Embedded Files
Williams Joke Likens Bad Weather to Rape: 1990
A boy walks home from a party
He’s 18, brown curly hair, plays for the football team
A quarterback, with a girlfriend
He goes to church
You can see him there in the choir, third row on the left
He had a blast at the party
Johnny, the running back, threw it
At midnight, he had sex with his girlfrined
In one of those guest rooms with the pastel quilts
He could tell from the way she sounded that she liked it
It rains as he walks
The soft, curling hand of fog lays a blanket of white
Over the white-picket fences and two-car garages
Of an orderly Texan suburb
A cloudy sky bathes the neighborhood in silver
Turning the air brisk and bleak
The boy shakes water from his tidy hair
It’s no big deal, he thinks to himself
Just bad weather.
“No big deal”
phrase of deal
1. Informal
used to indicate that something is of little consequence.
"We had a casual conversation about it. No big deal."
A girl walks home from a party
She’s 17, light blonde hair, cheers for the football team
A flier, with a boyfriend
She goes to church
You can see her there in the pews, watching him sing the gospel
She left the party as soon as possible
Johnny, the running back, asked where she was going
At midnight, her boyfriend forced himself on her, she told him
In one of those guest rooms with beer cans on the floor
He could tell from the way she cried that she didn’t want it
“You’ve probably just had too much to drink,” Johnny tells her.
He walks her to the curb.
And sends her off with his All-American smile.
She can’t feel the rain as she walks.
His hands are on her body
His fingers grip her wrists
His mouth says, “It’s okay baby, just relax.”
A stormy sky bathes the neighborhood in darkness
Hiding the bruises that curl around her thighs
Her arms
Her breasts
The girl shakes, but not from the cold
What am I going to do? She thinks to herself
I wish it was just bad weather
The girl gets home
She looks in the mirror
He left tattoo kisses on her virgin body
Purple paint pressed into pale skin
Salty tears buried in the grooves of chapped lips
Mascara ink smudged in the valleys of eyes squeezed shut
The ghost of his bitter beer breath
Haunts her
Hides under her bed
This time, her mother isn’t there to tell her monster’s aren’t real
She takes a shower
She leaves the water cold
She scrubs until her skin is bright red
As red as her chapped ruby nail polish
No matter how hard she scrubs
Picks
Cuts
Washes
The boy’s hands do not leave her skin
The girl makes her way downstairs
She sits on the couch, between her parents
They’re watching the evening news
“Have fun at the party?” Her mother asks
“Yes,” the girl replies.
She wore her long pajamas that night
She didn’t want them asking questions
They loved her boyfriend
He was coming to dinner on Sunday
Her father turns up the volume
“This just in,” the anchor says
“Republican gubernatorial nominee Clayton Williams compared today’s
cold, foggy weather that delayed his cattle round up to rape, saying ‘If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”
Her father laughs loudly, heartily
“Now that’s the kind of man we need in office!” He chuckles
“A real man’s man.”
He leans over and gives his daughter a hug
“Not my baby girl, though! She knows better.”
The girl nods
“Of course, dad.”
She looks at the TV again, at the upstanding man and his smiling colleagues, and vows to never tell a soul what had happened on that cold, foggy Saturday night.
It's no big deal. It’s no big deal.
Overview
The primary theme of my project was the dismissal of rape as something common, expected, and not something to “make a fuss” about. This was coupled with an investigation into the nature of victim-blaming, the tendency for abusers to believe they have done nothing wrong (often due to a blatant misunderstanding of consent or a belief that they, as men, can’t be expected to maintain all of their sexual urges and are comfortable with the concept of women suffering for their fulfillment), and the treatment of rape (including the language we use to talk about it) in mass media, specifically by male politicians.
The two historical documents I used were: 1) From the University of North Texas Digital Libraries: “Williams jake likens bad weather to rape”, The Dallas Morning News, 1999, a newspaper clipping, and 2) From Access World News: “Warren Burnett for the Defense”, Texas Monthly, 1974, a newspaper article.
The first article describes the jests of Texas’s 1990 gubernatorial nominee Clayton Williams, who infamously and unapologetically compared that day’s cold, foggy weather that delayed his cattle round up to rape, saying ‘If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”
The second article is much longer, detailing the legal proceedings of an after-party college campus rape case that occurred in the 70s. This article, in particular, stuck out to me as a prime example of how in articles about rape, the suffering of the victim is treated as the least important aspect of the narrative.
This colorful, descriptive article focused not on the story of the assault itself but on how Warren Burnett, a lawyer famed for managing to gain an acquittal for a young man who blew his lover’s head off with a shotgun outside a remote West Texas Pond, took it upon himself to defend Robert Campbell in court for free after he was accused of rape because, quote, "Anyone who entered law school last September [as Campbell had] must be fairly bright. This young man had more at stake than the average citizen. A conviction would pretty well foreclose the possibility of his getting through law school or getting licensed."
The article then went on to describe the witty and glorious victory of Burnett in court, as he manipulated jury members with propping remarks and danced his way through trial to save the future of a 26-year-old man who raped a 20-year-old girl. The article does not mention her pain, suffering, experience, or opinion. It simply and shamelessly champions the fact that men can ruin a woman’s life and still be protected under the law – because, as the article demonstrates, the futures of violent men are seen as more important than the futures of innocent women.
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