Ethical Issues In The Movie Trust

Improved Essays
The 2010 film Trust centers on a high school freshman named Annie Cameron. She meets a person called Charlie in an online chat room, and over time, she develops a strong relationship with him. Although Charlie originally says that he is sixteen, he gradually increases his age as the two connect. Annie eventually agrees to meet him in person at her local mall, and discovers Charlie is actually a man who is over thirty years old. At first, she is upset about his age, but she agrees to spend some time with him. Charlie takes her to a motel where he rapes her. Following this event, Annie denies the sexual assault, but when the FBI links her case to others, she realizes that she was in fact sexually assaulted. However, Annie then must deal with the emotional aftermath and other consequences. The film shows how the victim is commonly blamed for the attack and demonstrates how pornography helps to perpetuate rape and the culture surrounding it.
Following the attack, people question Annie’s decisions and blame her for the assault. Her
…show more content…
Annie is blamed for the attack, just as many victims of rape are blamed for their assaults as well. Annie is clearly manipulated by Charlie and is forced to have sex with him as is evidenced by her verbal protests during the assault. Through this, Trust demonstrates that victim-blaming is a common and unfair practice. The film goes on to establish the connection between pornography and sexual assault. Pornography uses sexual violence and influences the way society views rape and sexual assault. For this reason, pornography helps to create rape culture in which sexual assault is normalized and excused for a variety of reasons. The film presents the problems, but it does little to offer solutions. It is up to the audience to recognize the injustice and take action to change the

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    This book isn't for everyone, but it does shine a light a sensitive topic people tend to avoid. In a subliminal tone, Ellen Hopkins explores the topic of sexual abuse and all the subconscious problems that it causes in the long run.…

    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rape is a powerful word that can cause a lot of pain to a victim. The thought of being categorized as a “victim”, is not what one may hope for. Yet, there is always a possibility that the victim may not report this horrific crime. In the book Missoula, we hear the stories of brave young women who came forward to tell their stories. Yet,what makes these cases so appalling is how they were handled. In the town of Missoula, football players are worshipped and treated as royalty. Even though they commit these horrific crimes, they are portrayed as untouchable.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Date rape remains a common problem in the United States. Although typically misunderstood and unreported, the crime of unwanted intercourse brought upon by a familiar individual has become a subject of national concern. Authors Camille Paglia and Susan Jacoby express their opposing views as to the cause of the crime in their articles “Rape: A Bigger Danger Than Feminists Know” and “Common Decency”. While Paglia and Jacoby have conflicting arguments, Jacoby's use of ethos, logos and pathos outdo that of Paglia's, making her argument the most effective of the two regarding who is at fault for the crime of date rape.…

    • 2004 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jeannette Walls and her family have gone through a lot, as seen in her book The Glass Castle. As a young girl she faced bullying, poverty, alcoholism, and sexual assault. She was often brought into these situations by her parents and was told to ignore it. Rape and sexual assault are very real, important matters of discussion and the reality can be shocking. People should be taught to report anything that has happened without feeling ashamed or judged. People should also be taught to not take advantage of others. The Glass Castle shows just a few main areas of concern regarding rape and sexual assault are seen with young children and minors, college campuses, and the emotional and physical side effects; it is also important to realize that…

    • 1429 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ask an average teenager what they know about sexual assault, and they may refer to “locker room talk” or dramatized rape scenes in movies. It is misconceptions like these that can drive a victim further into seclusion, because their situation is so unknown to the average person, leaving them in solitary. In the United States alone, one in five women and one in seventy-five men will be raped at some point throughout their lifetime, yet only 37% of these incidents are reported to authorities (Department of Justice 1). There are many factors that contribute to this, but one major reason this occurs is that victims feel as if they are on one's own and lack someone to assist them in their time of need. In the novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Laura Mulvey notes Freud’s term ‘scopophillia’ in relation to objectifying women on screen, because of the pleasure in looking and “taking other people as object, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze” (6). Mulvey calls this the ‘male-gaze’. In a film with almost exclusively female characters, it seems the male-gaze should be abolished with female subjectivity, but De Palma manages to include it taking on the gaze himself through the camera lens. Particularly in the shower scene, the male-gaze is seen when the camera pans through the locker room roaming over the naked bodies of the high school girls. The scene plays out like a misogynistic fantasy of young female bodies on display touching each other through the steam-filled lock room like “ethereal creatures, nymphs at the water pond” (Lindsey, 35). The audience is removed from the scene by lack of diegetic sound and put into a voyeuristic point of view taking pleasure and power over the passive female characters. The next shot is of Carrie sensually washing her body and touching her breasts, but the shots cut up her body into tiny sexualized pieces thereby fetishizing her body. Alternatively Peirce’s version of the shower scene takes out the nudity and projected male fantasy to portray a more realistic version of a female locker room from a female perspective. Instead the scene shows Carrie’s vulnerability and isolation as she carefully undresses and uses the open shower, when no one else is around. The scene is juxtaposed by as shot of the clamoring girls in the locker room changing and interacting without any sexualized connotation. Peirce’s shower scene provokes deeper meaning into the emotional state of Carrie and the reality of high school females without objectification or…

