Loading...
Start Date
24-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
24-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
Panel Rationale
In the wake of #MeToo and #TimesUp and heightened awareness of the pervasiveness of gendered abuses of power in the screen sector, issues of consent both on- and off-screen have become increasingly urgent to address. This panel brings together 4 papers exploring sex, consent and intimacy in relation to contemporary examples from television and broader popular culture, looking at both textual representations and production cultures. Cefai’s paper explores the temporality of consent from interdisciplinary, feminist and theoretical perspectives and through a focus on contemporary cultural examples of moments of sexual exchange. Horeck and Berridge’s paper considers how consent is negotiated off-screen with actors and crew in the UK television industry, drawing on a recent series of interviews with intimacy coordinators to offer new insights into the complex role that the relatively new profession might play in promoting a culture of consent on set. Fowler’s paper introduces the UK television drama Normal People (BBC, 2020) to the discussion of intimacy, exploring how moments of consent are choreographed by an intimacy coordinator and depicted on-screen. Peberdy’s paper focuses on another UK series that used an intimacy coordinator, I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO/Falkna), situating this programme in relation to a wider post #MeToo televisual context to consider the different ways in which silence functions in the series’ depictions of sexual violence.
References
Brey, Iris. (2018). Sex and the Series. Paris: Éditions de l’Olivier
Berlant, Lauren. (2000) ‘Intimacy: A Special Issue’. Intimacy Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-8.
Horeck, Tanya. 2020. ‘Intimacy Coordination and Sexual Consent in Normal People’. In Media Res,https://mediacommons.org/imr/content/intimacy-coordination-and-sexual-consent-normal-people
Meek, Michelle. 2020. ‘What About Boys? Affirmative Consent in American Teen Films’, In Media Res, December 7th, http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/what-about-boys-affirmative-consent-american-teen-films
Zorita, Kristina. 2020. Interview with Intimacy Coordinator Ita O’Brien. European Women’s Audiovisual Network, https://www.ewawomen.com/interviews/interview-with-ita-obrien/
Is Consent a Retroactive Formation? Temporalising Consent in Contemporary Feminist Culture
Sarah Cefai, Goldsmiths University, UK
“You know where you’re into it and then you’re just suddenly not sure. I thought about calling a taxi but [pause], I felt like I owed him”–EastEnders, 2018
We consent to that which is intimate to us. In the current mediatised discourse, the right to consent faces forward—we give our consent to an event or occurrence that hasn’t happened yet. The legal rights framework is subtended by a tacit model of consent, which becomes the special preserve of rape and sexual offences legislation when tacit consent is transgressed by particular forms of social action. This model of consent is presumptive in terms of gendered bodies and behaviours, but not subjects. This paper considers what we can learn about the limits of consent as a feminist concept given the temporality of what is exchanged in its moment of transgression. Drawing on feminist theory, affect study and cultural anthropology, the paper conceptualises consent as a temporally disjunctive mode characterised by the sublimation of exchange by a relation of power. That is, the paper explores what it would mean to think through consent as that which is given only after it has been taken, and therefore to consider consent as a retroactive formation. The paper explores this argument through close readings of the gendered aesthetics of sexual exchange in various examples from contemporary feminist media culture.
Intimacy Coordination: Staging Sex and Consent in UK Television Drama
Tanya Horeck, Anglia Ruskin University & Susan Berridge, University of Stirling, UK
This paper explores the role of the intimacy coordinator - a professional who works with actors and crew to choreograph intimate scenes and scenes of sexual violence in film and television production - in promoting a culture of consent on set, which has emerged as increasingly vital in the wake of #MeToo and Times’ Up. Concerned with ensuring that on-set production practices are safe for everyone involved, intimacy coordinators foster a culture of care and respect on set, helping actors to establish boundaries regarding what they are – and are not – comfortable with (in terms of nudity, sexual contact, and touch) (Zorita 2020). Drawing on a recent series of interviews carried out with intimacy coordinators, actors, agents as well as those who advocate for the role, this paper offers new and important insights into the complexities of how consent is defined in the profession, and how it is obtained from actors on television productions. In particular, we consider the way in which intimacy coordinators foreground a sex education definition of consent as ‘freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific’ (from Planned Parenthood cited in Meek 2020), and the extent to which this definition may challenge normative working cultures in the television sector and establish a greater ethic of care for workers.
