Representations of Rape: Scandal, Downton Abbey, and House of Cards

Trigger warning: Rape, sexual assault

This television season has been a notable one for many reasons, but one that has stood out is the high profile sexual assault stories featured on several of the most popular shows. To see such stories on mainstream television can be both comforting and disturbing. While it is good to know that telling survivors’ stories is becoming more of a priority, the way some shows do so can be damaging. It is not easy to portray sexual assault on TV. It comes with many challenges and often goes wrong. Three shows to tackle sexual assault story lines recently stand out for their varying methods: Scandal, Downton Abbey, and House of Cards. Each of these shows portrayed sexual assault in a different way, sometimes the wrong way. I’d like to examine what each show did right and what each show could have done better in the hope that media will improve even more in its representations of rape in media.

Let’s start with Scandal. The show made headlines in November with the episode “Everything’s Coming Up Mellie,” centering around the oft maligned first lady, Mellie Grant. The episode, largely one of flashbacks, was clearly meant to humanize the fiercely strong FLOTUS. Unfortunately, the way it did that was with a rape perpetrated 15 years ago by her father-in-law. To many loyal viewers it felt like a cheap plot device meant to explain some of Mellie’s current day personality traits and behaviors and it begs the question “Why do we need to humanize strong female characters like Mellie?”  That said, Scandal did handle some elements of the story well. Many of these elements were highly accurate representations of what sexual assault is really like. For example, the crime was never reported or prosecuted which is very often the case in real life cases. In addition, the perpetrator was not a stranger hiding in the bushes. It was someone Mellie knew, someone she was close to. Most survivors are not raped by strangers but by friends, family members, or acquaintances. Repeating this crucial information is so important to changing the way rape is perceived and stopping rape culture.

One thing Scandal did do right that our next show didn’t was make Mellie’s rape Mellie’s story. Downton Abbey failed to do this. When Anna was raped by a visiting valet on the show, the story quickly became about her husband, Mr. Bates, instead of about Anna, the survivor. Instead of seeking support from him, Anna was forced to try to hide her experience for fear that he would seek revenge from the perpetrator. Anna is forced to deal with what her husband might do instead of dealing with what happened to her and that makes it even harder for her to cope with a situation that is already incredibly difficult to deal with. Even when Anna was forced to sit at the dinner table with her attacker, a troubling scene to watch, the focus was not on Anna but on her husband and her rapist. Anna’s story was not her own and that is upsetting.  If rape is to be portrayed on television, it must be portrayed as the survivor’s story.  Again, Downton Abbey did manage to get a few things right. Just like Mellie’s case, Anna’s case goes unreported and unprosecuted and again the perpetrator is an acquaintance, not a stranger. But even those correct points do not excuse the way the show handled Anna’s story.

The final show to be discussed, House of Cards, arguably handled sexual assault the best of the three shows discussed in this piece. The Netflix hit did not show the sexual assault on screen as the other two shows did, but it did make the storyline just as powerful, if not more powerful. This story is one of Claire Underwood, the second lady of the United States, coming forth about the sexual assault that happened to her years ago at the hands of her then-boyfriend, a future high-ranking military officer. Claire is first required to tell her husband what happened to her when he must award a star to the perpetrator as vice president. After her husband, Frank, reacts with a violent outburst, smashing a lamp, Claire reclaims the storyline when she confronts him about his behavior later at night and bravely recounts what happened and her own anger at the situation, an anger she was forced to deal with lest it consume her, but where Frank smashes an object with that anger, Claire directs it at making a difference years after the assault. After is Claire is forced to come forward with her story on national news, an experience most of us could never imagine, she spearheads an effort to reform the military justice system with the help of the first lady and another survivor of sexual assault at the hands of the same rapist. Her efforts mirror the current struggle to pass similar reforms, the Military Justice Improvement Act, in the Senate, making Claire’s story very timely and relevant. While Claire’s effort ultimately falls short and Claire is forced to trade her goal of true reform for a lesser alternative because of her husband’s career, the story is elegantly told and the audience is able to see how it affects Claire and how she deals with it. She is the model of strength and resilience and she is allowed to claim her own story in a way that Mellie and Anna were not.

