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.

A Short Note on Media Coverage and Sexualization of Female Athletes

It’s no secret to anyone that women don’t receive a lot of sports coverage most of the year. With the focus firmly on football, men’s basketball, and baseball there isn’t much room for female athletes in mainstream media coverage. Every two years the Olympics provide a welcome respite from this, but not without a cost. During the summer and winter Olympics our televisions are filled with images of hundreds of athletes from all over the world battling it out in a wide variety of sports and, for once, we get approximately equal coverage of the ladies and the men. The difference in the coverage lies in the types of sports covered, specifically those most covered in prime-time.

When I watch prime-time coverage of men’s sports during the Olympics it varies between almost all sports represented, but when women are allowed coverage it tends to be in sports that offer a much more sexualized view of women’s bodies like gymnastic, figure skating, and beach volleyball. Let me be clear: I love all three of those sports and athletes in all Olympic sports are astoundingly talented, but the unbalanced coverage is hard to miss. In addition to watching these sports where the phrase “the fewer the clothes, the better” seems to hold true, I’d like to see a little bit more of women’s biathlon or women’s archery during the 8 to 10 pm hours.

It’s simple really. All I want is equal representation in Olympic prime-time coverage. I don’t think that that is so difficult and I anticipate it will happen slowly over the next few decades whether we realize it or not because that is the nature of the Olympics. We love to see our athletes, all of them, compete and news outlets will get that message. You won’t lose me, at least, if you show a little less beach volleyball and a little more table tennis.

Hillary Clinton Is Not a Planet: The Dangers of Objectifying America's Most Powerful Woman

Disclaimer: This isn't about television. I just felt the need to address it.

I keep a March 2011 issue of Newsweek on my desk. It’s devoted almost entirely to “150 Women Who Shake the World” and features countless stories about what women around the globe are doing to improve the lives of women and children everywhere. Among those women is Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State. A photo of her, in all the dignity and authority of the office she held, is featured on the cover bearing the title “Hillary’s War: How she’s shattering glass ceilings everywhere.” It’s hardly a remarkable cover, but for me it’s a remarkable magazine issue. I still keep it for two reasons. One is for the inspiration I can find by flipping through the stories of all 150 amazing women, but the more important reason is to remind me that, like former Secretary Clinton and these women, I am the subject of my own story.

In recent weeks, a spate of interesting magazine covers has made headlines. If you have been paying a lot of attention to the news, you probably know that I’m referring to TIME’s portrayal of Hillary Clinton as apantsuit-clad leg crushing a tiny man with a high heel and New York Times Magazine’s depiction of the same woman as a planet. Of course, these representations of one of the world’s most powerful women were offensive on a few levels. Whether you love Clinton or hate her, you have to acknowledge that this trend is disturbing. For me the issue boils down to the fact that in each instance Secretary Clinton was portrayed as an object rather than a person. This is objectification of women at its worst. Objectification of women has long been documented as detrimental to women’s self-perception and confidence. Furthermore, the objectification of women in political roles leads to the perception that they are more incompetent and less human, a phenomenon documented by Nathan Heflick and Jamie Goldenberg in their case study of Sarah Palin in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The case of Hillary Clinton’s most recent magazine cover representations serves to point out that this objectification is not always sexual as it often was in the case of Palin. Objectification is so dangerous because it tells us that women are not subjects, or actors, but objects to be acted upon. By repeatedly portraying Hillary Clinton as an object rather than a subject, the media is making her less threatening and formidable as a candidate and less human.

The real problem with magazine covers like TIME’s and the New York Times Magazine’s is not simply that it is offensive to Hillary Clinton to be portrayed as a planet, but that it is dangerous to all women to see each other portrayed as things instead of people. I hope as the 2016 presidential race closes in on us that we will see fewer magazines like those and more like that of my treasured copy of Newsweek where women are just women, not things. 

Notes: 

The article about the objectification of Sarah Palin can be found using this citation: 

Heflick, Nathan A, and Jamie L. Goldenberg. "Objectifying Sarah Palin: Evidence That Objectification Causes Women to Be Perceived As Less Competent and Less Fully Human." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 45.3 (2009): 598-601. Print.

I Love You, Leslie Knope

Parks and Rec returns tonight and I could not be more elated. I am absolutely thrilled that Parks and Rec returns from a relatively long winter hiatus because I absolutely and completely love Leslie Knope. I know am not the first person to say this and I certainly won’t be the last. That’s because Leslie Knope is awesome.