Consenting to and Co-ordinating Intimacy in Normal People (2020)
Catherine Fowler, University of Otago
In Sex and the Series Iris Brey points out that whilst the online movements #MeToo and Times Up have opened up a public space to talk about scarring sexual encounters, too frequently the stories told are ones where in private women did not have the words to express how they felt. Adapting Brey’s premise, this paper adds the TV series Normal People into a study of intimacy on screen. Adapted from the acclaimed novel of the same name by Sally Rooney, Normal People tells the story of two awkward school leavers, Marianne and Connell, who enter into a secret relationship, hidden because of Connell’s paranoia for peer approval. Crucially, becoming intimate overcomes their individual problems since, as Lauren Berlant puts it, ‘to be intimate is to communicate with the sparest of signs and gestures, and at its root intimacy has the quality of eloquence and brevity’ (1998/2000, 281).
Berlant’s words reveal the paradox of intimacy: that it feels incredibly meaningful and fulfilling yet that it escapes description; so how can it be conveyed on screen? Through close textual analysis of Normal People I argue that two strategies are adopted to (audio)visualise intimacy in the adaption: first, it is verbalised through key scenes in which consent is foregrounded; second it is expertly choreographed by ‘intimacy co-ordinator’ Ita O’Brien. Both these strategies have earnt the sex scenes in Normal People much praise for their portrayal of a relationship grounded in equality, therefore adding nuances to Brey’s discussion of Sex and the Series.
Silence Implies Consent: Giving Voice to Sexual Assault in I May Destroy You
Donna Peberdy, Solent University, Southampton UK
Silence is golden. A conspiracy of silence. A pregnant pause. A wall of silence. Most of us will be familiar with these old adages, aphorisms and maxims. In the last five years, ‘silence’ has taken on new meaning in contemporary Western culture, particularly at the intersection of gender and sexual politics, reshaped by ‘silence breakers’, the ‘silent pandemic’, silent protests, NDAs, gagging orders and hush agreements.
The contemporary sexual moment is punctuated by acts of gendered and sexual silencing that have been variously fictionalised in a wave of hugely popular television dramas, including The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu 2017-), Big Little Lies (HBO 2017-2019), The Good Fight (CBS 2017-) and The Morning Show (Apple TV+ 2019-). This paper - part of a larger project on the representation of sex and performance in post #MeToo television drama and culture - focuses on the depiction and treatment of sexual violence and assault in BBC/HBO/Falkna co-production I May Destroy You (2020). Michaela Coel’s drama is particularly significant in confronting and deconstructing the old adage ‘silence implies consent.’ Drawing on performance studies, gender and sexuality studies, and sound studies, I consider the differing forms and functions of silence in scenes and storylines of sexual assault, all competing with the cacophony of noise that dominates the soundscape of contemporary culture.
Sex, Consent and Intimacy in Contemporary Media Culture
Panel Rationale
In the wake of #MeToo and #TimesUp and heightened awareness of the pervasiveness of gendered abuses of power in the screen sector, issues of consent both on- and off-screen have become increasingly urgent to address. This panel brings together 4 papers exploring sex, consent and intimacy in relation to contemporary examples from television and broader popular culture, looking at both textual representations and production cultures. Cefai’s paper explores the temporality of consent from interdisciplinary, feminist and theoretical perspectives and through a focus on contemporary cultural examples of moments of sexual exchange. Horeck and Berridge’s paper considers how consent is negotiated off-screen with actors and crew in the UK television industry, drawing on a recent series of interviews with intimacy coordinators to offer new insights into the complex role that the relatively new profession might play in promoting a culture of consent on set. Fowler’s paper introduces the UK television drama Normal People (BBC, 2020) to the discussion of intimacy, exploring how moments of consent are choreographed by an intimacy coordinator and depicted on-screen. Peberdy’s paper focuses on another UK series that used an intimacy coordinator, I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO/Falkna), situating this programme in relation to a wider post #MeToo televisual context to consider the different ways in which silence functions in the series’ depictions of sexual violence.
