PITCH Took on Sexual Assault in Sports and Didn’t Strike Out
Finally, a TV show that gets the message right from the get-go.
The sports world has a problem with sexual assault. Just in the past few months we’ve heard about Brock Turner, Derrick Rose, football players and coaches at several universities, and I could go on. When media coverage focuses on how the rapist’s future will be negatively affected (rather than the victim’s), it’s clear there’s an issue. Society puts these athletes on a pedestal so tall they feel invincible, and though social media has helped bring dissenting voices into those conversations, victim-blaming is still all too common. Pitch took on the subject in its second episode and the show actually handled it better than we often see done in the real world.
In a storyline mostly told through TV news clips, new Padres pitcher Ginny Baker learns of a sexual assault that took place when a female athlete used an empty boys’ locker room because her own was being renovated. The accused rapist tries to pass the assault off as a “misunderstanding between friends” and his father claims that his son is a victim too — which, unfortunately, could easily have been ripped from a real headline.
While at first Ginny declines to say anything, hoping that by keeping her head down she’ll be able to blend in as one of the guys and just be a ballplayer, once again Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Mike Lawson advises her otherwise (and yeah, it’s concerning that so far it’s always been him that provokes the reaction instead of Ginny coming to the realization on her own, but her initial position is also understandable): “You’re bigger than the game right now, so you might as well use it for good.” And use her words she does: in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel, Ginny goes off-script in the best way:
“A woman’s not responsible for her own sexual assault because she went in the wrong locker room. That’s not only wrong, it’s dangerous. We don’t need to make sure every girl goes in the right room; we need to make sure every boy knows it’s wrong to rape.”
Amen, Ginny. Location, clothing, amount of alcohol drunk — none of that should ever be construed as a reason rape or sexual assault is okay. It is so refreshing to see a sports-themed show firmly go on the offensive against victim-blaming, and so early in its run at that. TV often reflects what’s going on in the wider world, but here’s hoping that in this case, life will soon begin to imitate art.
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