Intrusion.
While the camera lends itself to Peeping Tom activity, and many a director and cameraman are so used to portraying life through a lens they forget about consent, writing too can create a Peeping Tom situation.
I once reviewed “A Long Time Until Now” on Goodreads. I didn’t copy the review for the blog because several parts of the storyline were problematic.
FROM THE REVIEW (full review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1720781100)
What made me react – Hate is a little strong, but two characters have the potential to really get someone’s ire up. One is an educated-without-life-tempering-experience feminist and one is a fundamentalist/creationist Christian (hereafter referred to as Fundie). I think the Fundie was well done. Stuck in the past with no determinable reason, people will talk about religion. The majority of the Americans were Christian, as is appropriate for the youth-oriented military group; the two that diverged from the “standard” were the two oldest members of the group who had time to develop their own world views different from their upbringing in America. The Fundie really had a time of it being in the BC – Before Christ – and tried so hard to be evangelistic to the locals, against specific orders of the leadership. His conversations with the atheist of the group were spot on and to be expected where stuck in the past with no chance to return home. The Fundie views were well presented and overall treated fairly and with respect. I think Mr. Williamson had these conversations with people he liked.
Not so much the feminist. While the Fundie ended up well-explained and with a good closure for his beliefs, the feminist was treated as a unexplained reactionist the whole time and the closure did not reaffirm her beliefs but was a wishy-washy end. I wish I could say I haven’t see people act this way or had conversations around the topic – but nearly all of the people are over-educated and haven’t had time mellow their education-stuffing from college with the real-world activity.
I think Mr. Williamson doesn’t understands the character. He knows this type of person enough to want to make a character, maybe even trying to get inside their head for this book to understand them, but even after nearly 1,000 pages still doesn’t “get it” and therefore was unable to create sympathy for her. I don’t think he truly understand the terror of being a woman (let alone a beautiful woman) in an all-male organization – that (nearly) any man is innately stronger than any female. Mr. Williamson does present the masculine reactions and intrinsic sociology which makes the fear a real healthy thing instead of just paranoia, to which I applaud him even though the feminist is presented as though it is just paranoia at unhealthy levels (it’s not paranoia if they are out to get you; and note that these guys did not just have the natural mental fantasies, they actively – all of them – took pictures and stored them. Without the discipline of the military, things not only could, but WOULD have turned out very different for her.).
Intrusion. Invasion of privacy. Power dynamic inequality. The list goes on. While CONSENTIAL looking is fine, just as with everything involving a person’s body, non-consensual is a violation of trust. You don’t hug without getting an okay, don’t show pictures.
Pop Culture Detective again hits it out of the park with this video. I especially like a part toward the end where even when the sharing of pictures is depicted as a violation of trust, directors nearly always show the picture to “PROVE” the violation is real. You don’t need to show it. Often the picture being shared was initially consensual, and therefore sexual, in nature. The thing is it is never about the sexualization, the act is about the violation of trust.