References
Brey, Iris. (2018). Sex and the Series. Paris: Éditions de l’Olivier
Berlant, Lauren. (2000) ‘Intimacy: A Special Issue’. Intimacy Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-8.
Horeck, Tanya. 2020. ‘Intimacy Coordination and Sexual Consent in Normal People’. In Media Res,https://mediacommons.org/imr/content/intimacy-coordination-and-sexual-consent-normal-people
Meek, Michelle. 2020. ‘What About Boys? Affirmative Consent in American Teen Films’, In Media Res, December 7th, http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/what-about-boys-affirmative-consent-american-teen-films
Zorita, Kristina. 2020. Interview with Intimacy Coordinator Ita O’Brien. European Women’s Audiovisual Network, https://www.ewawomen.com/interviews/interview-with-ita-obrien/
Is Consent a Retroactive Formation? Temporalising Consent in Contemporary Feminist Culture
Sarah Cefai, Goldsmiths University, UK
“You know where you’re into it and then you’re just suddenly not sure. I thought about calling a taxi but [pause], I felt like I owed him”–EastEnders, 2018
We consent to that which is intimate to us. In the current mediatised discourse, the right to consent faces forward—we give our consent to an event or occurrence that hasn’t happened yet. The legal rights framework is subtended by a tacit model of consent, which becomes the special preserve of rape and sexual offences legislation when tacit consent is transgressed by particular forms of social action. This model of consent is presumptive in terms of gendered bodies and behaviours, but not subjects. This paper considers what we can learn about the limits of consent as a feminist concept given the temporality of what is exchanged in its moment of transgression. Drawing on feminist theory, affect study and cultural anthropology, the paper conceptualises consent as a temporally disjunctive mode characterised by the sublimation of exchange by a relation of power. That is, the paper explores what it would mean to think through consent as that which is given only after it has been taken, and therefore to consider consent as a retroactive formation. The paper explores this argument through close readings of the gendered aesthetics of sexual exchange in various examples from contemporary feminist media culture.
Intimacy Coordination: Staging Sex and Consent in UK Television Drama
Tanya Horeck, Anglia Ruskin University & Susan Berridge, University of Stirling, UK
This paper explores the role of the intimacy coordinator - a professional who works with actors and crew to choreograph intimate scenes and scenes of sexual violence in film and television production - in promoting a culture of consent on set, which has emerged as increasingly vital in the wake of #MeToo and Times’ Up. Concerned with ensuring that on-set production practices are safe for everyone involved, intimacy coordinators foster a culture of care and respect on set, helping actors to establish boundaries regarding what they are – and are not – comfortable with (in terms of nudity, sexual contact, and touch) (Zorita 2020). Drawing on a recent series of interviews carried out with intimacy coordinators, actors, agents as well as those who advocate for the role, this paper offers new and important insights into the complexities of how consent is defined in the profession, and how it is obtained from actors on television productions. In particular, we consider the way in which intimacy coordinators foreground a sex education definition of consent as ‘freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific’ (from Planned Parenthood cited in Meek 2020), and the extent to which this definition may challenge normative working cultures in the television sector and establish a greater ethic of care for workers.
Consenting to and Co-ordinating Intimacy in Normal People (2020)
Catherine Fowler, University of Otago
In Sex and the Series Iris Brey points out that whilst the online movements #MeToo and Times Up have opened up a public space to talk about scarring sexual encounters, too frequently the stories told are ones where in private women did not have the words to express how they felt. Adapting Brey’s premise, this paper adds the TV series Normal People into a study of intimacy on screen. Adapted from the acclaimed novel of the same name by Sally Rooney, Normal People tells the story of two awkward school leavers, Marianne and Connell, who enter into a secret relationship, hidden because of Connell’s paranoia for peer approval. Crucially, becoming intimate overcomes their individual problems since, as Lauren Berlant puts it, ‘to be intimate is to communicate with the sparest of signs and gestures, and at its root intimacy has the quality of eloquence and brevity’ (1998/2000, 281).
