Remember GeneralHospital when Luke rapes Laura & it ends in wedding (1981)?

[bobbieinok]

According to wikipedia, the wedding broadcast in 1981 was watched by 30million people. Neighbor's jr high daughter and friends loved the 'romance' and wanted to stay home and watch the wedding. The wedding had a horse-drawn carriage and romantic wedding dress.

On the 25th anniversary of the wedding the show rebroadcast that episode.

Victim falls in love with rapist -- he's so sorry, he couldn't resist her, etc

[Throck]

1. Was that a Harvey Weinstein production?

[JI7]

2. didn't they kind of pretend it didn't happen for years ?

but they finally acknowledged it in later years.

[Raine]

3. Yes I was a fan of

General Hospital at the time, watched the rape, watched when they were on the run, watched the wedding. Seems like for awhile writers tried to pass it off as a seduction. I think later they tried to deal with it being an actual rape but I wasn't watching it at that time.

[MustLoveBeagles]

4. I remember that

Under the disco ball at his club. I remember years later Luke and Laura were having "the talk" with their son. This wasn't mentioned for some reason. I think the show wanted to pretend later that this didn't happen. They ended up being a great couple but MY GOD! Why did it have to start out like THAT?

[milestogo]

5. "She said no but she meant yes"

Or in Kavanaugh terms No means Yes, Yes means Anal.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

6. Like it was yesterday.

[hlthe2b]

7. Honestly! I was always horrified by that and never understood why there was not outrage. n/t

[KCDebbie]

8. Yes, I remember that! I also remember that in almost half of the romance novels

I read, the hero abducted and/or raped the heroine and most stories ended with the two of them getting married...

[treestar]

9. In high school I was reading novels by Catherine Cookson

There was one where a servant girl was raped by the son of the house. She gets pregnant and raises the child while rich brat son goes abroad. 20 years later, he returns. Then they allegedly fall in love. Maybe he could have grown up and changed in 20 years, but even so. She'd have the trauma in reality, still there after 20 years..

There's also a scene in Poldark like that though the writer in the book has the woman protesting only because it is wrong but underneath she really wants to do it. In the TV show, with no narration, it comes off as a rape.

That patriarchal idea it is supposed to be a compliment to women is one of the more egregious forms of gaslighting the patriarchy has tried to impose on us.

General Hospital is a soap opera and Luke was likely meant to be a temporary bad guy character. Then when people liked him, they tried to keep him and had a hard time walking back and redeeming him. There is a soap character Todd Manning who rapes someone and when they had to redeem him, they did a fairly good job, but did not try to have a love story between him and his victim.

[MaryMagdaline]

10. Gone With the Wind has an implied rape of Scarlett by Rhett Butler

I was thinking today, though, of the Philadelphia Story. Lots of misogyny (dad blamed DAUGHTER for his infidelity to wife) but there is that famous scene where Jimmy Stewart explains he did not take advantage of Katherine Hepburn because she was drunk and “there are rules about such things.”

Ummm, what we learn, good and bad, from mass culture.

[Awsi Dooger]

11. I was a USC student

I remember all the sorority girls peddling frantically to and from 28th Street, depending on whether their class was before or after General Hospital

You couldn't avoid Luke and Laura talk anywhere on campus

[mcar]

12. I remember it well

Even in the early 80s, it was uncomfortable, to say the least. And I loved GH back then.

It's a good reminder of the norms of the time then. Romance novels had rape-not rape scenes in them. Ugh.