Again in Claire’s story, as in Mellie’s and Anna’s, the attacker is not a stranger and the attack goes unprosecuted. But in addition to these well-done elements, the three women’s stories shared one other important distinction and that is that they were never blamed. The only character on any of the shows who even begins to blame a survivor is Anna’s attacker and another characters shuts him down so quickly and efficiently it is an admirable statement on victim-blaming. While it may seem like a given, the lack of victim-blaming in these shows is crucial. If we are ever to get past rape culture and appropriately tell and honor the stories of rape survivors on television, victim-blaming simple cannot happen and when a character does do it it must be met with the revulsion and fire it was met with on Downton Abbey. Only once we get past a culture of victim-blaming, will we be able to truly end rape culture. Thankfully, all three of the discussed shows help us to do that.

This is the first time I've addressed representations of sexual assault on television on my blog and I wanted to do it in a way that was sensitive to survivors. If, for some reason, this post fails to achieve that level of sensitivity, let me know and I will try to be more sensitive in any future writing.

Is "Scandal" Getting Us Ready to Elect a Female President?

For a lot of the first half of Scandal’s third season I was pretty sure that the show was getting us ready to elect the first female president in 2016. After all, Josie Marcus, played by Lisa Kudrow, was a star on the rise who was not frightened to call out the media on their sexist standards. Then there was the unforgettable moment where President Grant called out the media on another double standard regarding everyone’s favorite jilted first lady, a character who may or may not have some similarities to a potential candidate in 2016. And, of course, it was refreshing to see that Sally Langston’s name was in the running for president, too, meaning that the show did more than give us a token Democratic female candidate.  All of these strong female characters and the focus on the media’s treatment of women in positions of power reminded me what I like about Scandal despite its infractions regarding violence against women, which are in no way excusable, and tired portrayal of Olivia Pope as a woman with very little personal agency.

Let’s start with Josie Marcus. Like many shooting stars, she burned bright and she burned fast. Played by Lisa Kudrow, Josie Marcus was a dark horse Democratic primary candidate, a congresswoman from Montana with down home charm and quite a bit of spunk. In most ways she was a rather unremarkable character on a show filled with such strong personalities, but she still managed to stand out for all the right reasons for a few good weeks. Her determination to remain true to herself and her family in the face of political pressures provided a breath of fresh air when compared with the stories of Sally Langston and Mellie Grant who have both bowed to such pressures throughout the series. However, this was not her crowning glory. That came from two minutes of the most honest television I have seen this year. In a clip that has circulated widely on social media, Rep. Marcus calls out a reporter on sexist standards in the news media and leaves all of us punching our fists in the air on our couches in a moment of feminist glory. (You can watch it here.) Marcus’s observation that reporters are constantly reminding us that female candidates are, in fact, female and by doing so “advance stereotypes that women are weaker than men” calls to mind so many stories about Hillary Clinton’s hairstyle or Sarah Palin’s time as a stay-at-home mom during the 2008 election. Marcus hit the nail on head with that one and, as speculation about 2016 mounts, it came at a great time to call upon Americans to be a little more astute and a little less tolerant of the media’s oft sexist coverage of female candidates as both the 2014 and 2016 elections edge closer.

Despite her strong run, Marcus’s candidacy and time on Scandal was cut disappointingly short by a sort-of scandal involving Marcus’s daughter/campaign manager and a stolen computer. With the exit of Josie Marcus, the focus shifted to the embattled first lady, Mellie Grant, a woman who had been repeatedly cheated on by her husband, the president, and portrayed by the media as a cold and shrewd woman. Mellie has always presented a great example of a dramatic character who has tons of personal agency and an interesting story at the same time. Her agency does not ensure her happiness; it just ensures that she gets to make her own decisions. This is a marked contrast to Olivia Pope who has lost more and more personal agency over the last two and half seasons while remaining professionally savvy, an emerging trope I detail in the post “The Olivia Pope Problem.” Mellie has one of the most interesting stories on the show and is, perhaps, Scandal’s most divisive character. Presented alternately as brokenhearted and conniving, her story is rather unpredictable and she could leave the president at any time and it wouldn’t be a surprise. Despite the prospect of her own political career, Mellie has stuck with Fitz even while being assaulted from all sides. Her sacrifices have been many and remarkable.  In the flashback heavy episode “Everything’s Coming Up Mellie” viewers got to learn more about just what those sacrifices have been. Mellie has become more and more of a nuanced character this season and she continues to one of the show’s strongest female leads, if not its strongest. However, Mellie gets a bad rep both from the fictional American public in the show and from fans of the Olivia/POTUS pairing. It was just this reputation that a stand out moment addressed this season. This time it was the president’s turn to call out the media on their behavior, specifically the way they had vilified Mellie for his wrongs. The way Mellie was depicted a cold and distant as a result of her husband’s actions rather than her own drew to mind the story of another first lady whose name has popped up quite a few times in the conversation about 2016 (I’m sure you know who I’m talking about). When President Grant called out the media for their treatment of Mellie it seemed like nothing short of a direct reference to, and perhaps endorsement of, the aforementioned first lady. Here again Scandal made a deliberate move to expose the double standards of the media regarding powerful women and I have to believe that if any former first lady did decide to run in 2016 she might face a public that’s a little more aware of sexism in the media.

