"Rape Choreography Makes Films Safer, But Still Takes a Toll on Cast and Crew"

"MacNair might prefer to be working on Disney and kids projects, but a job's a job, and men still get the best stunt-doubling gigs (even for female characters). So she picks up the phone when producers call with a potential scene. She has continued to pick it up — rape scenes are everywhere. MacNair is grateful, always positive, ready to do what's asked of her. At the same time, she — and others — hope the industry might stop to consider the toll of the number of rapes it depicts on screen...

Media attention to rape in film is targeted mostly at how audiences perceive the scenes and lamenting the studios' sheer mass of sexual violence on screen. Many articles ask the question: Are these scenes gratuitous? But rarely do we think about the filmmakers, actors and crew who make on-screen rapes happen, like MacNair. How do they feel? Are they tired of rape scenes? Or what if portraying rape could actually be a positive thing?..

Straw Dogs and Last Tango were not SAG pictures, though it's uncertain how dedicated SAG was at the time to protecting actors during rape scenes. Today, many film sets with rape scenes hire stunt coordinators like MacNair to avoid these situations. But that doesn't mean directors don't cross the line, even in the 2004 Oscar-winning Crash, that dubious pinnacle of film morality and human connection. In various interviews, Thandie Newton said that director Paul Haggis had written a deceptively spare description of one of her scenes, which turned out to be, surprisingly to her, a "hand rape." Matt Dillon was instructed to stick his hand up her skirt and simulate assaulting Newton's character — but Haggis didn't tell Newton. Haggis only asked her what kind of underwear she was wearing that day, according to Newton...

Right now, America — and much of the rest of the world — is simultaneously mired in rape stories and also completely unable in reality to face rape and its repercussions."

http://www.laweekly.com/film/how-actors-and-filmmakers-cope-with-enacting-rape-on-screen-8415330

FB: "With this many on-screen rape scenes being produced, people like MacNair are needed more than ever on set to supervise. "These actresses are playing a vulnerable part, and they're half naked, so I'm assisting for safety reasons," MacNair says. "If [the production] didn't have a choreographer, I would not trust it."...

it's not too much to ask screenwriters, directors and producers to ask themselves these questions before adding to that number: Are you the right person to tell a rape story?"