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Defeating the Bogeyman
Dec. 4th, 2015 12:48 pmI've been thinking randomly of a trope that shows up frequently in stories. It's pretty dark stuff, but my current novel has been dealing with some similarly dark stuff, and I guess while I'm stuck on certain plot points of that story, I might as well explore this issue. The trope occurs when someone is discovered to be an abuser, particularly a child abuser. It seems especially common in crime procedurals, perhaps as a red herring along the path to finding the actual perpetrator of the original even more horrifying crime. When the hero realizes abuse is taking place, maybe recognizes that it's going to take a lot of complicated bureaucracy to stop the abuser by legal means, he goes rogue and punches the guy senseless. And the audience cheers in savage delight.
Look, I get it. Who wouldn't fantasize about being able to knock the teeth out of a jerk who's stooped so low as to hurt innocent children? It's a perfectly understandable fantasy. It's also incredibly dangerous. Here's a few reasons why.
First off, while abusers have zero justification for what they do, their behavior almost certainly did not emerge from a vacuum. It's quite possible that they used to be a victim as well. Much as we'd like to paint them as inhuman bogeymen, they're human just like the rest of us. All too often they were raised with such toxic notions of how to deal with stress in relationships that it has blinded them to the awful enormity of what they're doing. I say this not to excuse their abuse one whit, but to point out that dealing with the consequences of their wrongdoing is not as simple a matter as drawing a sword and cutting their head off. The effects linger.
Abusers are usually family members. This is heartbreaking, but it means that the victims don't have a straight-forward "I hate this scary guy who's hurting me" relationship with the abuser. They might have no concept of what a healthy parent-child relationship is like, as theirs is all they've ever known. And if you just come charging in treating their father or mother like a demon, that can be incredibly damaging. They love them. They're afraid of them, but they're also their caretakers. They depend on them. And the abusers probably have periods of treating them well, memories which a victim will rely upon to convince themselves the abuser is really a good person. This is why telling an adult victim to "just leave!" the abuser is extremely wrong-headed. You have no notion of the kind of emotional breaking-down of one's spirit and will that can happen in a bad relationship.
Abusers are skilled at making their victims utterly dependent upon them. They isolate them from all other support systems, telling them over and over that the abuser is the only one the victim can rely on, that everyone else doesn't care about them, and any criticisms someone makes of the victim (like, for example, "Why are you still with that guy? He's such a jerk, you'd have to be an idiot to stay with him!") are only further proof that no one else supports them. They'll frequently employ the chilling psychological manipulation of gaslighting to further this goal.
Also consider this - if someone attacks an abuser and they suspect it's because their victim told someone, the victim is the one who will suffer for it. Until they can be removed safely from the situation, it's incredibly risky to antagonize the abuser.
This is all real life stuff. I've read too many agonizing accounts of people in abusive situations and how hard it was to leave and recover from the deep emotional wounds inflicted upon them. I've read their advice on how to help someone get out of a bad place like that. It takes a very gentle, patient, understanding hand. Storming in and smashing the abuser in the face is the opposite of that, and I can't cheer for it.
From a storytelling perspective, it's also problematic. It suggests that the solution for violence is more violence. I understand that fighting back against an attacker can be justifiable violence, but that's not what this is. It's stooping to the level of the abuser. If the writer is using it as a moment to indicate that something is off about the hero, that he has dangerous tendencies he needs to reign in, I'm okay with that as long as it gets resolved and they deal with the fallout for the victim. But if we're meant to be delighted and relish the righteous vengeance of the attack, I can't get behind that. As far as I'm concerned, that hero has failed to be heroic.
Look, I get it. Who wouldn't fantasize about being able to knock the teeth out of a jerk who's stooped so low as to hurt innocent children? It's a perfectly understandable fantasy. It's also incredibly dangerous. Here's a few reasons why.
First off, while abusers have zero justification for what they do, their behavior almost certainly did not emerge from a vacuum. It's quite possible that they used to be a victim as well. Much as we'd like to paint them as inhuman bogeymen, they're human just like the rest of us. All too often they were raised with such toxic notions of how to deal with stress in relationships that it has blinded them to the awful enormity of what they're doing. I say this not to excuse their abuse one whit, but to point out that dealing with the consequences of their wrongdoing is not as simple a matter as drawing a sword and cutting their head off. The effects linger.
Abusers are usually family members. This is heartbreaking, but it means that the victims don't have a straight-forward "I hate this scary guy who's hurting me" relationship with the abuser. They might have no concept of what a healthy parent-child relationship is like, as theirs is all they've ever known. And if you just come charging in treating their father or mother like a demon, that can be incredibly damaging. They love them. They're afraid of them, but they're also their caretakers. They depend on them. And the abusers probably have periods of treating them well, memories which a victim will rely upon to convince themselves the abuser is really a good person. This is why telling an adult victim to "just leave!" the abuser is extremely wrong-headed. You have no notion of the kind of emotional breaking-down of one's spirit and will that can happen in a bad relationship.
Abusers are skilled at making their victims utterly dependent upon them. They isolate them from all other support systems, telling them over and over that the abuser is the only one the victim can rely on, that everyone else doesn't care about them, and any criticisms someone makes of the victim (like, for example, "Why are you still with that guy? He's such a jerk, you'd have to be an idiot to stay with him!") are only further proof that no one else supports them. They'll frequently employ the chilling psychological manipulation of gaslighting to further this goal.
Also consider this - if someone attacks an abuser and they suspect it's because their victim told someone, the victim is the one who will suffer for it. Until they can be removed safely from the situation, it's incredibly risky to antagonize the abuser.
This is all real life stuff. I've read too many agonizing accounts of people in abusive situations and how hard it was to leave and recover from the deep emotional wounds inflicted upon them. I've read their advice on how to help someone get out of a bad place like that. It takes a very gentle, patient, understanding hand. Storming in and smashing the abuser in the face is the opposite of that, and I can't cheer for it.
From a storytelling perspective, it's also problematic. It suggests that the solution for violence is more violence. I understand that fighting back against an attacker can be justifiable violence, but that's not what this is. It's stooping to the level of the abuser. If the writer is using it as a moment to indicate that something is off about the hero, that he has dangerous tendencies he needs to reign in, I'm okay with that as long as it gets resolved and they deal with the fallout for the victim. But if we're meant to be delighted and relish the righteous vengeance of the attack, I can't get behind that. As far as I'm concerned, that hero has failed to be heroic.