After Mellie’s story had advanced some, Scandal again moved back to focusing on her shrewdness instead of her sacrifice. In the midst of Mellie’s return to a supporting role, another woman of the hour took the stage. This time it was the vice president, the ultra-conservative Sally Langston, who was bent on taking down President Grant as an independent. While Sally Langston would be nothing short of a feminist nightmare if she were real, it was refreshing to see a show consider more than just one female candidate and only Democrats. The focus on Langston’s husband also highlighted another media practice that forces female candidates to defend their husbands and their husbands’ pasts much more than male candidates must do for their wives. Langston’s candidacy added to an array of strong female characters and displayed Scandal’s ability to write women who are nuanced and interesting.

I’m left a little confused as we close out the first half of the season. Part of me wants to hate this show, especially Quinn’s perilous arc and the highly imaginative portrayal of the intelligence community, but the other part of me loves that the show has such interesting female characters and so many fist-pumping feminist moments. This is show is doing better than any form of media I have seen recently on calling out the news media on the treatment of women. I can only hope that come 2016 people will remember Josie Marcus’s tirade and the genuine problems with the treatment of female candidates the show has highlighted this season.  I want to believe that Scandal was trying to do something good for female candidates, but that does not excuse its many infractions in other areas. All I can wish for is that the show improves in its handling of violence against women and the agency it gives Olivia when it comes back in February while continuing to strongly reprimand the media on double standards regarding women in powerful positions. 

The Olivia Pope Problem

As I sat watching the fast-paced and popular premiere of “Scandal,” a problem once again forced its way into my consciousness and it came in the form of Olivia Pope. Don’t get me wrong. I love Olivia. She’s a certified badass by anyone’s standards. The problem is that that bad-assery stops at the office door. As soon as Olivia leaves the professional realm, it seems her life falls apart. Her personal life is in shambles, to say nothing of a growing lack of agency on Olivia’s part. The most troubling aspect of this is that the “Olivia Pope problem” is more and more an archetype of modern television.

It seems that Olivia isn’t the only woman on our screens who is super-competent professionally but whose personal life is an absolute mess. A growing stereotype on our screens is that of the uber-professional woman who can’t seem to get the rest of her life in line. From Oliva Pope to Liz Lemon to Mindy Lahiri to Alicia Florrick, we continue to see the stories of women who are rather personally challenged. It’s a stark contrast to the long gone days of women like Mary Tyler Moore, who could be professionally competent and personally competent without lacking interesting stories to tell. Instead of stories like that glorious woman, Hollywood is increasingly feeding us stories of women like Olivia Pope and the message is clear: You can’t have it all. You can’t be professionally savvy and have a well-balanced life. It’s not allowed.

Clearly, that message is problematic. Women continue to be told that they can’t have it all. And why? Women who successfully balance work and life can still have interesting stories. I’m just as interested in Meredith Grey as I am in her more relationship challenged counterpart, Christina Yang. Just because Meredith has managed to be professionally and personally successful doesn’t mean she lacks interesting stories to share.

As a culture, we must stop acting like all women face an ultimatum: work or relationships. In fact, we can achieve balance, even if it’s difficult, and our lives and stories become no less interesting when we do manage that delicate balance. So stop with the “Olivia Pope problem,” Hollywood. Stop telling women that they can’t have it all. Stop telling women that they must be emotionally fractured to be interesting or successful. Stop. Just stop.

Dear Show, Do Better: Week 2

Dear "Scandal,"

I'm getting real tired of the lack of agency Olivia Pope has. Once again, in the season premiere, her life was controlled by men and not be her own choices. While having Olivia choose to walk away from her father's plans was a step, it's not enough as long as the strings of her whole life are being pulled by the president. Their relationship is unhealthy and, frankly, President Grant is a bit of a jerk, in my opinion.

Sincerely,
Mellie and Olivia Should Team Up and Take Over the World