of your service agency, the staff and clients, and the public issues/social problems the agency deals with regularly. Evaluate the staff member’s role in addressing those issues and problems. Here are some additional questions for you to address: If you were a staff member, what could you hope to accomplish? What else needs to be done? What were your thoughts and feelings about how the clients responded to the program?

Intellectual Analysis This will be a discussion of your experiences in terms of concepts and themes discussed in class and/or class readings containing no narrative and no reactions. Instead, it should demonstrate your skill in making connections between community-based experiences and significant class topics as well as your skill in using concepts discussed in class to analyze and help you better understand your community-based experiences. Just mentioning course concepts is not enough. Remember this is your opportunity to demonstrate how course concepts apply to your real-world experiences. Specifically, you should select three course concepts, provide a definition for each concept, and then discuss the chosen concept’s relationship with the hours you completed at the agency.

Ism Log Directions

The student is to spend at least four weeks observing, listening to, and recording incidents of oppressive language, gestures, or behaviors that you encounter referring to different individuals’ or groups’ age, ethnicity, class, color, disability, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. As you experience these “isms” such as racism, sexism, and ageism, remember them and record them daily. Keep a running log of these incidents you observe during your daily routine, on television, in movies, in advertising, at church, and at school, etc.

In addition to describing these oppressive incidents, you are to briefly write down, after each incident you log, how you thought and felt about what you saw or heard. You will want to consider and document some, not all of the following reflections:

• Were you personally affected by the incident? If so, in what way?

• Were any false stereotypes about certain cultural groups promoted by the incident?

• If other people witnessed the incident, what were their reactions?

• Did you do anything to confront the oppressive situation (such as telling someone that a racist remark was inappropriate)? If so, how did they react to you?

• What did the person or group making the offensive remark or gesture seem to hope to gain from being racist or sexist?

• How does the incident you observed relate to prior incidents you have witnessed concerning this particular cultural group?

• How will the incident impact your future interactions with the cultural group being marginalized?

Legislative Advocacy Project

The rural legislative advocacy project is a paper describing a legislative project for planned social change that includes the implementation of that plan. Students should design a social policy intervention they can defend as better meeting the need(s) of identified social problem. This project consists of the following components:

1. Choose a Topic; 2) Policy Analysis using Popple & Leighniner, 2008, pp. 35-37) to include an introduction, identification of the issue, and identification of solutions; 3) Students will then will design an Advocacy Intervention Plan using Schneider and Lester (2001) framework for influencing social policy. This will include setting goals, planning strategies/tactics, implementing the project, and the conclusion. See grading rubric for further information; 4: Taped or Face to Face Presentation with Feedback from professor and classmates and 5) Final Paper

Popple & Leighninger (Popple & Leighniner, 2008, pp. 35-37) formulated a model of policy analysis with Gilbert & Terrell’s framework embedded into one element. This model systematically focuses on all dimensions of policy. Popple and Leighninger advise that a social work practitioner might not focus on all components, but depending on the policy analyzed and reason for analysis, different elements are focused upon selectively. The framework includes the following elements: delineation and overview of the policy under analysis, historical analysis, social analysis, economic analysis, political analysis, policy/program evaluation and current proposals for policy reform.