Cock, cock… Who’s there? is a multimedia, autobiographical documentary-cum-social experiment all about writer-performer Samira Elagoz’s relationship with men after being raped. In absolutely no way is it an easy watch, whether it’s the extreme sexualisation of her as a teenager or the well-intentioned, though deeply problematic, conversations with friends and family on the day of her ‘rape anniversary’. And that’s all in the first 10-15 minutes.
It feels wrong to try and judge a piece that ultimately forces me to look in the mirror back at my own male gaze.
At the centre of the show is Elagoz’s description of how she stopped being able to fully connect with men and started to ‘experience men experiencing me’ instead. The multimedia aspect not only gives us an insight into this dissociative state of existence but also throws the male gaze back at us to startling effect. Every apparently innocuous word and gesture from supposedly ‘nice guys’ are suddenly charged not only with aggression but the very real and threatening possibility of violence. At once they feel remarkably artificial, insultingly performative and loaded with ulterior motives yet also all too real and commonplace. Every man and teenage boy should watch and learn from it.
While this is a vital education for men and seems to have been therapeutic for Elagoz, there’s the uncomfortable question of if Cock cock... simply dredges up trauma for the women in the audience without any any sense of care or support for them. I won’t mansplain if this is empowering or constructive for women but it’s a point that needs raising.
What ultimately can this review bring to the conversation? It feels wrong to try and judge a piece that ultimately forces me to look in the mirror back at my own male gaze. So how am I meant to respond? In horror, I suppose, though on the other hand we all know that this is reality – post #MeToo ignorance isn’t an option, but it’s one thing to know something in the abstract and another to actually experience it.
