April 8, 2014 | Theatre,

Domestic Violence and THE WHOLEHEARTED

By Thea Rodgers

Domestic violence, as defined by the victims’ service agency SafeHorizon, is “a pattern of behavior used to establish power and control over another person through fear and intimidation.” Such behavior is all too common in the United States, especially in our entertainment. The Wholehearted takes on the question of why we happily consume and condone this violence and tackles the complexities of what our depictions on stage and screen reflect about our culture.

“When we’re talking about how violence is portrayed in media, we’re often talking about sensationalized violence, and glamorized violence and sexualized violence,” says Deborah Stein, the director. “The piece does stage that, but it does that in a way that I hope asks people to question their expectation of what they think violence looks like; what is attractive, why we go to horror movies, why we go to slasher films. What do we expect to see? Why is that appealing? How does that differ from what it’s really like?”

Mainstream representations of domestic violence tend to lean in one of three directions. The first expresses the most common understanding of domestic violence: a man who uses physical violence against his wife or girlfriend. We see this in the Dixie Chicks’ 2000 hit “Goodbye Earl,” a country murder ballad in which Wanda, a small-town woman, teams up with her best friend to kill her violently abusive husband. While the song takes a very darkly comic look at domestic violence, showing a dead zombie Earl dancing with the rest of the cast at the end of the music video, the shots of Wanda’s bruised face are graphically realistic.

The second are stories (which have appeared more and more recently in the media) that attempt to represent more complex sides of the issue by looking at individual, interpersonal dynamics rather than generalizing the scope of domestic violence. This, however, raises the question of whether it is possible to stitch a story into our cultural landscape whose scope cannot encompass all such stories. Do artists have a responsibility to represent these very real, very violent relationships in a cliched, “moral” light or can stories be told about individuals that don’t pigeon-hole a whole genre?

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The Wholehearted will play at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box at the Emerson/Paramount Center from Apr 17-27. For more information and tickets, visit our website here.

For example, the collaboration between Eminem and Rihanna on their 2010 single “Love the Way You Lie“ frankly tells the story of a mutually destructive relationship. Rihanna’s verses speak to the addictive patterns of many women stuck in a cycle of domestic violence: “just gonna stand there and watch me burn / but that’s alright because I like the way it hurts.” Eminem provides his own masculine perspective using a number of common themes of domestic violence: anger, the beginning of violence, love, regret, genuine (albeit manipulative) apologies, promises to change and then, finally, relapse. This particular narrative is complex due to the honesty of their own personal histories juxtaposed against their public personas. The song has, however, been criticized for its cliched perspective of gender roles; lyrically dominated by the male perpetrator of violence, Rihanna’s refrain falls into stereotypes of victim-blaming which present the trope of woman “asking for it.” She stays in this relationship because her romanticism, presented as love for him, trumps her survival instincts. In many cases women are prevented from leaving violent relationships because of logistical concerns such as finances, children or even fear for their lives. A common misconception about domestic violence is that getting out of a violent relationship is as simple as leaving the house; in reality, these only represent a few of the many high-risk ramifications.

The third representation dates beyond that of Lord Byron, the infamously broody gothic poet (although he did coin the term “Byronic hero,” or, in more colloquial terms, “bad boy.”) From Emily Bronte’s 19th century novel Wuthering Heights to Robert Downey Jr.’s machismo of Tony Stark in the Iron Man trilogy, the “Byronic Hero” is clearly illustrated: disaffected but sexy, deeply manipulative but heart-breakingly attractive, and — most importantly — has the potential to be “saved” by the female protagonist (or, more troublingly, in the psyche of female viewer.) As we learn in Wuthering Heights, sometimes the characters’ problems run too deep for redemption — and to harken the 80s teen classic Heathers as an example, the results of falling for a bad boy can quite literally have a body count. The most insidious element of this category, however, is the romanticization of this relationship, most strongly on display in the Twilight franchise.

Marketed as a romance to consumer-crazy teen girls across the country, Twilight tells the story of a teenage girl who falls in love with a broody vampire. In this narrative, the elements that would normally be red flags of a mutually violent relationship are presented as tokens of affection: he stalks her and breaks into her house to watch her sleep at night as to “protect” her; she threatens suicide when he leaves her; he removes the engine from her car to keep her from seeing her friends that may convince her to leave him. He never acts out in any physical display of violence but the “pattern of behavior used to establish power and control over another person” is clear. Love is not only defined but valued as possession and ownership.

This issue of ownership is the main underlying reason why domestic violence is still so prevalent. For most of history, women were property and marriages were business transactions. While our culture has progressed to a degree, there is still a strong economy in the codification, control and discipline of feminine bodies. From music videos to films to sports, women are displayed, sexualized and humiliated. Especially in the historically masculine boxing world, female boxers are fetishized and othered, in contrast to their male counterparts.

In Dee’s case, love doesn’t factor into her violent relationship; although she’s married to a man, Charlie Flaxon, she’s still in love with a woman she knew long ago. Ownership, on the other hand, is very present in her relationship with Charlie. Not only are they married, he’s her trainer — the man who coached her to be the athlete and champion that she was. From his perspective, he has created her — and what he can create, he can destroy.

When the play begins, Charlie is out of jail after being convicted of nearly killing Dee — and she’s ready for revenge. “He has his life back,” as Stein says, and because Dee is a boxer, “she wants to finish the fight.” In this case, the complexity isn’t just in their relationship.

“Part of what we’re asking ourselves is, do we want her to succeed?” Stein asks. “And hopefully to propose that there’s no easy answer, that we both think that he should die and that retribution is a morally abhorrent way of thinking about the world.”

Stein also talks about the language we use around this violence as well. Though “domestic violence” falls into the category of “interpersonal violence”–violence between two people–it has very different associations, as does the phrase “domestic abuse.”

“We talked to some people in Philadelphia, worked with some therapists and counselors, and they were using the phrase ‘interpersonal violence’. Part of our character’s struggle is that she doesn’t want to be a victim, and there’s no way to tell her story in a way that she’s not a victim. Unless she kills him back,” Stein says. “So I think that part of that domestic abuse/violence is trying to replace the language of victimhood. I don’t know about this difference between ‘domestic’ and ‘interpersonal’, because to me interpersonal definitely makes the mutuality primary in a way that I don’t know if I’m comfortable with when a man is two hundred and fifty pounds and the woman is ninety pounds.”

Whether criticized or romanticized, clear-cut or complex, the stories we tell and distribute inform our understanding of the world. They reinforce our values and behaviors to younger generations. How do you see complicated stories being handled in theater, film and mass entertainment? Moving forward, in what ways do you think they should be told—and by whom?

 

The Wholehearted will play at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box at the Emerson/Paramount Center from Apr 17-27. For more information and tickets, visit our website here.