I officially give zero fucks about Scandal
How, and why, to break up with a TV show
Trying not to watch rape portrayed on television is like drawing a line in the sand while standing in the ocean. You might have an inkling that a show’s going to go all rape-y just by reading the premise (see Sons of Anarchy; anything by Ryan Murphy, especially any season of American Horror Story). Mostly, though, sexual assault and rape storylines sneak up on you, not unlike the mythical rapist in the bushes.
I had to stop watching A&E’s television version of Psycho after episode one, despite my love of Vera Farmiga; wasn’t it enough that Mrs. Bates and her son were already wackadoodle without a kitchen rape? Clearly not. I had to break up with that show quite early on, not because I’m a sexual assault survior, but because I want to stand in solidarity with humankind against rape culture.
I long ago stopped believing that sexual assualt was a female problem and, increasingly, see it as a male problem. It’s a crime that men overwhelmingly commit—-and don’t even bother to whip out your tired, whiny, delusional, “But men are raped too.” Yes, yes, men are raped, too, predominately by other men. Aside from the 2% of men who report being raped by women, and Melissa Leo punching Louis C.K. in the face and raping him on his own show (WTF was that episode about?!), I make an effort not to give my attention, movie dollars, or demographic eyeballs to media that contributes to rape culture by portraying it.
Cue comments about “rape being a part of life.” I call bullshit on that, as well.
So when Shonda Rhimes sucker punches her exceptionally strong female characters, and her predominately female audiences with rape, it’s especially disruptive to feminist TV viewing. This was the case on Private Practice. And, this season, rape is revealed as a plot point on Scandal. The season three episode, “Everything’s Coming Up Mellie,” marked the moment I broke up with Scandal.
New York Magazine’s Emily Nussbaum called Rhimes and Private Practice onto the carpet for the exploitative, brutal rape of a central character, Charlotte. Of the constant parade of female rape victims on TV, Nussbaum observes, “the notion of the ‘tough woman who tries to power through her trauma’ is by now as fetishized as any notion of fragility.”
This was certainly the case when Jerry Grant (Barry Bostwick), the future President’s father, raped his daughter-in-law, Mellie. Flashing back to the rape and putting Mellie in dated floral prints does little to set the incident in Mellie’s past. And the implication that her sexual assault is part of what made Mellie the formidable force she is today is no consolation prize for putting yet another rape, by a drunken perpetrator, into America’s rape culture repository.
Why, Shonda? Is the rape of Mellie (Bellamy Young) a ploy to get us onside with her and her diabolical hair? ‘Cause if so, it wasn’t necessary. Mellie had me as a fan when she used handsani after holding her own baby in a photo shoot. Her. own. BABY.
Since when did “The Rape Episode” become our contemporary version of “A Very Episode” in which we learn a “valuable lesson?” Because Shonda, for reals, there’s absolutely no lesson being conveyed when you pander to the normalization of sexual assualt on television and film.
Having these strong women brutalized and momentarily put in their place only to then rise from their own ashes bigger and bitchier than ever is no fucking prize. And this use of rape as a plot device merely joins the endless, mindnumbing cycle of sexual assaults on Law & Order SVU marathons—-Mariska Hargitay’s pro bono sexual assault PR fundraising is outweighed by participating in putting so much sexual assault on television in the first place.
It was fun Scandal, but I’ve suspended my social consciousness for a long as possible. I’ve weathered side-eye from friends who couldn’t fathom how a black feminist could ignore the problematic racialized sexual politics I was almost out the door when Olivia delivered her one-liner about being Sally Hemming to Fitz’s Thomas Jefferson during an argument; but like, Liv, dammit, I was mollified for another few weeks by the President’s floppy hair. I even got some other folks on board to watch the show, vouching for its soapy goodness. What can I say? I was blinded by Olivia Pope’s fashion and by the notion of powerful black woman in Washington, D.C.
But, of course, the problem witih having one’s consciousness raised is that it doesn’t stay raised without attending to the scaffolding holding it up. And if you give a show like Scandal a little leeway—-meh, what’s a little torture when Huck’s so loyal—-it’ll take more of your political integrity than you anticipated. And when it comes to perpetuating rape culture, you really can’t look the other way, even for a moment, because we continue to be in an epidemic of denial and victim-blaming. Too, with its convoluted B-613 (what is that? a vitamin?) plotting, I just don’t care about the story anymore.
Is Revenge still on? If they’ve not gone all in for rape culture, maybe I’ll go back to watching Emily Thorne (or Amanda Clarke or whatever she’s calling herself these days) kick some ass with made up martial arts. At least, if Revenge’s writers decide to introduce rape into the show, we know there’d be consequences for someone other than the victim