    • 1510 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The directors, Chyng Sun and Miguel Picker, dissect components of pornography such as the submissive female character who begs for mistreatment by one or many dominating male presences. The documentary also draws upon issues regarding this industry as a whole, mainly how it turns women into commodities and accentuates the polar spectrum of masculinity and femininity. To do so, it examines scenes from pornographic films in which men harass women, often aggressively handling, choking or whipping them. The men yell degrading commands, expecting the women to willing obey, which they do because they have no control over their situations. Sickening scenarios such as this teach men to think that hyper-dominance is a necessary part of their masculine identity. While doing so, it teaches male and female viewers that women should be inferior, compliant individuals. Dr. Bressi, a victim of sexual assault that featured in Price of Pleasure, stated that being forced to view porn was meant to teach her, “how to be subservient, how to degrade [herself]”. Porn has the ability to do so because it portrays women as vulnerable, submissive beings that depend on men for their importance, otherwise feeling useless. Female performers in pornographic scenes get into their roles in ways such as shouting objectifying lines about being further manhandled which makes viewers think they tolerate how they are being treated. While many performers are simply acting the part, some truly to do tolerate it because they look at their role as part of their career in the industry. One porn star featured in Price of Pleasure referred to herself saying, “I’m a product and I know that. I am a dang good product”. The reoccurring trend throughout pornography of women’s acceptance of degradation is teaching young women to…

    • 1666 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Jackson Katz’s solemn diction informs the public about how men should be focused on rather than women when it comes to domestic violence, rape, or other morbid situations by explaining why victim blaming is ineffective and how to influence people to stop thinking discriminatorily. The majority of the public seem to blame victims when it comes to problems. For example in the case of rape, a woman may be shamed for wearing certain clothes or acting a certain way. In reality, the perpetrator should be shamed for committing the action in the first place. To blame the victim is unnecessary, and causes the victim to feel at fault and the problem to stay prominent. A practical way of raising awareness for such situations is to voice concern. If everyone…

    • 181 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Since 1938, federal labor laws have left out child farm workers from labor protections given to other working children. Unlike most other jobs, children over the age of 12 can legally work in agriculture if they have their parent’s permission and are working on the same farm as their parents. Children are allowed to work in the fields at very young ages, for many hours a day. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of U.S. children work in agriculture. Many of the workers haven’t been allowed legal status to live in the United States and therefore are treated unfairly and are not give basic rights. Out of fear of displacement and deportation, farm workers often are unable to protest poor conditions or report employer’s violation of labor, health or safety laws.…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the movie, A Time to Kill, the main character Jake Brigance who is an attorney in the state of Mississippi describes the danger he faces when he takes on a murder case. During this period, there was still racial tension between whites and African-Americans in the state of Mississippi. The murder case that Brigance takes on involves two Caucasian men who were murdered by an African-American named, Carl Lee Hailey. Hailey murders the two white men because they raped and assaulted his 10-year-old daughter, Tanya Hailey. In the movie, Brigance is threatened by community members to drop the murder case. For example, members of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter in Mississippi try to instill fear into Brigance’s family and employees by burning of…

    • 1316 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the confronting documentary, Audrie & Daisy, film makers Bonni Cohn and Jon Shenk depict a completely biased and illusory stance on the aftermath of two teenage sexual assault victims. A range of conventions are expertly used, positioning the viewers to believe that the government and social media have, to an extent, influenced the victimization of Daisy Coleman, and the tragic suicide of Audrie Pott. Through the perpetuation of socio-cultural values and stereotypes inherent in American high schools, the employment of certain film techniques, specifically special effects, and a discerning use of language choices through editing, Cohn and Shenk have carefully manipulated the audience to sympathize and agree with their views regarding the…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The 1993 film, The Firm, is about revealing the business environment as a cut-throat competitive and money driven realm of society that is faced with many personal and business ethical issues. In this essay, we will discuss The Firm’s multiple situations of corruption and deceit as it relates to business ethics concepts demonstrated by James Brusseau (2016); the decisions made and alternative outcome; the reasons why the character made his choices according to Kohlberg’s theory of moral development; and the results behind those decisions. The major business ethical issues identified in this movie are: theories of duties and rights involving perennial duties we owe to ourselves and others and categorical imperative, something we need to do…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Recently, women have broken their silence by coming out and complaining about violence and harassment, and media took its position to raise awareness to the public. These 2 factors contributed in highlighting this type of crime, as well as raising awareness in the society regarding the manifest and latent function of sexual assault.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rape Obsession Analysis

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Woman have fought for their rights to overcome the subordination they 've felt because of man. In society we tend to look past rape and many woman even hide the assault due to shame. Similarly, Jada Yuan, writer of “Orange is the New Black is the Only TV Show that Understands Rape”, agrees with the idea that Television should display women overcoming their traumas of assault. “Realism isn’t the problem; lack of purpose is” (Page 2), Yuan picks apart TV’s desperate craving for ratings, for she has higher hopes for television than violence without a purpose. The author brings up the idea that as an American society we begin to close our ears and eyes when confronted with rape. Women are assaulted daily; in fact one in every five women experience sexual assault. Rape shouldn’t be a tool for entertainment, women deserve an opportunity to face their daemons rather than be forgotten within the plot line. Jada Yuan structures her piece with her idea, “[Women] deserve yo have their traumas acknowledged. They deserve their stories to be told ” (Page 4). This is an obvious representation of how our society functions; ask women to raise their hands if they have ever been sexually assaulted and you will see a lack of hands, begin talking about rape and sharing stories and you’d realize the majority of the room have experience some sort of trauma. Socially, people need to talk about…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In particular we are treated to the intimate, unsettling details of the protagonist, Estelle’s, confusion about sexual assault. From the beginning of the story, Estelle makes an…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays

Related Topics