Another book from my personal shelf...Some books stay with you long after you've finished reading them. Bastard Out of Carolina (1992) is one of t
Another book from my personal shelf…
Some books stay with you long after you’ve finished reading them. Bastard Out of Carolina (1992) is one of those books. But I want to recommend it with care because this is a difficult, sometimes heartbreaking story.
Dorothy Allison takes us into the childhood of Ruth Anne “Bone” Boatwright, a young girl growing up in poverty in South Carolina. Bone experiences physical and sexual abuse within a family where love, loyalty, silence, and survival become painfully entangled.
What makes this book especially important to our conversations about sexual violence is how clearly it illustrates the impossible circumstances children can find themselves in. Children may try to please dangerous adults, avoid upsetting them, or keep the peace because they depend on the very people who should be protecting them.
What looks like obedience may be fear. What looks like acceptance may be survival.
And sometimes a child is trying desperately to hold on to love while being harmed by someone who should never have been allowed to hurt her.
And Then There’s the Film
In 1996, the novel was adapted into a film directed by Anjelica Huston. And I have to give Anjelica Huston her flowers. Always loved her acting but she took even more bold and artistic steps with this project.
The film was originally intended for TNT, but the network declined to air it because of its disturbing depictions of child sexual abuse. Huston resisted demands to cut the scenes, and the film eventually aired on Showtime.
I have a great deal of respect for her willingness to stand behind such difficult material. Not because I believe audiences need graphic depictions of abuse to understand it, but because she was willing to confront a reality that society often prefers to keep out of sight.
And that history raises a question I find fascinating. Something we keep repeating.
Why is some violence considered “too disturbing to depict”, while other violence is repeatedly presented to audiences in the name of realism?
We have endless films and documentaries about war. We watch people being shot, tortured, murdered, and brutalized. We have entire entertainment industries built around violent crime. Rape itself has been depicted in countless films, sometimes with an insistence that showing more of the violation makes the story “more authentic.”
Now, I understand the concerns. Some depictions can be exploitative, and protecting child performers and audiences is a serious responsibility. I am not arguing that we need more graphic scenes of sexual violence. Never that. We don’t need anymore violence against children being shown anywhere.
But I do wonder whether we are always consistent about what we consider too disturbing.
Are we protecting people from unnecessary depictions of suffering, or are we sometimes protecting ourselves from having to confront suffering that makes us uncomfortable? Those are not the same thing.
There is a difference between showing violence to entertain an audience and telling a story that asks us to recognize what violence does to a human being. And even then, filmmakers have a responsibility to consider how much needs to be shown.
What I appreciate about Bastard Out of Carolina is that the story refuses to make Bone’s suffering a simple matter of a bad person doing something terrible. It asks us to look at the adults around her, the family loyalties, the silence, and the terrible consequences when a child’s safety becomes negotiable.
That is always a conversation worth having. Online social media wasn’t a big thing back in 1996 but we’re still censuring some violence—usually violence that impacts women, children, and minoritized people—while letting other violence rule algorithms.
A Word of Caution
Both the book and film contain deeply upsetting depictions of child sexual abuse, physical violence, emotional abuse, and family betrayal. Please consider your own well-being before reading or watching. There is no obligation to finish a story that becomes overwhelming.
I recommend them because they challenge us to think about how children respond to danger, how families respond to abuse, and how easily adults can misunderstand a child’s attempts to survive.
And I would leave readers with this thought:
We have become very practiced at watching violence. I wonder whether we have become equally willing to confront the conditions that allow it to happen.
Because the purpose of telling these stories should never be simply to make suffering more visible.
It should be to make the people experiencing it harder to ignore.
Why Manipulators Pretend to Share Your Values (Even When They Don’t) – WE Survive Abuse
“Not This Person” Is Old Reputation Management — And We’ve Fought This Before – WE Survive Abuse
You Shrink So Others Don’t Feel Threatened – WE Survive Abuse
Why “Not a [Insert Person]” Is Dangerous for Survivors – WE Survive Abuse