Pam Geller lashes out at critics: You’re saying the ‘pretty girl caused her own rape’

[Tommy_Carcetti]

496. What you'd be talking about is an analogy.

There's a key distinction between metaphors and analogies.

Both metaphors and analogies seek to compare to things that on the surface are not the same.

However, analogies are fueled by how similar those two different things are. So they seek to draw as many comparisons between the two things as possible.

However, metaphors aren't as concerned as drawing as many similarities between the two things as they are talking about a greater, underlying theme or truth between them. So the comparisons are far less literal.

"Kicking the hornet's nest". "Poking a sleeping dog with a stick." "Chumming the waters for sharks." All of these are metaphors. The themes of these metaphors is danger, and the intentional creation of danger where danger might otherwise not exist. The animal reference is something that brings home that theme of danger, but it's not asking the listener to compare whatever creates that danger specifically to animals. Whatever animal reference there is in the metaphor is a MacGuffin. A MacGuffin is a narrative device where something in the narrative is key to the development of the narrative, but itself has no value. It can be interchanged with any other MacGuffin and the underlying narrative remains the same.

So bring that to Geller. What we're saying is that Geller previously spoke about what she viewed as a dangerous situation in the abstract, but instead of keeping that danger in the abstract where there'd be little risk to the surrounding public, she intentionally created a situation where that danger moved from being abstract to very real, and thus placing the public needlessly at risk in doing so.

So real the subject of the metaphor is not Muslims, but Pam Geller and danger. Thus the animal reference is not meant to compare Muslims to animals but rather to focus on whatever danger Geller intended to create.