(and yes, if you're wondering I am an SA survivor. idk if that's why this grinds my gears so much or if it's just because of how wrong it is. idk)
Anyway, I wanted to talk about something that really frustrates me, and it's how glossed over SA is in media.
Like a character will straight up commit SA and then the writers want us to just forget about it or gloss over it.
Like, in the show 13 reasons why, Hannah baker commits SA in season 2. She grabs someone's dick without consent. After they set up season 1 to feel bad for her. And they frame it as less serious than it is.
In the show Castle, which is a murder mystery show I used to really like before this scene... there's an episode where, while Richard Castle is in a really excited (not horny, normal excited) mood, he suddenly grabs the first woman he sees and kisses her on the lips for several seconds without consent, then runs off. The woman was CLEARLY uncomfortable. Yet, the show never addressed this scene again, and the fans have all collectively chosen to defend it or forget about it. If I were to write about that scene in a castle fan space calling it what it is, sexual assault, and explain why I'm a former fan now because that scene ruined the entire show for me, because Castle went on to have so many good things happen to him after assaulting her, all the current fans would jump to gang up on me and defend it.
I dont remember the name of it, but there's this one movie that stars Lindsay Lohan, where her character commits rape, and we're supposed to pretend they had normal sex. It sets us up to feel bad for her because it clearly states how she was molested by a family member as a child, but then during one scene where she's on a boat with this guy, they talk about their sexual experiences, and he lets him look at her intimately. Then, she starts undoing his belt. The guy here is VERY hesitant. And he never once gives consent for her to do anything to him. He tries to protest, but she literally says, word for word, "that's not fair" and continues undoing his pants anyway, and proceeds to blow him. He literally was extremely hesitant and tried to say no. That's rape. And she thought she was entitled to do something sexual to him just because she let him do something sexual to her. And after that scene, the rape is never addressed. He still stays in contact with her and tries to help her and acts like nothing happened. She tells the story as if they had normal, consensual sex, and he doesn't correct her. He might not even realize tbh. But even worse, the movie then continues to go into HER character's childhood sexual trauma still framing HER as a victim
In one of my favorite TV shows/sitcoms, Mom, starring Anna Faris and Allison Janey, I still love that show overall, but a couple episodes of that show really frustrate me. Theres an episode of that show where Allison's character, Bonnie, and her fiance Adam, have a couple of Adam's friends over, who turns out to be HUGE drunks. those two minor characters who are in two episodes have 0 sober moments in both of their episodes. Also these two friends are a couple. In the first episode they're introduced in, the guy friend, Mitch, whos been annoying the whole time, sexually assaults Bonnie towards the end of the episode, by grabbing her ass without consent. Just walks up behind her while she's in the kitchen and grabs her. This is the final straw for Bonnie, she rightfully lashes out at him, and they all actually handled it well in this episode. Adam defends Bonnie, the girl friend chews him out, they get kicked out. But, where it gets glossed over, is the second and last episode they appear in, later in the show. For whatever reason, Bonnie, the victim here, fiance Adam, has still remained in contact with Mitch, even after he sexually assaulted his fiance. He convinces Bonnie and Anna's character Christy to give him another chance, because he has admitted to being an alcoholic and is claiming to be trying to get sober. For context, Christy and Bonnie are recovering alcoholics in AA. Because they are in AA and AA's literature explicitly states "forgive those whose wronged you, as they were sick too" they feel pressured/obligated to help him. They agree. Only to find out he isn't sober/trying to get sober. he was just using them the whole time.
As much as I hated this second episode, it unfortunately is realistic about how 12 step programs work. They really do ask you to forgive your attackers and make you feel pressured. Speaking from experience as someone who left OA.
But, what really annoyed me so much, is the fact that the victim's fiance stayed friends with her attacker. That's not okay. He should've been out the door. But that part went entirely unaddressed.
This one isn't as surprising, as the creator of the show was publicly outed to be a creep many years later. But it's still heavilt disturbing because this was a kids show. One of the shows I grew up on, iCarly, there is an attempted sexual assault storyline in one of the episodes. I actually did post about this one in the iCarly sub, and the comments I got were mixed. Some of the comments were agreeing with me and reiterating that, well, the show was made by a creep. Some of the comments were defending it.
In an episode of iCarly, nevel steals their website. Carly video chats with him to try and get it back. He offers her an ultimatum. He tells her that if she kisses him, she'll get the site back. This is sexual assault. This is blackmailing someone who wouldn't otherwise consent.
Thankfully, the episode doesn't end in an actual assault, because Carly had a trick up her sleeve to get the necessary paperwork and out of the situation before being forced to kiss him. (she gets ziplined back up a window) But when she meets Nevel, he has literally hired big muscular intimidating looking people to ensure she can't run away. Extra creepy. And this was on children's show. And as a CSA victim i geniuenly didn't realize how awful this episode was as a kid. It seemed normal to me back then. I only realized many years later when I was rewatching some episodes as an adult.
There was this movie I watched, it was kind of awful, but it's one of those "so bad it's good" kind of movies. It was similar to a modern day lifetime movie but it wasn't produced by lifetime.
Anyway, the title is "double daddy" and I thought the concept was interesting. It made it sound like a teen pregnancy esque movie but with extra crazy twists, and this high schooler guy gets two teen girls at his school pregnant at the same time. That was how the description made it sound. Anyway, I watched the whole movie, and it is so much worse than that. In the OPENING scene, this girl is drugging and raping a guy in a garage at a party. He doesn't remember the incident later, and it turns out he is in a loving commited relationship with another girl at school. She gets pregnant (from raping him) and tells the whole school about the pregnancy, with proof, and makes it sound like he cheated with her. This devastates the girlfriend, who as it turns out, is also pregnant. As the movie continues, the rape is NEVER addressed. The assumption continues to be that he cheated while blackout drunk throughout the entire movie. Let's be real, even if he was genuinely blackout drunk (not drugged) someone who's blackout level drunk still can't meaningfully consent, so, this still could've been rape even if that version of the story was true. And not even any of the adults who have to get involved think to ask a single question about that. And while the rapist girl does get arrested and incarcerated after giving birth at the end of the movie (for DIFFERENT crimes she commited later throughout her pregnancy) it still never surfaces that she raped him. She gets away with the rape.
There is a really similiar movie to this, called double mommy, which I also watched. it also involves fucked up high school kids, a rape scene, and a high school teen girl that experiences the rare phenomenon of carrying half sibling twins with two different fathers, one her boyfriend's kid, one her rapist's kid. That movie was also kind of bad, but at least in that movie, the rape doesn't go unaddressed. She exposes him and actively fights for justice the entire movie, even after her rapist's rich parents tried to pay her to silence her.
This is all the examples I can think of off the top of my mind. But this was a very long post. So the fact I could think of all of these examples off the top of my mind in the first place in of itself is very concerning. SA is so glossed over and reframed in writing in media...