Berlant’s words reveal the paradox of intimacy: that it feels incredibly meaningful and fulfilling yet that it escapes description; so how can it be conveyed on screen? Through close textual analysis of Normal People I argue that two strategies are adopted to (audio)visualise intimacy in the adaption: first, it is verbalised through key scenes in which consent is foregrounded; second it is expertly choreographed by ‘intimacy co-ordinator’ Ita O’Brien. Both these strategies have earnt the sex scenes in Normal People much praise for their portrayal of a relationship grounded in equality, therefore adding nuances to Brey’s discussion of Sex and the Series.
Silence Implies Consent: Giving Voice to Sexual Assault in I May Destroy You
Donna Peberdy, Solent University, Southampton UK
Silence is golden. A conspiracy of silence. A pregnant pause. A wall of silence. Most of us will be familiar with these old adages, aphorisms and maxims. In the last five years, ‘silence’ has taken on new meaning in contemporary Western culture, particularly at the intersection of gender and sexual politics, reshaped by ‘silence breakers’, the ‘silent pandemic’, silent protests, NDAs, gagging orders and hush agreements.
The contemporary sexual moment is punctuated by acts of gendered and sexual silencing that have been variously fictionalised in a wave of hugely popular television dramas, including The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu 2017-), Big Little Lies (HBO 2017-2019), The Good Fight (CBS 2017-) and The Morning Show (Apple TV+ 2019-). This paper - part of a larger project on the representation of sex and performance in post #MeToo television drama and culture - focuses on the depiction and treatment of sexual violence and assault in BBC/HBO/Falkna co-production I May Destroy You (2020). Michaela Coel’s drama is particularly significant in confronting and deconstructing the old adage ‘silence implies consent.’ Drawing on performance studies, gender and sexuality studies, and sound studies, I consider the differing forms and functions of silence in scenes and storylines of sexual assault, all competing with the cacophony of noise that dominates the soundscape of contemporary culture.
Bio
Susan Berridge is Lecturer in Film and Media at the University of Stirling, Scotland. Her current research is focused on representations of intimacy and consent in contemporary television drama. Previous research has been focused on gender inequalities on/off screen in the film and television industries. She has published on these themes in various journals including Feminist Media Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies and Journal of British Cinema and Television, as well as in edited collections on gender and media more widely. She is former co-editor of the Commentary and Criticism section of Feminist Media Studies.
Tanya Horeck is Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies at Anglia Ruskin University. She is the author of Public Rape: Representing Violation in Fiction and Film (2004) and Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital Streaming Era (2019) and the co-editor of the anthologies, The New Extremism in Cinema (2011) and Rape in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy and Beyond (2013). Her current research explores depictions of sex and consent on contemporary television. She is also the co-investigator of an AHRC project, ‘Combatting sexual risks and gendered harms online during Covid-19: Developing resources for young people, parents and schools.’
Sarah Cefai is a Lecturer in Gender, Sexuality and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Working within cultural studies and paying particular attention to theories of affect and affect study, Sarah’s work explores the ways in which structures of power and belonging are lived in the context of contemporary media cultures. She is particularly interested in materialist philosophies and has published on humiliation, desire and identity, feminism and queer theory in Cultural Studies, New Media & Society, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies among others.
Catherine Fowler is an Associate Professor in Film and Media at Otago University, New Zealand, She is author of a BFI Classic on Jeanne Dielman and the book Sally Potter (Illinois University Press, 2009). She is co-editor with Gillian Helfield of Representing the rural – space place and identity in films about the land (Wayne State University Press, 2006) and editor of The European Cinema Reader (Routledge, 2002).
Donna Peberdy is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Solent University, Southampton UK. Donna’s research focuses on acting and performance, gender, sexuality and the politics of identity. She is the author of Masculinity and Film Performance: Male Angst in Contemporary American Cinema (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), co-editor of Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversion (I. B. Tauris 2017) and series co-editor of the Screening Sex book series for Edinburgh University Press. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals Transnational Cinemas, Celebrity Studies, The New Review of Film and Television, Men & Masculinities and numerous edited collections. She is co-director of www.screeningsex.com and co-convenes the Screening Sex scholarly interest group for the British Association for Film, Television and Screen Studies.