MovieChat Forums > Outlander (2014) Discussion > This is not a clutching my pearls post. ...

This is not a clutching my pearls post. I am honestly shocked

posted 7 years ago by angelosdaughter (158)
2 replies | jump to latest

Disclaimer: I haven't been to a movie in years, and cable is so repetitive, I don't watch much TV.
Outlander sounded like a good romantic time slip adventure series, and needing some escapism instead of watching the depressing news, I decided to buy the first two seasons DVDs.
I am shocked by what can be put on TV these days, and I am still shaken by the graphic scenes of the torture and degradation of Jamie. I have read the first book, and in it, poor Jamie eventually tells Claire what happened, Good grief! Is all of that graphic detail necessary in the TV series? It's bad enough to see it while it is happening to him. Are the flashbacks really necessary? Couldn't the director have just handled it the way it was done in the book with Jamie telling it to Claire?
The sex scenes seem to go on forever, as well. Are we so jaded we need to see this stuff to feel alive? The series would be romantic with a love scene of a few seconds here and there. The romance is more about the spiritual connection between the leads than the sex, anyway. The love between them outlasts a long separation, and the love and self-sacrifice that the naive (compared to Claire who is 200 years ahead of him) Jamie expresses for Claire is very romantic.
There is plenty of adventure as Jamie and Claire are always in some kind of scrape, and do a lot of traveling.
I do wonder at the actors who play these roles. You would think the guy playing Jamie and maybe even the one playing Jonathan would be traumatized just playing those scenes. Every attractive female is shown at least once with bared breasts on display as she is manhandled.
Well, that's my rant for the day. I have started reading the second Outlander novel and Ms. Gabaldon has toned it down a bit. Maybe the succeeding episodes of the TV series will as well.

[–] Ziggy (1802) 7 years ago

I completely agree with you. I read the book first and just skipped those scenes. I knew what happened in those scenes and did not care to watch them. I love the books overall, but I think the author has a twisted view of sex.

I have read all 8 books, and [spoiler]I don't feel there has been anything like that since. There has been more rape, but nothing at all like BJR and Jamie.[/spoiler]

[–] lasteven (309) 7 years ago

I was given the first few books in the series by a friend and devoted fan back in the late 90s. I tried. I really did. I love time travel stories, loved Scotland and highlanders, and it just didn't click for me. I flipped ahead and blundered into the rape/torture sections, and I decided that it wasn't for me. I don't mean that stories can't cover difficult subjects or that serious things shouldn't be written about, but it seemed that it was all being used as a device to milk emotion. True, I hadn't read the full context, but I was OK with leaving the first book unfinished. I was hoping that the series might approach it a little differently since my spouse has suffered significant sexual abuse, but this is one we won't be able to watch together.