Tilt the stick to rape her: sexual abuse, escapism and censorship in “rapeplay” and other Japanese media
Marco Benoit Carbone
Monogamy, heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality in recent science fiction cinema
Ewan Kirkland
Traditionally, scholars exploring representation in film and television have focussed on ‘non-normative’ sexualities – primarily lesbians and gay men – leaving ‘normative’ sexual constructions relatively unexamined.
Ewan’s paper, in contrast, explored the depiction of compulsory heterosexuality and monogamy in three science fiction films: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Adjustment Bureau (2011) and the little-known Timer (2009). Developing previous work on romantic comedy, it argued that all three movies express dominant ideas of lifelong heterosexual pairing as natural, inevitable, and ordained by fate.
Eternal Sunshine presents its central couple’s bond as resisting even the medical intervention of reconstructive brain surgery. In Adjustment Bureau the love of the heterosexual couple is represented as battling against all odds, powerful enough even to redirect the course of the universe.
Timer literalises the idea of ‘the one’ as a commercially available surgical device, but in doing so allows for a more complex engagement with the myths of romantic love. I hope that my work contributes to a greater understanding of the operation of dominant sexual representation in popular culture.
Ewan may be contacted on ekirklanduk@yahoo.co.uk
The strange case of the misappearance of sex in videogames
Tanya Krzywinska
Queer sexual assemblages. Slash FanFic
Anne Kustritz