Leslie is exactly the kind of heroine we need more of on our screens. She is determined, she is funny, she is fearless, and she is flawed. Leslie represents a female protagonist who is neither broken beyond repair nor too perfect to be attainable. She is strong in her convictions and still a little silly. Her unbelievable dedication is matched by a propensity to overreact. It is exactly this balance that makes her real and believable. Even in her eccentricities there is something intrinsically relatable about her. Between that and the general hilarity of the show it is nearly impossible not to tune in each week to see what our favorite Pawneean is up to.

Leslie is one of the best examples of a feminist TV has to offer right now. She is proud of her feminist roots and unafraid to call people out on their sexist behavior. She talks the talk and walks the walk. From starting the Pawnee Goddesses, a scout like organization, when girls were shut out from the Pawnee Rangers to becoming a trash collector for a day to prove that women are just as capable as men, Leslie is a warrior for equality (which she has stated would be her stripper name if she were a stripper). Furthermore, Leslie’s belief in equality does not just crop up once a season like it might in other shows; rather, it represents a major theme of the show. Parks and Rec has not just blessed us with a female protagonist but has gifted us with one who proudly proclaims and lives her feminist beliefs and is not demonized for it.

Leslie is without a doubt my favorite TV character, but she is not the only strong point Parks and Rec has to offer. In addition to Leslie, the show offers us one of the most diverse casts on television in race, ethnicity, and body type and, for the most part, does not make cheap jokes about these aspects of identity. Instead it often uses comedy as a vehicle to call people out on everyday mishandlings of identity. A great example is when Leslie repeatedly asks Tom, her Indian-American coworker, when his answer of South Carolina doesn’t satisfy her curiosity. Tom’s eventual answer of “my mother’s uterus” serves to highlight the absurd behavior of bombarding non-white people with the question “Where are you really from?” The show also demonstrates a strength in its portrayal of female friendships. Instead of focusing mostly on relationships between men and women the emphasis on Parks is usually given to the relationships among the women, particularly the relationships between Ann and Leslie and Ann and April which makes it even more of shame that Rashida Jones, the actress who plays Leslie’s best friend Ann, is leaving this season. Needless to say, a great majority of the episodes of this show pass the Bechdel test.

Overall, Parks and Rec is the best that comedy has to offer. While it tends to be rather ridiculous, it still manages to be meaningful. For as many moments as I have laughed over the course of the show, I have also been pleased to see various societal flaws, particularly regarding women in power, called out. I’m excited to visit Pawnee again starting tonight and if you’re looking for a hilarious half hour with a killer female protagonist, then I hope you’ll join me.

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. 

Does "Arrow" Have a Problem with Female Agency?

Last week on Arrow we saw the reveal of Sara Lance as the famed Black Canary, one of two new female additions to the cast of characters in Starling City along with the wily and suspicious Isabel Rochev. The addition of Black Canary is exciting not only because she’s a heroine of comic book lore, but because it serves to enhance an already strong and nuanced cast of female characters. Unfortunately, it also has me asking an important question: Does Arrow have a problem with female agency?

Here’s why I bring it up: In the build-up to the unmasking of Black Canary it was established that Sara is running from something or someone and that means that she isn’t on equal footing with the Arrow, or Oliver Queen, her male counterpart. Rather, Sara lacks some amount of agency afforded to Oliver. She dons a mask not only out of choice but, to a certain extent, out of necessity. As long as she’s hiding, she can’t have the same amount of freedom or choice as Oliver and that’s disappointing on a show that already struggles with giving its female characters a whole lot of agency.

Of course, you may argue that Arrow has lots of strong, independent female characters. And it does, but those characters don’t have a whole lot of control over their destiny. We can start with the classic example of Moira Queen who spent almost all of Season 1 under the thumb of the devious Malcolm Merlyn and only escaped in the last episode of the season which resulted in her imprisonment and a continued lack of agency for Mrs. Queen, though, this time as a prisoner of her judicial fate.

