How ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Is (Imperfectly) Teaching A Generation About Consent
By Hanna Brooks Olsen
Last fall, I got a lesson in rape culture at the gym. No, it wasn’t unwanted touching from a fellow jogger and no, I wasn’t catching up on my feminist literature while on the treadmill — it was rapper and actor Ice-T in a public service announcement as a part of a Law & Order: SVU marathon, telling me that sexual assault in the military is a serious problem that should not be tolerated.
Any regular viewer knows that the USA network will find any excuse to run an SVU marathon (the station airs the show so frequently, in fact, that there’s a Twitter account about the phenomenon), but on this particular day, it wasn’t just because it was a long weekend. On October 23, the USA network aired hours of the beloved crime drama as part of an educational campaign about sexual assault, consent, and domestic violence.
Called the “No More Excuses” marathon, the programming was much like any other day-long SVU event with a range of episodes, from old-timey Benson and Stabler to Short-Haired Benson to the Danny Pino days. However, instead of being sponsored by a company, the No More Excuses marathon was brought to us by the No More campaign and about a dozen other advocacy groups aimed at ending sexual assault, partner violence, and abuse. In between episodes…
