Morality Question that Probably Belongs in Popular Media

[Chiltepin]

My husband and I have been watching 24 on Netflix. We are so late in the game, I know.

In season one, Jack does a lot of things in order to save his family. While it seemed pretty obvious that it would be wrong to kill an innocent person to save your family, there might be situations where you are forced to kill or injure someone directly involved in harming your family. That part seemed clear. I have heard the ends do not justify the means and understand that concept.

My question is about the morality of something the mother does while she and the daughter are kidnapped. One of the captors was trying to rape the daughter and the mother stopped him by saying take her instead, she would not fight it. Enduring this terrible event seems like a true act of love for her daughter, but it is also adultery. Is this choice heroic and morally acceptable? Is this act adultery plain and simple? What is your opinion on this.

Hopefully and luckily this will not happen to most or any of us. It is a silly TV show after all. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the morality of it. Another thought, she was lucky she was somewhat good looking. I understand rape is not about sexuality for the aggressor all the time it can be about power. I’m just thinking by the time I have a teenage daughter, if I offered they would be like ummm no thanks.

 

[TheOne33]

Most likely not because she did not do it for sexual pleasure or gratification. She did it because she loved her daughter unconditionally.

 

[edwest2]

My husband and I have been watching 24 on Netflix. We are so late in the game, I know.

In season one, Jack does a lot of things in order to save his family. While it seemed pretty obvious that it would be wrong to kill an innocent person to save your family, there might be situations where you are forced to kill or injure someone directly involved in harming your family. That part seemed clear. I have heard the ends do not justify the means and understand that concept.

My question is about the morality of something the mother does while she and the daughter are kidnapped. One of the captors was trying to rape the daughter and the mother stopped him by saying take her instead, she would not fight it. Enduring this terrible event seems like a true act of love for her daughter, but it is also adultery. Is this choice heroic and morally acceptable? Is this act adultery plain and simple? What is your opinion on this.

Hopefully and luckily this will not happen to most or any of us. It is a silly TV show after all. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the morality of it. Another thought, she was lucky she was somewhat good looking. I understand rape is not about sexuality for the aggressor all the time it can be about power. I’m just thinking by the time I have a teenage daughter, if I offered they would be like ummm no thanks.

Each episode of a TV show is carefully planned. As someone who works in the media, I have watched it gradually change over the last 40 years. There is absolutely no justification for that. The writers created that deplorable and totally inappropriate fiction to make us think it’s somehow OK. It’s not. Television is meant to entertain and not to damage the morals and sensibilities of viewers.

I watched 24 for a while and was watching for true heroes, not inappropriate portrayals. There’s nothing silly about TV shows that portray sin as an option or in a neutral way.

Peace,
Ed

 

[1ke]

What on God’s green earth would make you even consider this scenario to be adultery?

 

[mini_me640]

What on God’s green earth would make you even consider this scenario to be adultery?

My thoughts exactly. Rape involves the sexual organs, but it is not an act of sex, it is an act of violence. This scenario would not involve adultery in any way.

 

[Catholic4Christ]

I recall this scene. And yep, I’m gonna have to agree with the last couple posters. The fact that she assented to ‘sex’ (I use that term loosely) with this captor does NOT make it consensual sex in this situation. The captor was very much aware that Jack’s wife did not want this, as is the audience. Definitely NOT what I’d define as adultery, especially not in a situation where she is saving her teenage daughter from the same fate.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

It’s an unlikely situation created for a melodrama, and probably a bad decision tactically (what is to stop the bad guy from pretending to agree and then raping them both?) She would also be within her rights, and acting under the recognized right of self defense or defense of an innocent to defend her daughter by pretending to acquiesce and then tearing out his jugular vein with her teeth when she was close enough.

But morally, I think her actions would be judged in the same way as the saint who offered himself in the place of an innocent who was to be executed in a Nazi concentration camp. Although he offered himself up to certain death, you couldn’t say his sacrifice was “suicide” and therefore a sin, anymore than you would be able to say our Lord’s ultimate sacrifice for us was “suicide.”