Affect, sibling bonds and childhood sexual abuse in Shame and The War Zone. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Waddell, Terrie; Waddell, Sally
• Is Part Of: Continuum. Volume 35:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 30
• Page End: 42
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Shame -- affect -- childhood sexual trauma -- siblings; Motion pictures -- Australia -- Periodicals; Broadcasting -- Australia -- Periodicals; Mass media -- Periodicals; 306.05
• DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2020.1837075
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1030-4312

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper considers how subtextual suggestions of childhood abuse overshadow the centrally presented narratives of sex addiction in Steve McQueen's Shame and adolescent daughter-father incest in Tom Roth's The War Zone . Drawing on these films as companion pieces, we discuss how the unseen, unspoken, and physical conveyance of emotion – understood as affect triggered by life experience – is able to capture the trauma of familial child abuse, the disavowal of these histories, and the inescapable and exclusive relationship of co-traumatized siblings.