Now we can move to some seemingly more “in control” ladies. We’ve got a few to talk about. Of course, first and foremost there is the formidable Laurel Lance, a relentless attorney with an eye for seeing the real bad guy. Then, there’s the sassy and too-grown-up-for-her-own-good Thea Queen, Oliver’s little sister who has a remarkable amount of responsibility for her purported age of eighteen. Finishing out the trio is the incomparable Felicity Smoak, Oliver’s apparent Gal Friday and tech extraordinaire. All of these women seem to be pretty in control of their own fate and to a great extent they are. The problem lies in the writing for these women. All three have been subjected to a pretty high amount of damsel in distress syndrome, or DIDS as I like to call it. Now, that’s bound to happen a little in a superhero drama, but you don’t see the male characters being rescued nearly as much as you see the female characters being saved by the dashing Oliver and let’s be real DIDS is a little old. There are a lot more interesting stories to be told than Oliver once again dashing in and saving Laurel or Felicity at the last minute.

Now, I know what you’re going to say: But it’s a drama and everything’s not supposed to be coming up roses for all the characters. And you’re right. It is a drama, but the last time I checked giving female characters more agency over their own fate didn’t mean everything was suddenly  happy go lucky for them.  In fact, many of the most interesting female characters on TV have loads of agency and aren’t all that happy. To name a few, there’s Mellie Grant on Scandal, Christina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, and Regina on Once Upon a Time. I don’t think anyone would say that these women have easy lives or that they lack agency. In fact, the high amount of agency these characters have often serves to make their stories more interesting and dramatic.

Stop. I know what you’re going to say now, too: But it’s a show that’s about a man and it’s hard to give the female characters more agency without taking away from his story. Well, it is a story about a man, but as in the above examples giving the supporting characters more agency doesn’t take away from the main character’s story. Mellie’s story doesn’t detract from Liv’s, Christina’s doesn’t detract from Meredith’s, and Regina’s doesn’t detract from Emma’s so why should we have any reason to believe that giving Oliver’s supporting women more agency would make his story less interesting.

Okay. By now you’re probably wondering who Oliver is going to rescue if we try to cure the ladies of Arrow of DIDS. And the answer is everyone. Oliver can go on rescuing Laurel, Thea, and Felicity, but maybe he should be rescuing  Quentin Lance, Roy Harper, and John Diggle just as much, and to make things really interesting maybe every once in a while Felicity or Laurel or Thea should rescue Oliver. Now, that’s an episode I’d definitely tune in for.

It goes without saying that Arrow already does a better than average job of providing us with a large cast of nuanced female characters, something many shows still struggle with, but that’s doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Giving the female characters more agency only makes them and the show more interesting. I have a lot of faith in this show and I’m excited to see more of Isabel Rochev and Sara Lance. I really believe Arrow can and will do them justice. Now, it’s time for Arrow to do justice for all of its characters. 

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey: A Win for the HFPA and Women Everywhere

Earlier this week the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey have signed on to host the Golden Globes in 2014 and 2015! If you're anything like me you were as excited as Leslie Knope is here:

And, frankly, if you weren't like that I'm not sure what your problem is. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are awesome and amazing and hilarious and amazing and stunning and amazing. They're comedies darling, dynamic duo and for good reason. Amy Poehler is currently starring in the deliciously hilarious sitcom Parks and Rec while Tina Fey recently completed her run as star, writer, and producer of the Emmy-winning series 30 Rock. They've also both had notable success on SNL including their iconic sketch as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, possibly the most well-known sketch of the 2008 or 2012 election.

Earlier this year they continued their success as the co-hosts of the Golden Globes and, after Ricky Gervais's disastrous and alienating run, the Globes needed these bona fide comediennes. They brought viewership up 17% from Gervais's most recent run. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association made a wise choice by asking them back for two years. I doubt that the HFPA will regret this one.

What's more is that this could be the beginning of a great run for women in hosting gigs. This past awards season Fey and Poehler were undoubtedly the fan favorites with Neil Patrick Harris falling short at the Emmys and Seth McFarlane down-right offending everyone at the Oscars without managing to actually be funny. With Fey and Poehler returning to the Golden Globes and Ellen Degeneres returning to the Oscars in 2014, we could see the beginning of the reign of a team of amazing comedic women in hosting gigs, not surprisingly a field with women have been traditionally underrepresented in. Furthermore, no one doubts that Poehler and Fey won't stand for the kind of sexist foolishness that McFarlane's Oscars were rife with. Instead, for two years we can expect the jokes at the Globes to be funny without taking cheap shots at women who show their boobs on the big screen and I have to say I'm excited for it.

If Fey and Poehler's past performances are any indication, Globes viewers have a good run ahead of them. So here's to you, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. We're all excited for what's to come!